Difficulties with professors

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Hello, friends. I haven't been here in years, but I could use some advice from a different perspective.

Here's the general situation: I am a grad student in my fourth semester. I have completed all of the course requirements and written most of a thesis. I'm required to finish the thesis in order to graduate. I'm required to have an advisor in order to finish the thesis. No professor is required to serve as my advisor. I had an advisor, but he quit on me over the summer, and I have been unable to find a new one.

I thought that professors were unwilling to work with me because I'm writing my thesis on an unpopular, controversial topic. Just last week, however, I learned that staff have been spreading rumors about me for a year, damaging my reputation, and that professors think I am hostile and rude. (However, they also agree that I am talented and they want me to succeed). They think my behavior is unacceptable and I need to "get some social skills" or "decide to not be stubborn" as a prerequisite of having an advisor. (I have not disclosed any of my disabilities.)

Here are some of the interactions I have had:

Professor accuses me of making things up.
I show them my evidence.
They refuse to read it.

Professor tells me I am wrong.
I ask them to show me counterevidence.
They say they don't have time for that.

Professor asks me to revise something I've written.
I ask them to clarify what they're looking for.
They accuse me of refusing to follow instructions.

Professor tells me how I should do something.
I ask why that is the correct way to do it.
They accuse me of thinking I'm so much smarter than them.


My question is: who is being unreasonable in these exchanges? I honestly think I'm doing what any student would do. I have not been able to get a clear explanation of what I should do instead. (Other than "just do what you're told". Aside from the fact that I think that's no way to write a thesis, I can't do what I'm told because I don't understand what I'm told.)

I didn't have these problems in undergrad. I mostly didn't have them in two professional jobs I held before going back to school. I think the issue is some kind of cultural miscommunication (I'm halfway across the country from where I grew up, and this university has serious issues with tolerating diversity), but everyone I talk to denies this and says I'm just deliberately being a jerk.

What am I doing wrong, and what should I do instead? I feel like I've tried every strategy I can think of, and no matter what I do, I'm told that it's wrong and that I did it wrong on purpose to spite people. I'll take pretty much any kind of advice at this point...

If the department accepted you into their graduate program, they have an obligation to provide or assign a thesis advisor to you, certainly.

Can you say what general field this is, and how many faculty are in the department? That might help understanding the context.

You would think so! The Environmental Studies program I'm in requires students to have an advisor when they apply. However, nothing prevents the advisor from quitting at a later point.

The chair of the program (who knows me well and thinks I'm a great student) has said that the university is not responsible for helping me find a new advisor. Because of how the program is organized, my understanding is that virtually all of the thousands of professors at the university are eligible to be my advisor. I just need one! But email queries are almost always met with "I'm too busy", "That's not my area of expertise", or no response. Almost no one has even been willing to meet with me.

That's very curious. It does make sense that an individual advisor could withdraw at any time for whatever reason (no time, conflict, wrong subject, etc.). But when that happens, if you don't find a replacement yourself, one should be automatically assigned.

Is this an actual academic department, with a chair, or is it an interdisciplinary program with a director (and so falls between the departmental cracks)? Sounds like you need to do two things: check the university catalog carefully for all the written regulations and requirements of your program and graduate advising in the university, and then pay a visit to the Graduate School office (whatever it's called) and ask them what you should do. Be sure you know the regulations from the catalog in advance. I'd go in with the aim of asking open advice -- don't say, "They won't give me an advisor," but say, "I need advice on how to find an advisor."

(I used to teach a few environmental studies courses once upon a time.)

If you don't mind me asking, what is the university, what is the thesis topic and your stance on it, and what is the university's bias? If for the sake of anonymity you don't want to disclose any or all of these things, I understand, but understanding the specifics of the case would be helpful.

At the very least, you have a faculty member who's sympathetic to your situation, so maybe you can say in simple terms that you can't find anyone willing to advise you, and you need an advisor to graduate. At some point this becomes a legal/financial issue - at this point you've made a significant investment in time and money, so if the university is unwilling to provide this in order for you to graduate, you should have a case against them. That said, I'm not telling you to threaten them legally - if anything, I think you should make it clear that you want to do everything you can to ameliorate the situation, and keep it from deteriorating anymore.

It is an interdisciplinary program. It has a chair, who is on my side, but has repeatedly declined to be my advisor because he is extremely busy. There is also a director, who is closely connected with these rumors about me, and so even though he works in exactly my area, I feel that I can't work with him for safety reasons.



That is a good idea. I will work on it.



I am at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My topic is on how to encourage people to have more environmentally-friendly yards. My premise/stance, based on years of independent research before I came to the university, is that some kinds of yards are more environmentally friendly than others, and those are the kinds of yards that people should have. Madison as a city agrees with that; the local ordinances are literally right now being rewritten to make it easier for residents to have environmentally-friendly yards. But professors are treating me as if I have some biased, fringe opinion, and repeatedly claim that I'm making up the environmental and health impacts I cite as my reasons for holding this view.

This seems like something you might be able to reframe in a different light, that would be easier for professors to accept. It's a political move, but maybe instead of focusing on the contrast between good and bad yards, you could focus purely on the positive, which is to say emphasize the good kinds of yards and why they're so good, and make the case for people changing to those kinds of yards. I can understand the desire to condemn the really damaging, bad yards, but for the sake of getting your degree it might be best to minimize the controversial aspect of the paper for the sake of getting your degree. Then, after you graduate, if you want to submit it to a journal you can rewrite the paper to include those more controversial aspects.
The more I deal with the working world and academia, the more I realize that personal politics come up everywhere, even in prestigious, high level settings. When I asked for the school I was wondering if you were going to say you're at a smaller, less prestigious, politically charged school, either saying leftist things at a right wing school or vice versa. But UW Madison is one of the best schools in the country, so because of that I'd urge you to take a more yielding approach rather than fighting on this. I'd basically try to be as nice and polite as possible, and talk to the professors you've gotten negative feedback from, saying you want to understand the weaknesses of your argument, why your argument or topic are wrong, and then maybe how they think you should approach this kind of topic. Basically work with them, and demonstrate that you respect their opinions (even if it's not completely genuine). Even if you've gotten sort of a bad reputation with a couple people, I think seeking their advice and really working with them can turn things around pretty quickly.

I've done a lot of thinking around this, actually. From a behavior change perspective, telling people why what they're doing is bad is often less effective than telling them why what they could be doing is good. I'm very careful to focus on this positive approach in my active work.

Before I get to the active part of my thesis, though, I have to justify why people should be changing at all. The reasons why some yards are bad are essentially the opposite of the reasons why other yards are good, only the former are easier to explain. Also, bad yards are currently the common, accepted practice, so it makes sense to show why they're a problem. If I frame the background to sound like the current standard isn't bad, it's just that something else would be better, it might be less controversial, but it also comes across as a much weaker argument for bothering to do anything. When my professors ask me to imply that the current standard isn't harmful, I tell them that to do so would be to misrepresent the consensus of the literature.

I've repeatedly asked my professors to explain why they don't find my premise convincing. My advisor kept telling me "I have an environmentally unfriendly yard and I don't think I'm a bad person." I totally understand his psychological motivations around wanting to reject my claims. But his statement isn't empirical evidence, and since I've been very careful not to say that people with environmentally unfriendly yards are bad people, it's kind of a straw man argument.

It's certainly not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings, but it seems like my professors are trying to force me to sacrifice academic rigor so they don't have to deal with facts they don't like.