First Meeting With Your Chair? Ask These Questions First!

Making a strong first impression with your chair. A lot of this is going to depend upon how you got your chair. If your chair was assigned to you versus you're going out searching for a chair. So let's start with the searching for a chair. Typically this entails contacting someone who you think has an interest in an area similar to yours. Now, in the European model, typically you're contacting these people before you enter school to see if they will take you on, and you want to let them know that you understand what their work is that they've done, you're well-versed in it, and talk about the work you want to do, because in the European model you talk more about your research at the beginning than you do in the US model. In the US model, typically you're going to the school, you're not interviewing with someone to be your chair before you get in, but once you get in and you start taking classes and learn the lay of the land, that's when you do a similar approach and start contacting people to see if they'd be willing to act as your chair, and this gives you a chance to check out things ahead of time. How are they accepted within the department? Will other people— do other people like them? Are they tenured, and how do they finish other people? Meaning, do people that work with them finish? There are some great people out there who have not-so-good track records on getting people finished with their dissertations. So, you know, you came there not to be someone's, you know, research assistant forever. You came there to get a degree. So you want someone whose goals are going to be lined up with yours. But it's always being professional and respectful and and showing how your work fits within their work and how the relationship can be beneficial because you are going to be completing your research on time and you're going to be publishing, et cetera, et cetera. Just remember to line up with what their needs and desires are, and hopefully that will be helpful. Now, on the other side, if you've been assigned a chair or a school that says, okay, Pick one of these 14 people, give us your top 3. You can interview them typically with an email. Okay? Here's one thing you don't want to do. You don't want to have an email with someone and say, will you be my chair? And they say yes, and you've asked 2 other people and they choose another one, or you choose another one, and you don't go back to the people you've asked to be chair and tell them that you're going to be working with someone else. What they have done then is they've blocked off a spot in their capacity to work with you, and that's still blocked off, and you're denying them other opportunities. And they may be people who end up on your committee as well. So you want to keep them happy and you want to keep professional at this. You don't just ask somebody to do something, say, "Yeah, will you do this for me?" And then not ever follow up with them. So make sure you follow up with them. But with anybody, again, be respectful, be professional, show them you understand who they are, and then you can start off in a strong position with them. And if you're just assigned a chair, then the ideal thing to do is ask for a get-to-know-each-other meeting. Understand what your chair's expectations are, how they like to receive work. By that, I mean, do they want your entire proposal before they review it? Do they want it chapter by chapter? Do they want it section by section? And how do they want you to work with other members of your committee? Get these things defined, the boundaries set up early, and then you avoid problems down the line where your chair gets upset or something because of something you've done because we never talked about what it was. Ask any questions you have upfront. Ask how you can move forward as quickly as possible. Ask what they expect from people. Ask questions like, hey, I'm working on chapter 1, you know, or the university says this needs to be this in this length. Is that what you think too? Because many times you're going to find faculty members who have slightly different expectations than the university. So you want to figure out as much as possible upfront, and in all cases be respectful and take notes, because if there ever are issues You don't wanna just be relying on memory. You wanna have it written down and you can even confirm it. Well, okay, so we're gonna work like this and send an email with that out so that everybody knows and can agree on the steps moving forward. So let's talk about being respectful. You are getting a degree and there's a lot of people out there who say things like, oh, when I get my degree, everybody's gonna call me doctor because I worked hard at this. Well, the person you're working with is there already. So you want to always default to the, yes, Dr. So-and-so, unless they tell you otherwise. You're always saying, you have done this, you've earned this position. I'm gonna treat you with the respect that I believe you deserve. So don't cross the, okay, Mark, I think this is a great idea line until Mark says to you, it's not Dr. Jones, just call me Mark. Always default to more formality. And I see that as an issue sometimes with people who quickly, and in our society, it's easy to do. Go to the informal, but you're dealing with people who've put a lot of hard work in to get to a spot, and many— and sometimes it's cultural— but many want to be acknowledged and recognized for that work. So that's a great way to think about respect. In addition to, you know, using titles and things like that, faculty members have office hours. Faculty members have times when they're saying, "I'm available." Now, texts happen all kinds of times. Emails happen all kinds of times, but respect their time. Ask them when it would be a good time to meet to discuss this via email, via text. But you know, don't expect them to be a 3 o'clock in the morning kind of person. They may, they may tell you that, but again, always think of whether am I bothering somebody? Now, one of the things I hear a lot of people talk about, "Oh, I can't ask my chair that. I don't want to look dumb." You're going to feel your chair out to see where your chair sits on ask me anything or always look smart, but you can start by asking them basic questions and then see how they handle it. But again, they've got office hours, use them. If you can't make their office hours, then write them and say, "I can't make these office hours. Is there another time where we can have 15 minutes?" 15 minutes. And what that does is, I have looked at your office hours. I understand when they are. However, my job or whatever will not allow me to come during those office hours during the next 2 weeks. Is there a time when you have 15 minutes available where we can talk? I also like the notion of reminding them how great they are. You've got a great track record publishing this type of thing. Everybody who tells me that I'm smart, I always think they're intelligent. Because they realize that I'm smart. And I'm just saying that facetiously, but it is. If you, I've found, if you ask somebody for help and you say, look, I know you're really busy, but you also know this better than anyone else. Is there a chance you could help me for a minute? Well, you've already acknowledged that they're better than anyone else. Most people are going to say, well, yeah, I'll find time for you. You're really, you've realized who I am. Definitely, I'll find time for you. So when you're approaching someone, whether they've been assigned to you or you're trying to find someone to work with, you want to know what research they've done. And then you can talk about what your research goals are and how they fit in with what they've done, showing them for them it's not going to be a big leap to work with you. It's not like you're saying you're doing a, a doctorate in mental health therapy and you've been assigned to somebody who's an organizational behavior. They may know nothing about mental health therapy. So for them to provide technical support for you is going to be difficult. But if you're saying, yes, I'm working in mental health therapy and I know your work in mental health therapy has worked on trauma, and I'm going to be looking at trauma from this perspective and hope that we can dovetail things together, showing that you understand who they are and understand what type of support you might need. Well, it's when you're reaching out for a chair that this is important. Committee members might want to know as well, although typically committee members are either assigned and/or chosen for strategic reasons. For example, hey, this person's really strong in methodology and you're going to be using a methodology that they're well-versed in. Okay, that member's on the committee for this. Or this is a content person. They really know your stuff very well, so you can be talking to them about that. Sometimes they choose an outside person, meaning not in your school, or at least not in your department, who may have very little knowledge about what you're doing, but they're there for credibility purposes and making sure that all the, you know, T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. The questions I think you would want to ask, basic ones: how long does it take people once they start their dissertation to finish, in your experience? Which is a not-so-subtle way of saying, how long does it take people to work with you? How do you like to work with people? When do you want to see material to review? How often should we be getting together to discuss this? Is it weekly? Is it monthly? You know, what are your preferences? Do you like to see a document that is perfect, and by perfect, also style-wise perfect, or do you want to see a draft before we go any further? These types of questions get to, you know, the nuts and bolts of the working relationship? And when someone submits to you, what is your typical turnaround time? Those types of questions. If you're meeting in person or even via Zoom, dress as professionally as you can for the moment. Yes, if you're somewhere else on campus and you're running through, but plan your day out so that you're not running through their office with a tank top and you've just, you know, ran 15 miles and you're sweaty and things like that. This is part of the first impression. And I believe in something that I call the halo effect. And what that means is you make a strong first impression, and then as you move on, they remember you as being good. So even if you aren't quite as good at it as a specific time or moment, they're still remembering you based on that first impression. And think about being in a class with a whole bunch of people, and the professor starts asking questions. And the people who are smart at this answer as many questions as possible at the beginning when they're asking questions. Because typically when professors start asking questions to the class, they start with the easier ones. What do you think of this? Or what did they say about this? And what did they say about this? So you're going hard at those easy questions. So when it comes to the really hard questions, okay, so what should they do? You can raise your hand again. Oh, I've seen you enough today. And they're gonna go to other people because they know you've been involved. So, you know, be nice, be friendly, be professional upfront, and that will stay with you as you move along because there are gonna be times when you're not as on top of things as other times or when life happens. Well, if you've been professional and courteous and doing all the right things, then you might get a break. But if you haven't, you're probably not going to get the break later on. So I've heard some people call it you're making deposits into the bank so that you can withdraw some of those when needed later. If you're looking for support with your dissertation, click the link below to join our free dissertation help community.