The Professor As Dissertation Director

Mittie Nimmocks
University of Wisconsin, Platteville

I believe that a competent dissertation director exhibits five qualities. He or she must have the patience to deal with the new, eager, naive and idealistic scholar, who puppy-like learns stumblingly through trial and error. He or she must be knowledgeable about research and the student’s specific area of study. The dissertation director should be scholarly in the sense that the director has an enthusiasm and genuine love of learning and provides a model of life-long learning. He or she must also possess a practicality that brings the uncertain novice safely through the maze of academic policies and politics. The dissertation director must understand that a doctoral program represents an investment of time, money, and ego that should not exceed a reasonable limit without results. Finally, the dissertation director should be meticulous in guarding the student against insufficient preparation. Dr. Williams exhibited each of these qualities though I was not completely aware nor appropriately appreciative of them at the time of my doctoral foray.

I believe it is far more challenging to teach someone to complete a difficult task than to simply complete that task oneself. Dr. Williams was an extremely patient director, explaining procedures to me, giving me advice, spending much time encouraging me and correcting errors that, coming from a doctoral student, must have seemed incomprehensible to him.

Dr. Williams was not only knowledgeable about dissertation policies and politics, but as a continuing researcher was abreast of current trends in my chosen methodology of rhetorical criticism. More specifically, he was quite knowledgeable about the U.S.A. Civil Rights Movement (Williams, 1961; 1990;1991) and about southern rhetoric generally (Williams,1984; 1989). He told me about participating in the 1963 March on Washington and hearing first-hand Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. He told me of researching the rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan, attending rallies near Gainesville in order to experience in person their rhetorical style. I imagined him sitting on the hood of his car writing in a notebook by the light of burning crosses. It delighted me to think of Dr. Williams, in the midst of such rabid emotionality, serenely making observations and taking notes. His stories inspired me to prefer primary to secondary research. They convinced me that scholarship could be an adventure.

Dr. Williams is truly the life-long learner. Following his retirement he has remained academically active, publishing monographs (Williams, 1995a; 1995b) and filling a Visiting Professorship at The Linguistic University in Russia.

I remember quite vividly two bits of wisdom he dropped in informal conversation but which resonated with me so that I remembered them. Once on the steps to Dauer Hall, in an interchange regarding the learning patterns of undergraduates, he remarked that we teach students about "the trees of the forest," dividing our curriculum into discrete units. However, it’s when students suddenly begin to "see the forest," when they begin to integrate those discrete units, when they understand how the units form a whole -- this is when true learning begins. I have always remembered this theory and have repeated it to numerous classes and to individual students. It is a pleasure to observe the moments when such connections occur. It is as though the comic-strip light-bulb-over-the-head is visible and I can actually "hear" the pieces of the student’s puzzle slide into place with an almost audible "click."

The other thought, he professed to a group of us who had gathered in his home to share our research-in-progress in a constructively critical but informal and friendly forum. We were enjoying Mrs. Williams’ gracious hospitality, relishing dishes of her tangy persimmon pudding when Dr. Williams commented that a true scholar is the one who seeks knowledge for sheer pleasure, seeks it not as a means to an end but because the seeking is the end itself. At the university where I am presently employed, and which I suspect is not unique, I see many more nonscholars among students and even colleagues and administrators. Nonscholars see education only as a means to the ends of diploma and job. However, occasionally I see the face of that true scholar in my class, the student whose face is turned up in wonder, whose mind is like a dry sponge thirsting for anything and everything I can give. I believe I am more aware of these young scholars and better able to recognize and nurture them because of Dr. Williams’ influence on my own scholarly activity.

In light of the foregoing paragraph, it seems somewhat contradictory to insist that a good dissertation director be practical as well as scholarly. While the scholar sees research as an end in itself, the practical director must also see research as a means to an end. He or she knows that the student lives in a real world with deadlines, financial responsibilities and real expectations. At some point the dissertation research must conclude and the writing must take place. At some point the reviewing, revising, editing must end and the final document be defended and published. And this should be completed in a reasonable and timely fashion.

I had completed two years of doctoral coursework when Dr. Williams encouraged me to take dissertation research credits and to begin my research. So in the fall of my third year I took two courses and a half-load of dissertation research credits. I spent hours each day in my library carrel scouring documents on King, Gandhi, nonviolence, Christianity, Hinduism, Moslem philosophy, British, Indian, and U.S.A. history, rhetorical theory and sociology. At the end of that semester I felt that all I knew was that there was so much more I didn’t know. I had a note in my mailbox from Dr. Williams requesting a conference. He asked how my research was progressing. I told him I still had much more research to do. Very firmly he told me that I could continue to do a bit of research to fill in gaps as I needed but that now I must begin writing. I spluttered in protest. I had nothing to say! I didn’t know enough to begin! What if what I wrote were sophomoric? He was patient but firm. I probably knew more at this point than most people; I would never know everything about the topic; it would all be "torn to shreds" and rewritten anyway. But it could never be revised, rewritten, completed if it were never begun. "Just write," he said. So I wrote.

Dr. Williams was a meticulous editor. With very short turn-around times he would carefully go over every draft, writing voluminous responses in his blue fountain-pen handwriting about how to make what I had written better. More frequently than not these responses included the phrase "Expand on this," "Provide further evidence for this point," "Clarify this," and again, "Expand on this." One of the great departmental myths that circled among my fellow graduate students was that Dr. Williams had written the longest dissertation in the history of Northwestern University. After so much "expanding" I became concerned that I was to author the longest dissertation in the history of the University of Florida. I joked to others that if my dissertation were not a worthy work of scholarship, it would at least be a weighty one. I predicted that it would surely make a worthy doorstop. However, the final product of all this expanding was a student who knew her topic, understood her claims and had plentiful evidence to back them. For those reasons I found my dissertation defense not a trial but a very pleasant collegial experience. I was the expert on my topic and knew more about it than any of my committee of inquisitors. We spent a congenial hour where questions for clarification were asked, few minor adjustments suggested, in which relaxed informality reigned and which ended in champagne toasts to my success.

Incidentally, I never discovered whether Dr. Williams’ dissertation was the longest in Northwestern history however, I did find that it was an impressive 1,479 pages and bound in 3 volumes. (Williams, 1958). Since my dissertation was a mere 324 pages, I cannot complain.

I completed my Ph.D. in eight semesters and right on schedule. I had a bit of anecdotal evidence to suggest to me that this timetable was not the norm. I have several friends, many of whom I suspect are brighter than I am, who have completed all doctoral coursework and have all but their dissertations (ABD) and have remained at this point for decades. They have given up hope of finishing or, for some, even starting their dissertations. I uncovered further evidence to support my suspicion that I had been blessed in my doctoral program. A quick review of titles on the subject indicates that finishing a Ph.D. is a traumatic and unobtainable goal for many and a phenomenon worthy of study: A nonexhaustive list of thesis titles includes:

and my personal favorite,

All of these works provide evidence for, or work from the assumption that, the dissertation director is a salient variable influencing whether or not the dissertation writing is a pleasant and productive experience and whether it is completed at all.

In addition, several books have been written to provide guidance for the doctoral candidate (Allen, 1974; Long et al., 1985; Sternberg, 1981; Sugden, 1973). (This fact alone suggests that some directors do not provide adequate guidance to students, for isn’t this their task? I would argue that if directors were adequately fulfilling their roles no market for such books would exist.) The authors of many of these books identify the choice of an effective dissertation director as the first step toward completing one’s doctorate. I was struck by how closely the descriptions of these dissertation directors coincided with my description of Dr. Williams.

Dr. Williams easily met all of these criteria -- especially that last one -- he never kept my work for longer than a week.

Again, this is a description fitting Dr. Williams.

A more cynical writer advises the doctoral student that the "dream adviser" is loyal, true, brave, courteous, kind, interested in your topic, competent, helpful. He then writes that this director only exists in student fantasy and that in the real world of academia a student should be content to find a director who meets the following four minimal criteria:

Obviously, this writer didn’t know Professor Williams.

I started my doctoral program in 1982. In 1981, David Sternberg wrote,

Sternberg approximated that 51,000 new ABDs annually entered the limbo between completing coursework and graduating. He estimated that little more than 50% would finish their dissertations. In communication related studies that likelihood was reduced to approximately 28% of ABDs who would complete their dissertations and receive their doctorates. Admittedly, Sternberg is a cynical fellow and his statistics on noncompletion of the Ph.D. were the highest I found. Still, numerous authors cite the ABD phenomenon as a very real problem.

Why does such a problem exist? The most commonly cited reason was faculty unreliability (Sternberg, 1981). Faculty are not interested in student research for quite practical reasons. Directing a dissertation rates low as a career promoting activity. For promotion, tenure, or better job offers, professors must publish for themselves NOT help to complete the work of others. In addition, dissertation direction is a thankless job, most time-consuming and frequently frustrating. Many dissertation writers are fuzzy-minded regarding their topics, their research methodologies, fuzzy-minded about simply how to get started or about their reasons for being in a doctoral program at all. It is understandable that many professors would place low priority on dissertation directorship. Consequently, a competent dissertation director must be one who is either so secure in his or her present position that no need is felt to "publish or perish" and/or a competent director is one who is selfless enough to care about the doctoral student’s progress in the midst of the director’s personal professional pressures. Although by the time I was under Dr. Williams’ tutelage he had deservingly secured a respected position as full professor and senior faculty, I simply cannot imagine a younger, less secure Dr. Williams ever being uninterested in his students. For him, University Professorship is a student-learning-centered art.

So how should I conclude? I think that the obvious conclusion is that I was one of the lucky ones. Dr. Williams met my five criteria for a doctoral director and more. He met criteria I considered secondary, but were listed by authors on the subject as critical. He was interested in my subject of research, was accessible on a day-to-day basis, read and returned my work promptly and was someone with whom I shared respect, trust, and cooperation. He even met Sternberg’s criteria for the ideal director; that one who theoretically exists only in student fantasy.

Beyond that he met a criterion so basic that I simply took it for granted but one which I now realize to be the exception rather than the rule: that of being a director whose students graduate. While I seethe role of dissertation director as one much more inspired than simply that of making certain the student graduates, it is notable that I finished my doctoral program in four years with Ph.D. in hand. I have been working as a university professor ever since. What further evidence of Professor Donald E. Williams’ competence as a dissertation director is needed? For all those ABDs out there, I would guess that the diploma displayed on my office wall is evidence abounding.

Thank you, Dr. Williams.

Sources

Allen, G.R. (1974). The Graduate Students’ Guide to Theses and Dissertations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Franek, S.A. (1982). ABD to Ph.D.: Counseling Interventions to Facilitate Dissertation Completion. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 1982). Dissertation Abstracts International, 43(06), 1977-B.

Hobish, T.T. (1978). A Study of Selected Psychological Factors Related to Completion or Non-Completion of the Doctoral Dissertation Among Male and Female Doctoral Candidates. (Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, 1978). Dissertation Abstracts International, 39(04), 1934-B.

Lees, K. A. (1996). Understanding How Female Doctoral Students’ Interaction with their Chairpersons during the Dissertation Process Affect Doctoral Persistence. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Colorado, 1996). Dissertation Abstracts International, 58(02), 0397-A..

Lenz, K.S. (1994). A Multiple Case Study Examining Factors Affecting the Completion of the Doctoral Dissertation in Academically Able Women. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Denver,1994). Dissertation Abstracts International, 55 (12), 3714-A.

Long, T.L., J.J. Convey, A.R. Chwalek (1985). Completing Dissertations in the Behavioral Sciences and Education: A Systematic Guide for Graduate Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Mah, D.M. (1986). The Process of Doctoral Candidate Attrition: A Study of the All But Dissertation (ABD) Phenomenon. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Washington, 1986). Dissertation Abstracts International, 47 (12), 4302-A.

Stein, P.D. (1987) Effects of Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectations on Depression, Persistence, and Progress Toward Completion of Dissertation Proposals. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1987). Dissertation Abstracts International, 48 (09), 2814-B.

Sternberg, D. (1981). How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Sugden, V.M. (1973). The Graduate Thesis: The Complete Guide to Planning and Preparation. New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation.

Whitted, J. (1987). Ph.D. Candidates’ Stresses and Strains Related to the Dissertation Process. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1987).Dissertation Abstracts International, 48 (06), 1402-A.

Williams, D.E. (1958). A Study in Rhetorical Criticism of Charles G. Dawes, the Speaker. (Doctoral Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1958). Dissertation Abstracts International, 19 (10), 2691.

Williams, D.E. (1984). "Actuating the Moral Imperative: Britain’s Rhetorical Agonizing re: Recognition of the Confederate States of America," Speech Communication Association National Conference, Chicago, Illinois, November, 1984.

Williams, D.E. (1989). "Black Preachers in Rural Florida: Sensing and Fulfilling Historically Attributed Rhetorical Role," American Culture Association in the South, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, October 1989).

Williams, D.E. (1990). "The Ku Klux Klan Indicted, 1872; Historic Loss of the Presumption," paper presented at the Speech Communication Association National Conference, Chicago, Illinois, November, 1990.

Williams, D.E. (1991). "The Klansman: Making Visible the Invisible Empire," paper presented at the Speech Communication Association Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, November 1991.

Williams, D.E. (1995a). Probing Judicial Warrant for Sanctifying Human Slavery in the Beleaguered American Confederacy: The Rhetorical Critic Confronts the Moral Imperative," in Jaako Lehtonen, ed., Critical Perspectives on Communication Research and Pedagogy (Rohrig Universiatsverlag: St. Ingbert, Germany, 1995), 115-146.

Williams, D.E. (1995b). Probing Cultural Implications of War-Related Victimization in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia," in Fred L. Casmir, ed., Communication in Eastern Europe: The Role of History, Culture, and Media in Contemporary Conflicts. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, New Jersey, 1995), 277-311.