Last week I sat in on an MS-thesis defense by a student here at the Tomsk Polytechnic University in Tomsk, Russia. The student was a “foreign student” from Viet-Nam, struggling to give a lucid defense in the Russian language. The thesis was on land subsidence which, according to his hypothesis, was caused by excessive groundwater withdrawal in the Vietnamese city of Hanoi. To support his hypothesis, he showed many pictures of building with vertical tension fractures and described time coincidences that existed between the development of the fractures and the history of groundwater production from an aquifer under the city. The thesis included numerical modeling (he used Visual Modflow) which demonstrated the feasibility of his hypothesis. At the end, many of us in attendance asked many questions. The most significant questions related to the strength of his numerical model as “proof” of his hypothesis. The area he discussed is in a seismically active zone; several mid-range earthquakes occurred in the relevant time framework. Yet, throughout the defense the student never uttered the word ‘liquefaction’! In fact, when I asked him about it, he answered that he was not familiar with the phenomenon (!) Most significantly, the thesis supervisor asked the student why he had not referred to some of the relevant publications she gave him to read (several of which were about liquefaction)? At the end, the student was sent back to the drawing board to supplement his thesis by answering the questions that arose during his defense.
I was fascinated by the whole defense process, particularly the questions concerning a thesis that was obviously not ready for defense. I was particularly intrigued by the truly incisive questions posed by none other than the thesis supervisor. Following the defense I chatted with her about her (and the department’s) philosophy guiding MS-thesis research. I was told that the prevailing philosophy is not to lead the student by his/her hand through his/her research. So, she had given him a list of the relevant reading materials, expecting him to learn what and how to do on his own… he either sinks or learns to swim. I asked her – if it wouldn’t reflect badly on her as an educator if he sinks? Her exclamation was unequivocal: “… oh! God – NO! On the contrary; if we led our students through their research project, they wouldn’t learn how to think on their own… and THAT would badly reflect on each of us… the student wouldn’t be able to answer questions at the end of his/her defense, nor perform well once hired by a company… all the student gets from me is reading material, and if he/she can’t figure out what to do he/she shouldn’t end up with a graduate degree.” How refreshing… she never mentioned “the bottom line…” and the consequences of a failing defense on her record or for the Department’s standing and budget were not even issues.
About a year ago I sat on MS-thesis defense of another student in another university. It was “my” student in “my” Department of Geology at Kent State University. The student was a “foreign student” from Iran, struggling to give a lucid defense in English. The thesis was on inverse numerical modeling of the groundwater flow, traveling through the veneer of a fractured and weathered zone developed on the outcrops of very low permeability bedrock of coal cyclothemes in a small drainage basin located in southern West Virginia (the student used Modflow with the GMS package). The project’s objective was to test whether our inverse modeling would generate new data on the hydraulic properties of such an “unconventional aquifer,” thereby supplementing a very sparse published data set. As expected, members of the thesis examination committee asked a number of pertinent questions, even during the presentation. As the student struggled with understanding a particular question and answering it, he was interrupted by the Department Chair. In fact, the Chair got up from his seat in the back row and announced that he was suspending the defense to have a conference with the thesis examining committee. He asked the audience and student to leave the lecture hall, while he would hold the conference with the committee. Needless to say, we were all stunned. In my 37-years on the faculty I have participated in hundreds of defenses, but such an interruption (at the least, asking the audience to leave the lecture hall) was absolutely unprecedented for me. After the lecture hall emptied, the student in particular exiting gray-faced, the Chair closed the door and announced that if we thought the student was going to fail his defense, he, as Chair, wanted to suspend this defense for an undefined period until the student would be ready to re-defend his thesis. We – the committee members looked at each other in astonishment, each of us stating almost in unison, “I don’t think he is going to fail”. The response to the Chair was unanimous…
I have to admit that I relished telling the Chair “now – YOU re-invite the audience back and tell them that the defense will continue.” But my mind was focused on the difficult task of reassuring my student that everything was ok… he needed to compose himself and continue as if nothing ever happened… and he did, admirably. He completed his presentation and proceeded to answer all the questions, alas (?) without the presence of the Departmental Chair who left two-minutes after the defense resumed without any apologies then, or, needless to say, ever…
BTW – his thesis passed the defense unanimously; said student is currently in his second year as a Ph.D. candidate (in the friendlier climate) of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Alberta.
So – friends… whaddyah think?