Dr. Steve Tippins, with 35 years in academia and 300+ dissertations advised, walks through seven steps for grad students whose advisor has gone silent. Start with a flattering email, document everything, escalate to the department chair if needed, and find out whether your advisor prefers texts or hallway conversations over email. If that fails, hire a dissertation coach who knows committee work.
What I want to talk about today are 7 tips that can help you if you're dealing with an advisor who is absent or seemingly ghosting you. My name is Dr. Steve Tippins Ph.D. I've been in academia for 35 years, served on over 300 dissertations, and helped hundreds of people finish their dissertations. So when it comes to a committee member or chair, more importantly, who isn't responding there's a number of things you can do to try to improve communications with your chair. The first step is to reach out to your chair, usually via email, and ask for help. Ask for guidance. Send an email, "Hello, Dr. X. I would really like to meet with you because I need help with my lit review or where to go with my chapter 1," or whatever it is. And I know that your help will be instrumental in helping me move forward. That brings you back into mind, but also by saying, I know that your help will be instrumental, that says, I know that you're really important and you're really intelligent and really good, and you're the person who can help me move forward. So we're playing a little bit to ego here, but it can be helpful. The second thing, and this helps, you know, when you get in touch with them, or you can do it via email too, but it's best once you've gotten them is to, you know, ask them how they got through, because people like to tell their own stories, and that can help them become more involved with you. Now, the third thing I would do is make sure that you keep records. Save all the emails, all the correspondence back and forth, so that you have a track record. You have something to show someone If it turns out that your relationship is not solvable, can't be brought back to functional, you have a story to tell to the school. And that gets us to the fourth point, is contacting an advisor. A lot of schools have advisors that you deal with, but there's also schools where you talk to the department chair. And if you seemingly have exhausted options, that's when you reach out to an advisor. And going back to the previous point, by keeping track of all of the interactions, um, if you're at a school that has dates, and by that I mean faculty have to respond within a certain number of days, etc., and you can show that there's a track record of, wow, I submitted something, they're supposed to respond in 14 days, and it's been 28 days 4 times, something like that. That gives you a lot more ammunition in dealing with them. And hopefully what they're going to do is go back to your chair and contact them and say, "Look, we're concerned. This isn't happening. It has to improve," etc. So now they've got pressure from two directions, and that can be helpful. Now, if it's once that they've exceeded the 14 days, they're probably just going to say, "Okay, we'll make sure it's better." And okay, it shouldn't exceed the 14 days, but if it's— you've got a track record and you can show that there's a track record, then you've got a much stronger case. When you do have meetings, this is the fifth point, when you do have meetings with your chair, I would get everything in writing. I would send ahead of time an agenda so that the chair knows what you want to accomplish, and then After the meeting is done, I would send an email, again, becoming part of your documentation, saying, and here's what I understand we agreed upon, and any dates that are there. So building up your case in case it is needed. It also gives the chair another chance to say, respond and say yes. So if you say, please let me know "if my understanding matches yours" or something. So that opens it up where they have to respond. And they can say yes or no, but again, the communication is open. The sixth point, and this might take a little bit of work, but it's learning their communication style. There are some people who are just bad at email. If you're in an on-campus setting, you see your chair walking through the halls and they're willing to talk to you, you may strategically stand in a spot they walk by. There are some people who have give you their phone number and love texts, send them a text if the email's not working. So, you know, try to suss out what communication medium they're most comfortable with or want to be involved with you with, and then use that medium. And 7, if it's not working, if you aren't getting the support you're looking for, you can always look for outside help. Typically, that is a coach. If you're looking for a coach, make sure it's a coach who's had experience with dissertations and serving on dissertation committees. Having done a dissertation is great, but you don't understand the other side of the equation. So you want a coach who's worked on a number of dissertation committees who can help you navigate this type of situation. If you are looking for help, just click the link below and we'll get you into our free dissertation help community.
