Advising

This page lays out my expectations of students and what you can expect from me.

General

  • If you follow the advice of your advisors, they will become invested in you and your research. If you do not think my suggestions are good, I am happy to discuss their logic. If you are not my student, you can (of course) still come talk to me, and can follow my suggestions, or not.
  • Please tell me as early as possible if you’d like me to be your advisor or on your committee. If I am on your committee, I will give you feedback. I expect you to either incorporate my suggestions or provide good reasons why you didn’t.
  • Meet with other faculty regularly. I will often suggest people for you to go talk with. Go talk with them.
  • Send me updates by email – you can aim for once every one to two weeks. Tell me what faculty you have been meeting with, and what progress you are making. Tell me what, if anything, I owe you.

Presentations

  • Attend seminars. 
  • Discuss with me what conferences you should be attending and submitting your paper to. You should be attending several each year.

Third-year paper

  • If I am advising you on your third-year paper, on your committee, or you are thinking of having me on your committee, meet with me at least once every three weeks.
  • Send me email updates on the weeks you do not meet with me. Send me electronic versions of tables and drafts and bring hard copies to our meetings.

Preliminary defense

  • Your preliminary defense should take place prior to the summer before you go on the job market (e.g., Spring 2020 for a 2020-21 job market cycle).
  • At a minimum, I require full drafts of chapter 1 (JMP) and chapter 2 of your dissertation and a written proposal or rough draft of chapter 3 in order to hold the proposal defense. All of these drafts must have been recently updated.
  • Prior to setting a prelim defense date, you must have circulated, received comments from myself and each of your committee members, and revised the draft of your JMP in response. I will have a list of concerns for you to address. If I am your primary advisor, I will expect you to address all elements of the list. If I am on your committee, I will defer to your primary advisor when our advice conflicts, but otherwise, I expect you to incorporate my feedback.
  • Each committee member must agree that you are ready for the defense and have already addressed any outstanding larger concerns.
  • Final revised chapters should be circulated to your committee at least two weeks prior to the defense, including a cover letter broadly describing the changes that you have made since the prior draft, and any remaining issues that you are working on (approx. 2-4 pages). Make sure that this letter addresses each of my main comments from the previous draft. Please also circulate a copy of your CV to the committee. You should expect detailed comments from me on your JMP and any paper single-authored or co-authored with other students.
  • Please send out a reminder email to your committee two weeks and one week prior to the date. 
  • The defense should last approximately 1.5 to 2 hours.
  • After the defense, please create a document with all of the detailed comments and action items and send to the entire committee. These items need to be addressed in subsequent drafts.

Final dissertation defense

  • Full ‘final’ papers must be prepared for the final defense.
  • Prior to setting a defense date, you must have circulated, and received comments on, each chapter of your dissertation from myself and each of your committee members. If I am your primary advisor, I will expect you to address all comments. If I am on your committee, I will defer to your primary advisor when our advice conflicts, but otherwise, I expect you to incorporate my feedback.
  • You should expect your final defense to be held in the spring after you go on the market.
  • Each committee member must agree that you are ready for the defense and have already addressed any outstanding larger concerns. The final dissertation should be circulated to your committee at least two weeks prior to the defense.
  • Please send out a reminder email to your committee two weeks and one week prior to the date.
  • The defense should last approximately 1.5 to 2 hours.
  • Plan on commenting on any changes to your draft and your responses to faculty feedback during the defense; consider providing a cover letter that outlines your changes/responses.
  • If revisions are requested, after the defense, please create a document with all of the detailed comments and action items and send it to the entire committee. These items need to be addressed prior to approval of the dissertation.
  • I expect each chapter to be complete, coherent and correct.
  • The criteria outlined above and my expectations for your dissertation are not situational; in other words, being offered a job prior to defending does not necessarily speed up the process if the chapters in your dissertations are not ready.

Thoughts on your dissertation – here are my C’s for a paper

  • Correct and Coherent – enough for prelim chapters
  • Complete, Consistent – enough for chapters 2 and 3 of your dissertation
  • Comprehensive – job market paper 
  • Cohesive – submission for publications

Thoughts on dissertation timeline

My expectations for graduate student – faculty relationships

It is the student’s responsibility to:

  • Submit their material in a timely manner so as to receive an adequate assessment;
  • Make timely progress towards completion of degree and spend the required number of hours carrying out research activities; meet set deadlines
  • Meet regularly with advisors and faculty to report on research progress; Work with the research advisor to select a dissertation committee;
  • Participate in AMRL and applied micro seminars
  • Be receptive to advice or suggestions given by faculty members;
  • Seek assistance when making important decisions about your course of study
  • Be aware of policies and rules and regulations in effect at the university and in the department
  • Discuss policies on authorship and attendance at professional meetings with the research advisor.

It is the advisor’s responsibility to:

  • Provide supervision in a way which leaves the student with room for autonomy
  • Provide timely feedback to drafts submitted by the student in accordance with an agreed upon schedule;
  • Be open, honest and fair with the student when assessing the student’s academic performance
  • Provide appropriate mentorship and guidance; 
  • Meet regularly with the student to provide guidance, assess progress and assist student in the goal of completing the program on time;
  • Be available to meet with the student provide support to the student towards the progress and completion of the program;
  • Advise students concerning the preparation and submission of their master’s or doctoral thesis or drafting of scientific papers;
  • Give credit in an appropriate manner to graduate student contributions to scholarly activity
  • Provide career advice and assist in finding a position for the graduate student following his/her graduation; provide honest letters of recommendation and be accessible for advice and feedback on career goals.