Panel #5 Session 2

 

 

We need to talk … about the Creative PhD candidate/supervisor relationship

   - Lainie Anderson, Chloe Cannell, Sue Joseph & Ben Stubbs

       University of South Australia

​

Three years ago, amid rising research degree enrolments, increasingly challenging completion standards, and escalating stress levels among supervisors, a group of academics asked candidates how best they might be supported to complete their doctorates (Owens et al., 2020). Eight in eighteen students listed the supervisor relationship as a challenge, with some saying their supervisor was “bored”, “hostile” or “unethical”. Further, students said they weren’t made aware of crucial milestones, while eleven listed establishing a research methodology as a key challenge. And what do academics make of the relationship? Tara Brabazon, in her vlog series that’s been viewed by thousands of PhD candidates worldwide, lists a lack of reading, writing and referencing, as well as failing to heed repeated advice and corrections, among the leading student behaviours that disappoint and worry supervisors. Others include complaining, moodiness, procrastination and missing meetings. So, is the relationship all bad? In a performative presentation, UniSA PhD candidates and a guest-star supervisor will examine the candidate/supervisor relationship: the ideal, the economic and the strained. Key themes will include how to overcome the isolating nature of PhD research, particularly if you’re an international student away from home, or you’re studying interstate or overseas; the fine line between smothering your supervisor and your right to timely advice and support; how to build agency as a candidate and supervisor; and how to avoid and/or repair a strained relationship.

Lainie Anderson’s PhD with UniSA Creative at the University of South Australia explores a fictional retelling of Kate Cocks, who in 1915 became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary as men. Lainie has been a columnist for Adelaide’s Sunday Mail since 2007, with former roles including stints at Melbourne’s Herald Sun and London’s The Times. In 2016 she won a Churchill Fellowship to gauge the significance of the 1919 Air Race from England to Australia. Her debut novel Long Flight Home was published in Australia and Britain.

 

Chloe Cannell is a creative writing PhD candidate at the University of South Australia. Her research has been published in Writing From Below, TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, and the Journal of Further and Higher Education. Her short stories were published last year in the Green: Blue Feet anthology with Buon-Cattivi Press.

​

A journalist for more than forty years, working in Australia and the UK, Sue Joseph (PhD) began working as an academic, teaching print journalism at the University of Technology Sydney in 1997. As a Senior Lecturer, she taught in journalism and creative writing, particularly creative non-fiction writing. Now as Associate Professor she is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of South Australia and a doctoral supervisor at Central Queensland University. She is currently Joint Editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics and co-editor with Willa McDonald and Matthew Ricketson of the Literary Journalism Palgrave book series.

 

Dr Ben Stubbs is a senior lecturer in journalism and creative writing at the University of South Australia. Ben has written 5 books around traditional immersive non-fiction; he is on the executive committee of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, he is part of the Special Issues editorial team for TEXT journal and he is currently supervising a mix of PhD, Masters and Honours candidates.