I Have An Advocate...

With the Father and with my PhD Advisor.

So check out this...well bullshit really.

So in January my graduate committee, composed of PhDs in various disciplines, told me all they needed was a publication and I could graduate.  Those in attendance basically said "hey girl....you've got it. We just need you to fulfill the graduate school requirements which say a paper is necessary."

So I've been busy collecting data and doing my thing since then.  Now we have to take it back to take it forward...you ready?

Good.

So you get your graduate committee your first or second year of graduate school and its composed of people you like and took classes with preferably (taht you also know like you) and some people your boss wants. Ideally these other people have expertise your boss doesn't have.  At UNMC in Pharmaceutical Science, the chair of your graduate committee is your PI (principal investigator).  I don't really call him that. I call him my boss because that's exactly what he is and no matter how you look at it grad school is a job more so than a school experience.

I know.....he's cute ain't he?  Don't tell him though. He just turned "Sexy 65" <- His phrase not mine!

Anyway...back on topic.  So my Dad, the Original Dr. in the family, told me initially that I didn't want women on my committee. Not one. Now the next logical question is "Why?"   Why was my father, a guy, would be telling his daughter, a girl, that women faculty were the enemy in graduate school.

Because they ARE!

They most definitely ARE!

My dad's PhD is in Counseling and Higher Education Administration.  He's one of those people that reads the Chronicles of Higher Education. He's those people. Anyway...all these studies have been done on women faculty that say
1. Women faculty are harder on female graduate students than male.
Now I know you're wondering how "harder" can be quantified.  I'll tell you.  Women faculty members, en masse, give out fewer PhDs to women than they do to men.  Their female graduate students also spend more time getting a PhD than their male counterparts.
2. Women faculty feel current female graduate students have it easy.
Historically, the women who now hold tenure had to go through a lot more hurdles as the trailblazers in a boy's club. The  adage amongst Black parents about how "You have to be twice as good to get the same recognition as your White counterparts", which rings true in many situations, also rang true for these women.  To receive their PhDs that basically had to earn two.  They also sacrificed for their science.  They gave up things....big things. Things like having kids in the pursuit of a PhD. Or if they did have a kid, they rarely saw them.  And I use kid specifically because kids plural was definitely not something they were doing.

So my Dad, in his wisdom and with his statistical backing, told me not to have any women on my committee and I endeavored to do so.

I told my boss, Sasha, that I didn't want any women on my committee. Now back in Nebraska , we had three bosses. My boss Sasha was the boss of the bosses, but directly under him were two women.  He'd worked with them for over 10 years and they were his homies.  One was like his work wife and the other he'd groomed into the scientist she was.  Now this idea about not having any women on my committee didn't sit well with Sasha. AT ALL. He told me I had to have at least one woman.

And so I picked one. She seemed harmless enough. She wasn't in my department and she was the head of the core facility for favorite research technique: Confocal microscopy.  So I  picked her and she agreed to be on my committee.

Now over the years I haven't been the best graduate student. I won a ton of money my first year of graduate school.....I mean more money than any other graduate student has ever won.  Like over 250K. Yea I know.... it's cute or whatever.

Anyway....most graduate students progress in a linear fashion.  Up and to the right.  Well I'm not that kind of graduate student. Obviously I'm at the level I need to be now but my progress was very much exponential.  I wasn't making much progress for a long time and then something clicked. I realized this was my project to make of it what I could and that's what I did.  And that's why I'm getting a PhD. BUT there were years of little to not growth.  Okay two but two ain't one so years is appropriate.  During that time my committee was meeting with me twice a year which is frequent. People usually graduate having met with their committee maybe 4-5 times. We've had 8 meetings.

Well during that time of little to no growth, my committee including my boss expressed concern that I might not be able to get a PhD in the normal time given and my boss isn't about that 7-8 years of getting a PhD life.  You get it in 5-6 or you don't. He's got 5 good years to devote to your education and if you aren't grasping what you need to be then you, my friend, will be getting a terminal masters.  And yes this does happen.  It happened to someone in my lab in my cohort this year and its just as sad as it sounds. Well, their opinion of me wasn't great and then I had that breakthrough, both in though and in data interpretation, and we were on the right track.  Now just to inform you....I wasn't lazy. I had mountains of data, but ZERO data interpretation skills. I could tell you one was bigger than the other but I had no idea why.  When I figured out the why...that's when I became a viable option for a PhD.  And when I figured out the why, probed further, made a hypothesis, tested it, and it became an actual scientific discovery in my field....THAT's when I knew I had this PhD in the bag.

And I still do.

BUT.....

That woman on my committee. Yep...she is the dissenting opinion.

You see my boss prefaced telling me this woman's thoughts with all this information about how he doesn't agree and believes in me and my abilities and all this extra.  I straight up asked him "Does she not like Black people?" because my boss isn't this guy. He doesn't get effusive about how much he likes you for no reason and since she is a woman, I can't fathom that she has so much self-loathing that she'd be sexist so I figured the only option was that she was in fact a racist.

But no.  That's not her problem.  Her problem is that she doesn't see the growth.  She doesn't think I've done enough to get a PhD. She recommended based on my "skimpy" data that I receive a Masters.

Yup. A Masters.

Where my committee at large, also known as my Big 3, told me way back in January at a meeting she didn't attend, that my PhD was mine to have.

She alone is the dissenting opinion and my boss is mounting up an army. A literal one. He's flying people to my defense but he also sent her a letter.  I haven't seen it but I did help him write all my committee meeting minutes and those show the journey of how I went from a Bachelor's to a PhD in 5 years.  You see... I have an advocate with the Father AND with my PhD Adivisor.