Grad Student Dismissed

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Then it should be presented as exploratory, which this wasn't (apparently). Like I said, this is the textbook case of HARKing: if you are doing post hoc analyses after your originally planned analysis is nonsignificant without describing them as exploratory.
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Like I said repeatedly, they should have definitely included that the linear analysis was non-significant. But I'm not even seeing this as a real deviation from the original hypothesis--that bisexual participants would differ from homosexual and heterosexual participants. The question is just how you operationally define "mostly gay" and "mostly straight" participants. Maybe a forced-choice option would have been better for this study, given these questions, honestly, because there's not clear precedent either way.

Also sounds like there is a need for a better validated measure of sexual orientation. Or a general better idea of the construct of sexual orientation (not on my area of knowledge). If these are not well understood in the field then I wouldn't be working on the OMTH or the double jeopardy hypothesis.
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Yes and no. We've been using scaled models of sexual orientation since Kinsey--they aren't new. But they are difficult to translate socially--is someone who's "mostly gay" going to be read the same as someone who's "completely gay" socially? Would a "mostly straight" person categorize themselves as gay, straight,, bi, or other if given a standard forced-choice option? Do asexual homoromantic folks count as "gay"? Can you identify as lesbian if you are dating someone who's AFAB non-binary or AMAB non-binary? We don't really know much about any of that, so we mostly avoid the issue by asking about sexuality in simple forced-choice categories and most people honestly just pick a forced-choice category that fits them best even if it's not a perfect fit.[/quote]
 
PsyDr said:
@psych.meout

This may be an important thing for students to learn:

Educational laws largely prevent faculty from giving their side.

This is very similar to doctor reviews being hard to fight due to confidentiality laws.
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Yeah, this is my point. Many people on Twitter and other areas are breathlessly believing everything that she claims without much skepticism or critical thought, while the entire other side is legally prohibited from commenting.

I'm not saying that she isn't correct or that the university did nothing wrong, just that we very obviously aren't getting the full story, just like in online provider reviews.

We have a very tangible, recent example of this with that Idaho State University clinical psych student who was dismissed. He and his wife were claiming that he was being racially discriminated against by the program through being inconsistent and capricious actions. The university was largely unable to comment on it, but the final judgment from the appeals court makes it fairly clear what actually happened, which was quite contrary to what the student and his wife were claiming for years.
 
psych.meout said:
If it was some version of the latter, can you really blame the other faculty for not wanting to take her on as an advisee?
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I get them maybe not wanting to take her on as an advisee, but IMO it's a department's obligation to provide mentorship to its doctoral students. There are a lot of things I don't *want* to do that I end up doing anyway because it's my job. I'm not a fan of departments withholding mentorship from admitted students and then dismissing students for failing to obtain mentorship. The reasoning is a little circular, and above all else, it seems like a convenient way to circumvent a more formal remediation process.

Even from a gatekeeping perspective, if the student was truly incapable of completing a doctoral program, then I imagine that the same outcome would have likely manifested itself regardless of advisor. There are plenty of people from my program who have been disliked by various faculty (and vice-versa), but those personal feelings shouldn't impact who does and does not earn a doctoral degree. This seems even more true within a non-clinical program, where you can't couch things as readily within the context of somewhat vague constructs, like "interpersonal competence."

The mixing of personal feelings in the professional mentorship of a trainee and her ultimate dismissal is related to my perception of capriciousness -- I do agree @psych.meout that we're working with only one side of the story, so who can really know what the truth is.
 
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acclivity said:
I get them maybe not wanting to take her on as an advisee, but IMO it's their obligation to provide mentorship to a student that they have admitted. There are a lot of things I don't want to do that I end up doing anyway because it's my job. I'm not a fan of departments withholding mentorship from admitted students and then dismissing students for failing to obtain mentorship. It seems like a convenient way to circumvent a more formal remediation process.

Even from a gatekeeping perspective, if the student was truly incapable of completing a doctoral program, then I imagine that that outcome would likely manifested itself regardless of advisor. There are plenty of people from my program who have been disliked by various faculty (and vice-versa) and those personal relationships shouldn't impact who does and does not earn a doctoral degree. The mixing of personal feelings in professional mentorship in this dynamic (which I agree, we only have one side of the story) is related to my perception of the possible capriciousness of it all.
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In the mentorship model, there is no obligation to take a student whose interests are not related at all to your work. Additionally, no one has an obligation to enter into a relationship that will inevitably entangle them in legal proceedings. If anything, I'd say that they are honoring the obligation that they have to their existing students by not getting caught up any more meaningfully in this mess of a situation.
 
acclivity said:
I get them maybe not wanting to take her on as an advisee, but IMO it's a department's obligation to provide mentorship to its doctoral students. There are a lot of things I don't *want* to do that I end up doing anyway because it's my job. I'm not a fan of departments withholding mentorship from admitted students and then dismissing students for failing to obtain mentorship. The reasoning is a little circular, and above all else, it seems like a convenient way to circumvent a more formal remediation process.

Even from a gatekeeping perspective, if the student was truly incapable of completing a doctoral program, then I imagine that that outcome would likely manifested itself regardless of advisor. There are plenty of people from my program who have been disliked by various faculty (and vice-versa), but those personal feelings shouldn't impact who does and does not earn a doctoral degree. This seems even more true within a non-clinical program, where you can't couch things as readily within the context of somewhat vague constructs, like "interpersonal competence."

The mixing of personal feelings in the professional mentorship of a trainee and her ultimate dismissal is related to my perception of capriciousness -- I do agree @psych.meout that we're working with only one side of the story, so who can really know what the truth is.
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I agree with this. Yes, with a mentorship model we take students to work with us specifically, but it's the *program* that admits students. When a faculty member leaves, others step in and mentor students whose research match isn't perfect, because that's the responsibility of the program. I don't actually like these practices of it being the *student's* job to find a new advisor if the relationship doesn't work. I've been involved with these situations from both sides--I've had a grad student come into my lab after essentially being asked to leave the prior lab, and I've had a grad student leave my lab. Sometimes the personality matches don't work, or communication styles are a mismatch, or whatever; these things happen (and are not fun for the students, I imagine, and I definitely found these situations difficult as a faculty member too). But in these situations the department chair and/or the DCT should facilitate the student finding a new mentor, it shouldn't be the students job. But when it IS and no one will take the student, that makes me question some of the things that aren't being said.

I've seen a bit of this on Twitter too and this student is getting a lot of support there. I am.....skeptical. Because we aren't hearing the full story, and we probably won't. The faculty are, no doubt, trying to figure this out. Is is possible there was no formal remediation? Sure; lots of programs actually don't have good remediation policies. That's especially true outside of clinical (accreditation gives us more oversight than other programs) but in clinical as well. It also sounds like this generally falls under the area of professionalism--both the advisor's behavior AND the students. Professionalism stuff is the hardest to assess and hardest to remediate--the Kaslow group published a couple of papers about this last year I think. Yep: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508422.2017.1419133 and https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508422.2018.1438897 Those are about professionalism in clinical psych, but some of the same concepts apply.
 
psych.meout said:
Yeah, this is my point. Many people on Twitter and other areas are breathlessly believing everything that she claims without much skepticism or critical thought, while the entire other side is legally prohibited from commenting.

I'm not saying that she isn't correct or that the university did nothing wrong, just that we very obviously aren't getting the full story, just like in online provider reviews.

We have a very tangible, recent example of this with that Idaho State University clinical psych student who was dismissed. He and his wife were claiming that he was being racially discriminated against by the program through being inconsistent and capricious actions. The university was largely unable to comment on it, but the final judgment from the appeals court makes it fairly clear what actually happened, which was quite contrary to what the student and his wife were claiming for years.
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Yes just like lawsuits where are you see is the plaintiff side
 

Tweet, April 14, 2019:

"As we prepare for a new week, I’m looking for everyone’s best tips about how to walk into a room where nobody likes you. (I still have to attend classes, and my classmates have made it very clear that I will not be welcome or safe if I choose to attend)."
Abby Nissenbaum ️‍ (@abbynissenbaum)

I'm very curious about this bit of relational information, if it is both truthful and accurate. If faculty AND students alike dislike this person, or at the very least, are ALL hesitant to interact with this student, I start to wonder why.
Again, just so many unknowns!
 
foreverbull said:
Tweet, April 14, 2019:

"As we prepare for a new week, I’m looking for everyone’s best tips about how to walk into a room where nobody likes you. (I still have to attend classes, and my classmates have made it very clear that I will not be welcome or safe if I choose to attend)."
Abby Nissenbaum ️‍ (@abbynissenbaum)

I'm very curious about this bit of relational information, if it is both truthful and accurate. If faculty AND students alike dislike this person, or at the very least, are ALL hesitant to interact with this student, I start to wonder why.
Again, just so many unknowns!
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foreverbull said:
Tweet, April 14, 2019:

"As we prepare for a new week, I’m looking for everyone’s best tips about how to walk into a room where nobody likes you. (I still have to attend classes, and my classmates have made it very clear that I will not be welcome or safe if I choose to attend)."
Abby Nissenbaum ️‍ (@abbynissenbaum)

I'm very curious about this bit of relational information, if it is both truthful and accurate. If faculty AND students alike dislike this person, or at the very least, are ALL hesitant to interact with this student, I start to wonder why.
Again, just so many unknowns!
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'Safe?' Like, *physically* safe? Does she expect them to kneecap her?
 
foreverbull said:
Tweet, April 14, 2019:

"As we prepare for a new week, I’m looking for everyone’s best tips about how to walk into a room where nobody likes you. (I still have to attend classes, and my classmates have made it very clear that I will not be welcome or safe if I choose to attend)."
Abby Nissenbaum ️‍ (@abbynissenbaum)

I'm very curious about this bit of relational information, if it is both truthful and accurate. If faculty AND students alike dislike this person, or at the very least, are ALL hesitant to interact with this student, I start to wonder why.
Again, just so many unknowns!
Click to expand...
Although this could technically be true, this sounds way over-dramatic. This student remains me of a colleague in grad school who stopped speaking to a professor because she (the student) was fourth author rather than third on a systematic lit review.
 
foreverbull said:
Tweet, April 14, 2019:

"As we prepare for a new week, I’m looking for everyone’s best tips about how to walk into a room where nobody likes you. (I still have to attend classes, and my classmates have made it very clear that I will not be welcome or safe if I choose to attend)."
Abby Nissenbaum ️‍ (@abbynissenbaum)

I'm very curious about this bit of relational information, if it is both truthful and accurate. If faculty AND students alike dislike this person, or at the very least, are ALL hesitant to interact with this student, I start to wonder why.
Again, just so many unknowns!
Click to expand...
Interesting. I wonder where this tweet falls chronologically with other events, especially her supposedly calling out her advisor in front of other faculty for research misconduct.
 
futureapppsy2 said:
Although this could technically be true, this sounds way over-dramatic. This student remains me of a colleague in grad school who stopped speaking to a professor because she (the student) was fourth author rather than third on a systematic lit review.
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psych.meout said:
Interesting. I wonder where this tweet falls chronologically with other events, especially her supposedly calling out her advisor in front of other faculty for research misconduct.
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The more contentious tweets showing emails are from the past few months, but are referencing events that happened in 2018 and this past spring/summer, I think. She specifically references in a tweet from September a “weekly social psychology brown bag” meeting sharing her concerns about p-hacking in Fall 2018. Do both faculty and students attend those?

So the “calling out” or “concern-sharing” (whatever we choose to call it) happened long before the April tweet about classmates disliking her. In scanning the tweets, the language is strong at times, saying that the “misogynistic bully” of an advisor was trying to “destroy [her] life,” referring to the dismissal and the perception of getting blacklisted at other graduate institutions. These just aren’t things I’d say publicly, so it’s sort of unfathomable to me.

However, if the program didn’t follow appropriate protocol as she alleges, then that is unfair and inappropriate.

I just wonder if the tension/conflict started long before the p-hacking issue and this broke the camel’s back, so to speak, and was an easy excuse to dismiss the student.

EDIT: I meant the lack of advisor being the easy reason to dismiss the student.
 
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While I don't doubt there are some truly awful departments out there, if someone is genuinely concerned about their safety around both other faculty and the other grad students...my inclination is to believe said individual has done some truly heinous things and may be lacking in basic social skills. I can't fathom any situation in which that many bridges were burned unless she was the one who showed up with a crate of dynamite.
 
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