Questions tagged [abuse]

Cruel and/or violent mistreatment of a person or animal in researches or academic places.

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At what point does research criticism become academic hazing?

I've been collaborating on a paper with a junior colleague and a senior colleague, among others. The junior colleague is the lead writer on the paper and has done about 85-90% of the research. Junior ...
user2352714's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

Coauthor removed the 1st-author's name from Google scholar input

Back story: A new postdoc joined my research for a manuscript that I was working on with a senior research scientist for 2 years. The new postdoc wanted 2nd authorship but the senior scientist also ...
user156083's user avatar
8 votes
9 answers
7k views

Paper with potentially inappropriately-ordered authors, should a journal act?

A journal I handle recently received a paper that looks like a student's project. Reasons to think this include the research conducted, the writing style (e.g. the paper describes things which ...
Allure's user avatar
  • 121k
-3 votes
2 answers
296 views

Retaliation after grade dispute (story shortened) [closed]

After submitting my grade dispute request to my department (STEM field), my advisor started to become abusive towards me. Originally I speculated that the department may have let him know the fact ...
Ioannis's user avatar
  • 11
59 votes
13 answers
26k views

What should I do after my PhD supervisor calls me a retard to my face?

I am in the 5th year of my Ph.D. studies. My Ph.D. supervisor always likes to mentally and verbally abuse me and some of our group members. This time, I really could not take it anymore and I want to ...
JustTryToGraduate's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
499 views

How to survive a mean professor

I am an undergraduate student who has been conducting research with a professor for the past year. Unfortunately, I have been feeling defeated lately because the professor I am working with is ...
Elizabeth_555's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
4k views

Are college instructors in the U.S. generally mandated reporters?

Almost all U.S. states have mandatory reporting laws, that specify certain professions, especially those dealing with children, as being obligated to report evidence of abuse to a state agency. These ...
Daniel R. Collins's user avatar
18 votes
4 answers
8k views

Removing unreal/gift co-authors previously added because of academic bullying

Someone under my pastoral care asked me the following, wishing to remain anonymous: I had published several papers with my so-called supervisors before, during my PhD, both of whom never actually ...
Father Geppeto's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
198 views

How do research funders make sure their money is spent reasonably?

How do research funders audit where their money is going? Say they give some amount to a professor, after one year the professor didn't produce a thing in his research. How does it work? It seems very ...
metaUser's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
214 views

IT person never reply to my emails

I am a PhD student in a lab in a well known university. I am not sure if I should just ignore this although it has been bothering me for a really long time. My project relies on help from the IT ...
Molly Ryan's user avatar
54 votes
12 answers
13k views

Student continuously makes insulting comments during my lecture - how do I handle him?

I teach in a small college and one student seems to have an obsessive need to make comments aloud during class. Sometimes those comments are funny (he is the class clown) but sometimes they feel ...
Radiology Prof's user avatar
21 votes
5 answers
12k views

My wife got some serious issues with her PhD advisor: how should I get involved in the situation?

I am an assistant professor in an engineering field, and my wife is a PhD student in a physics-related field. We live in an eastern European country and work in different institutes. I am quite happy ...
KratosMath's user avatar
29 votes
6 answers
3k views

Harassment and intimidation by fellow students

I live in Western Europe and began a CS degree 1.5 years ago. I had no prior programming experiences but the degree was aimed for beginners. The male-female student ratio was 100:1 (as also stated by ...
maliebina's user avatar
  • 401
-4 votes
1 answer
327 views

My thesis advisor expects more and harder work from me than other students, possibly because my work is for their client. How should I approach this? [closed]

I'm working on a Masters thesis and have been feeling really uneasy since working with my supervisor. From the beginning, she would not discuss expectations, and given the exploratory nature of the ...
unhappystudent123's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
1k views

Managing difficult situation with PhD advisor: substance abuse/health crisis or emotional abuse? Do I speak up?

I am at the very end of my PhD, and my PhD advisor has been repeatedly inappropriate and overstepped boundaries that would probably fall into "mandated reporter" territory, if I were to tell ...
throwaway_4obviousreasons's user avatar
-2 votes
2 answers
1k views

A jerk is becoming a professor, should I alert their faculty?

During the early stage of my research career many years ago, as a graduate student, I met this young and bright but yet very manipulative PhD student. Let's call the person A. At the beginning A was ...
En Poverty's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
6k views

silent bullying during PhD - no one believes me [closed]

I have found myself in a quite ugly situation: Since around 1,5 years, I am in a situation here during my PhD studies where I cannot set boundaries to damaging/ silent bullying behaviour of some PhD ...
AnnaBanana's user avatar
52 votes
9 answers
14k views

Advisor refuses to let me get my Master’s after my thesis defense

I am currently a Master’s and PhD student. I am in my last semester of my Master’s program. After a year of being in the PhD program, I have realized that academia is not for me. I received a job ...
Anonymous's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
795 views

Is the reference letter from PhD supervisor important in the future?

I just submitted my doctoral thesis yesterday. I finished my project two years ago and published it in a high level journal. My supervisor asked me to give the co-first author position to a postdoc, ...
MDChurtedDoc's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
283 views

Can degree students be forced to speak in classes (answering targeted questions,etc) and be forced to sit in a particular way? [closed]

I'm a first year degree student in a college affiliated with the OU. Can the teachers force me to write and maintain neat running notes, tell me how to sit (I keep my legs crossed), which seat to sit ...
Devraj pandey's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to deal with a toxic academic supervisor?

I am a person who does not have an "invisible personality". I talk, help around and friendly with everyone. It took me a great deal of efforts to be finally able to open up, which let me ...
Rosy M's user avatar
  • 41
2 votes
1 answer
352 views

Working with `co-guest editor' who has subjected me to harassment as postdoc mentor

Very long post alert! Background: I have a complicated situation and need advice about how to deal with it. I had joined as a postdoc with a faculty member (a senior professor) in an esteemed research ...
damaihati's user avatar
  • 139
7 votes
1 answer
4k views

Disagreement with advisor regarding journal choice

I have currently a disagreement with my advisor regarding the journal we should send our paper. My advisor wants to send it to a very specialized journal with low impact factor, and to add a lot of ...
can't stop me now's user avatar
15 votes
10 answers
8k views

Is this psychological abuse? Should I switch supervisors?

I am in the third year of my four year PhD, which is funded by the department. My supervisor a week and a half ago called a meeting with me, after an email complaining about sending off an updated ...
John's user avatar
  • 235
1 vote
1 answer
222 views

Should I risk being fired to help the students? [closed]

I am a new high school teacher, and I want to disclose the risks and limitations of learning in a classroom to the students, but my supervisor said I cannot do this. Other teachers must have their ...
Chris A.'s user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Advisor doesn't let me graduate and prevents me from working

Posting for my friend Brief background: I am in the middle of my 4th year PhD at a US university. I opened up a new direction for the lab, which led me to 2 impactful publications and 1 manuscript ...
gradindepression's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
436 views

Advisor manipulated/threatened me into sharing my first authorship

My last Phd work was submitted to a high impact journal (IF >35). The manuscript came back for revision with 2 positive comments and 1 no-suggestion on my last day in his lab. Given its positive ...
gradindepression's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
273 views

Bullying at a previous affiliation, but now moved on. What to do?

This question is a personal one. I feel like going in circles inside my mind, so I might as well formulate it here for my peace of mind. Apologies if it is not in the right format, or if it does ...
ElCid's user avatar
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22 votes
2 answers
3k views

How prevalent are abusive advisors?

I have read lots of posts here about abusive advisors, and I have heard about and even experienced some similar experiences in my own academic life. Is there any data available for how prevalent this ...
user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
1k views

Abusive supervisor & academic career

I am a Ph.D. candidate in economics in the UK, and now start my 4th and hopefully final year of the program. I currently consider changing my supervisor (SV hereafter) because of an ongoing conflict. ...
dante's user avatar
  • 79
19 votes
5 answers
3k views

Pre-tenure faculty - should I ignore all possible troubles to get tenured?

I'm a tenure-track assistant professor who started in this fall. I heard that I should not get involved in any issues or conflicts to get tenured. However, I am unsure about this situation. I was in ...
user128851's user avatar
15 votes
4 answers
3k views

Need help — Principal investigator with abusive behavior

I am doing a postdoc with a principal investigator (PI) at an American university. Research is going great, with three publications in one year. But the PI has serious issues. I would say he is a ...
user234's user avatar
  • 151
2 votes
0 answers
101 views

Should I hide certain education history on my CV/resume? [duplicate]

Apologize in advance if it is not suitable for this site. I consider asking this in workplace exchange, but I think people on this site are more familiar with similar situation. For obvious reasons I ...
user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
301 views

How to respond to potential power abuse from project supervisor?

Over the space of a now concluding 20 week long project, my appointed supervisor has made a number of questionable decisions that appear to have negatively affected my work and solidified her grip ...
Steven's user avatar
  • 33
24 votes
3 answers
6k views

How to support students whom other faculty abuse?

Some of the students in my class take a class with another member of faculty. That other, tenured, member of faculty has taken to abusing individual students in front of the whole class. This abuse ...
Acton Bell's user avatar
26 votes
5 answers
7k views

Attending a conference that my abusive ex-supervisor is also attending, how I should react?

I am going to attend a conference as I have been selected to a voluntary position and it is mandatory to meet up with the organizers. At this conference, my abusive ex-supervisor is chairing sessions ...
user avatar
86 votes
4 answers
17k views

Am I being exploited by my supervisor?

It has been 4.5 years since I joined as a PhD student. My supervisor asks me to draft almost all of his important emails. He will begin by briefing me the issue, and ask me to draft the email in a ...
user3024069's user avatar
  • 1,373
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

Lecturer yelled at me after class and refused to answer my question [closed]

During one of my lectures today, I had a question with something he did and raised my hand to ask the question. The lecturer didn’t see me, so my classmate asked me what my question was so I whispered ...
user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
570 views

How is student feedback dealt with for poorly teaching faculty?

I teach at a teaching university. Research is not a priority. I'm new to the university and am teaching full-time. I believe I've developed a rapport with the current cohort of senior students. ...
Acton Bell's user avatar
42 votes
4 answers
11k views

How to respond when insulted by a grad student in a different department?

I'm a lecturer at a small university. In a class I taught last year, one grad student disagreed with his grade and complained as high up in the university as possible. The result was the grade stayed ...
user114675's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
636 views

exam/teaching culture, possible abusive supervisor, research gatekeeping

Apologies for the length, I don't know how to make this shorter. I also don't know where else to turn for advice. :( I've recently started an MA in what promises to be a brand new humanities ...
concerned_and_alienated's user avatar
56 votes
8 answers
22k views

How to deal with an abusively condescending professor?

I am a beginning graduate student in Mathematics. I have a professor who always brings up the fact that my GPA is not great in my undergraduate degree even though my performance is above the norm in ...
HybridAlien's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
925 views

Professor's weird behavior

I have just started a thesis-based masters degree. My supervisor has asked me to help with another student's project. So I am working with another student of my supervisor. We work together and ...
nikki's user avatar
  • 2,109
16 votes
3 answers
2k views

What to do when you hear many bad stories about your supervisor on the first day of your PhD?

Today was the first day of my PhD. It's a very prestigious institution and I was extremely excited to start. However, it seems there is a general feeling of discontentment with people in the group and ...
student's user avatar
  • 163
1 vote
3 answers
420 views

Can I use the term 'abuse' if someone submits five papers to a conference?

During my career as a researcher, I have attended many high-quality conferences in my research field and presented papers. In general there are some rules about the number of papers accepted which ...
H. Kemal İlter's user avatar
39 votes
3 answers
13k views

Should I let my former undergraduate advisor know that my PhD advisor was abusive?

18 months into my PhD (after I had passed my quals), my advisor became so emotionally abusive and bullying that I had to take a semester off (I was already dealing with diagnosed depression). While I ...
stagermane's user avatar
1 vote
5 answers
659 views

How to stop sexual harassment by teacher? [closed]

I'm a student in India. My music teacher was kicked out of the school about 1 month ago due to sexual misconduct. Today, he messaged me on Instagram with a fake ID and started talking nastily to me ...
Neha Gupta's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
915 views

How should I handle an abusive research mentor as an undergrad?

The professor I do research with often puts me down for making mistakes and frequently calls me an idiot. I don't know the appropriate way to respond. I cannot just leave, since I still want to go to ...
Anon's user avatar
  • 31
9 votes
2 answers
4k views

What should I do about a professor who got in my face and yelled at me?

I'm a lab assistant at my university and one day some of my coworkers who are underclassmen asked me about my experience with a professor I had taken a couple classes with. I told them that every ...
mstar's user avatar
  • 101
19 votes
5 answers
3k views

Should I resign if my research advisor verbally abuses me?

Summary: Supervisor is verbally abusive on a regular basis. He may be trying to sabotage me by delaying the annual report on which my funding depends. Should I quit or stick it out? Details: I ...
user80631's user avatar
  • 291