Responsibilities to Undergraduate and Graduate Students
Laura, an undergraduate, did her senior honors thesis in
Professor Hopkin's lab. Because Hopkin was busy with teaching and
other administrative duties, he asked Ryan, a senior graduate
student in the lab, to help advise Laura. Although Ryan was busy
running the last of his dissertation experiments and writing up the
results, he agreed to advise Laura in order to help out Professor
Hopkin and to gain some mentoring experience.
Soon after Ryan started advising Laura, he realized that it was
more work than he had anticipated. He was meeting with Laura every
day for one to five hours to talk about her experiment. He advised
her on experimental protocol and informed consent, setting up the
experiment, and the most appropriate statistical tests for her
data. This pattern continued throughout the fall and winter terms.
Ryan was surprised to find that he did not mind helping Laura out
so much. In fact, he enjoyed being the adviser and helping Laura
find her way in science. In addition, he was really beginning to
enjoy the theory behind the experiment.
At the start of spring term, Ryan was working in the main lab
room when he overheard Laura talking to Hopkin in one of the
smaller testing rooms in the lab about all the work she had been
doing; she did not mention Ryan's help. Ryan was quite upset. After
all, he had spent months helping Laura from the conceptualization
stage to actually running the experiment and analyzing the data.
But instead of talking to either Laura or Hopkin about this
oversight, Ryan decided to cut back on the amount of assistance he
was giving Laura. He avoided working in the lab when Laura was
around and only met with her once a week when she managed to track
him down. It was difficult for him to step away, not only because
he had spent quite a long time on the project, but because he
really enjoyed the science and theory behind it. However, Ryan did
not like confrontation and so he felt like his only option was to
back away from the project.
A month later, Laura presented her senior thesis work to the
department. At the end of her presentation, she mentioned that she
and Hopkin were preparing a manuscript reporting the work. Neither
Laura nor Hopkin had mentioned to Ryan that they were thinking of
publishing her findings. When Ryan asked Hopkin whether he would be
listed as an author on the paper, Hopkin replied that Laura had
done all the work without his help so there was no reason for him
to be a co-author. Ryan finally told Hopkin that he had helped
Laura considerably throughout the fall and winter terms. Hopkin
replied that even though Ryan may have helped out in the beginning,
he had not been there throughout the project, and therefore would
not be a co-author.
Discussion Questions:
- Was Hopkin's decision fair to Ryan? To Laura?
- What could Ryan have done early on to ensure a different
outcome? Was his behavior self-destructive?
- Do you think Hopkin should allow Ryan to be a co-author on the
paper? What would have to change for Hopkin to allow Ryan to be a
co-author?
- Should Ryan have been given the task of solely advising Laura?
How would the situation be different if Ryan had not spent so much
time helping Laura?
- What are graduate students' responsibilities to undergraduates
working in their lab?
- What are professors' responsibilities to their graduate
students in terms of advising them and/or in terms of the
obligations of authorship? Do those responsibilities differ for
undergraduate students working in their labs?