[This speech was given as part of the ECE rally on 12/5/2019 in response to the events reported in a Wisconsin State Journal article.]
I am the president of the Physics Grad Student Council. Since the Wisconsin State Journal article broke in October, I have had several fellow students approach me, concerned for our department. Now, they aren’t in hostile research groups themselves. Honestly, I feel very lucky to be in a department where faculty has, on the whole, been very receptive to graduate student feedback. There are students on department committees, we have a new faculty mentoring program, and the department has been helping grad student efforts to write a climate survey like the ones done in Chemistry. So what reason do these students have to be concerned?
For many grad students, John Brady’s story rings familiar. The students who approached me in Physics had heard stories, just as I have, that are eerily similar to things that happened in Dr. Sayeed’s lab. John Brady’s experience speaks to fears that we’ve probably all thought about. What if something happened with my advisor? Would I speak up and risk having to re-start my research? Would I take the chance at being labeled a troublemaker and struggling to find other faculty who would take me on? Would I quit the program without my intended degree? Or would I just keep going, and hope that I could grit my teeth and bear it? I can understand why multiple students might choose to stay silent.
I don’t think that there are any labs like Dr. Sayeed’s in the physics department. I don’t think that…but how would I KNOW if there were? The university claims that the circumstances surrounding John Brady’s tragic death were an extreme and isolated incident. Extreme? Certainly. But isolated? The hostile environment in Dr. Sayeed’s lab was allowed to continue for at least four years, and how much longer might it have continued were it not for this great tragedy? An investigation wasn’t even launched until John’s parents brought up concerns, despite some faculty having experienced the problem firsthand. How can the university possibly know that this is an isolated incident? How can they be sure that there are not other labs like Dr. Sayeed’s across this campus right now?
It shouldn’t take a student’s death to realize something is wrong. This is not a suicide-prevention initiative. It is an abuse- & exploitation-prevention initiative. But University changes since John Brady’s death have not treated it that way. The University response overwhelmingly involved expansion of mental health services. We applaud these initiatives. Those services are great and needed, but they do nothing to prevent an abusive lab, and may not even be able to identify one. Mental health issues can be a symptom of an unhealthy work environment, and while treating a symptom is good, it does not cure the disease. The University needs to take steps to be able to identify and prevent hostile work environments for grad students,… and it can start by showing us that its written standards for faculty conduct mean something, and that serious violations will be met with more than a slap on the wrist. The investigation into Dr. Sayeed’s conduct determined that his actions did not warrant dismissal. But I’ve read that report. This language may be disturbing, but allow me to quote just a few things. Dr. Sayeed called his students
“Monkey”
Said they were “like babies and do not use the brain to think”
“Little no integrity moron”
He said “I am a bully, yes, and you are the liars”
He told an international student he “didn’t want to waste his funding for [them] and wanted [them] to go back to [their] home country.”
He even compared graduate students to “slaves.”
These statements are just one aspect of the horrible lab environment Dr. Sayeed cultivated. Even in his response to the investigation’s findings, Dr. Sayeed apologized but continued to deny charges that he had “abused his authority.” If these statements, if his actions, as reported by many people, are not enough to warrant dismissal, then what is? I shudder to think. Dr. Sayeed’s impending return to campus does not make me feel like I am at a school which prioritizes my safety over its own reputation.
We need university-level changes.
We need to look at the gaps that failed John Brady, and find things that, perhaps, could have helped identify the problems with Dr. Sayeed in time.
Graduate students have no shortage of reasons not to report hostile and abusive advisors, and so we need to make it easier for students to do so without fear. The university needs to give clearer guidelines for what kind of work environment grad students, especially RAs, should expect so that they can be confident and know if they are in a situation worth reporting. Current grievance policies tell students to start out speaking to someone in their department, but there is no way to escape an advisor’s sphere of influence within a department. Students need more ways to submit concerns truly anonymously, and outside of their departments. Regular climate surveys and annual advisor assessments give students the added protection/anonymity of strength in numbers. The issue of what to do for a student who has completed most of a degree but has to leave a bad advisor situation is, admittedly, a tricky one, I get that. But it is one worth addressing. As long as a 5th or 6th year student is afraid of going back to year 2 or 3 of their degree, things will go unreported. At the very least, and it is the least, students should be able to easily get a clear understanding of the potential consequences of submitting a formal grievance.
But the onus should not be entirely on the students. There are things that the university and departments can do to identify potential problems. Perhaps the simplest is just tracking attrition rates from research groups. This is data many departments probably have already as they know when a student has changed funding. People should be looking at that information. Having some kind of control set up could flag when a group is experiencing unusual attrition, warranting some investigation. Along with that, there could be simple, confidential exit surveys or interviews when someone switches groups or leaves the department entirely. Most of these responses will be completely benign, but periodic review may indicate concerning trends for certain research groups. We need to be looking for trends, because treating this as an isolated incident is an attitude that will fail other students like it failed John Brady if it continues.
Improving graduate student protections is not a student vs school issue. At least, it doesn’t have to be. The University says that this incident “does not represent the daily work conditions of the nearly 5,000 graduate students employed as [TAs, RAs and PAs], many of whom develop positive lifelong relationships with their mentors.” I believe that that is mostly true. Most grad students are doing okay. Most faculty want the same thing we want – for us to be happy and healthy and successful. And protected. We call on faculty to be active allies in working together toward that common goal. Because when it comes to student safety, most of us is not enough.