Pressure From Consulting
Author(s):
Albert Meyer and Caroline Whitbeck
You are a Ph.D. student just finishing your dissertation, working in Professor Park's group. Another student, Aya, has been in the program for three years, but has made little progress on a dissertation because of the heavy demands of being a Teaching Assistant. This last year Aya has had a Research Assistant position in Professor Park's group. During this time Aya has settled on a thesis topic and started building a simulator to use for the thesis research.
One day Professor Park tells Aya to stop work on the simulator and write some code that he needs for a consulting project. Aya doesn't need the money and would rather work on the simulator, and confides to you the fear that refusing might jeopardize his RA position.
You tell Aya that it would be all right to decline the consulting work, and that doing so would not damage Aya's future relationship with Park. However, Aya is not reassured, and asks you to promise not to discuss the problem with anyone, especially Professor Park.
How else might Aya get help with this problem?
What else might you do to help?
Do you know that some universities have policies forbidding faculty members from hiring their own thesis students for consulting? Is yours one of them? How, if at all, does that information affect your response?
Cite this page:
Albert Meyer and Caroline Whitbeck
"Pressure From Consulting"
Online Ethics Center for Engineering
8/28/2006 10:35:05 AM
National Academy of Engineering
Accessed: Friday, December 05, 2008
<www.onlineethics.org/CMS/research/modindex/resethpages/consult.aspx>