Part 2: How SLU covers unprofessional behavior of its professors. Part 2

The Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, SLU was informed about inability of my supervisor to do his job. One meeting was held. I was asked to send the updated information on my research, which I did. At this point everything stopped again.

I waited for two months more and then sent a complaint to Swedish National Agency for Higher Education (Högskoleverket).

Surprisingly, shortly after this I again got attention from my University:

From: Jan S

Sent: 16 August 2012 11:36

To: Elena K

Cc: Christer B; Pär F; Karin B

Subject: RE: Ang Elena K

Dear Elena,

Hope that you can find access to the building now. Until there is a decision on your supervision, at the moment I will head the process of bringing things forward.

In order to get further along with your PhD work we need to formulate a detailed plan for future activities. This will make a part of a updated study plan. This is a necessary document. I would appreciate if you could list the activities you find necessary to finalise the studies.

With the updated study plan we will then have a meeting to discuss the future studies.

Best regards,

Jan S

From: Elena K

Sent: 17 August 2012 06:33

To: Jan S;

Cc: Christer B; Pär F; Karin B

Subject: RE: Ang Elena K

Dear Prof. S,

I appreciate that situation with my PhD studies attract your attention. I also entirely understand difficulties you faced with finding an expert in wheat genetics at the agricultural university, who can became my new supervisor.

The file with the description of the current status of my projects is enclosed to this message.

From my side I shall appreciate if you can inform me about the exact date from which you consider my PhD studies have started.

Regards,

Elena K

From: Jan S
Sent: 24 August 2012 14:00To: Elena KCc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär FSubject: study plan

Dear Elena,

Thank you for your description of what is left to do. You started your post graduate  studies 2007 06 21. The period of licentiate studies is part of the doctorial studies.

I have now gone through the documents again and cannot help noticing the following:

When looking through what you and Roger agreed on in January 2010 01 15 in your signed study plan which is a legally valid  document, I notice:

Project 1. This experiment was described as “almost complete and manuscript is in the process of being completed for submission during February”. Where is the data and the manuscript?

Project 2. Experiment  2.1 Status in 2010: “Sampling is completed. Molecular profiling will be carried out in February-May 201. Data analysis June 2010. Manuscript  July- August 2010.”   Experiment 2.2 status in 2010: “Plant growth and sampling phases are completed. Molecular profiling  of microbial communities (DNA extraction, nested PCR, DGGE) will be carried out February- May 2010. Data analysis June –July 2010. Manuscript preparation August-September 2010.” Status in your recent letter (where it is called project 3): “…altogether there are 134 samples including control. This study is in the stage of PCR-DGGE. Approx. 2 months will be needed to complete the lab work…”

In the study plan from 2010 there are two supplementary projects S1 and S2. S1 is corresponding to project 1 in your recent letter. My question there is has it been submitted yet?

S2 was recommended during your half time follow up not to be priotised, and if it was performed the suggestion was to sequence the bands. In the study plan 2010: “All primers were tested on one complex community. … The PCR and DGGE analysis was completed. The selected primers will be tested for possible preferential amplification of particular templates. The experiment will be finished in February 2010. Manuscript preparation in March-April 2010.” Status in the recent report:  The study is completed. However, an extra check on mitochondria and chloroplast could be done as suggested by Dr. T Okoyama University, Japan. 3 extra weeks of lab work. Question from my side: Is there any manuscript in preparation?

 What are your comments on the lack of progress compared to the status in 2010 during 2 years and 7 months?

Best regards,

Jan

From: Elena K

Sent: 27 August 2012 08:18

To: Jan S;

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: study plan

Dear Prof. S,

I value that you have started to go through my study plans. I shall appreciate if you would pay more careful attention to the content of these plans. The experiments, which were finally settled in the study plan you have been mentioned (20100115) have started at autumn 2008. So, I consider the fall 2008 as a beginning of my PhD studies. Before this time, I was engaged by my former supervisor in the meaningless activities.

During my PhD the results of several projects were summarized and sent to Prof. F for feedback. Particularly, on 12.08.09 and 13.09.09 the results and the first draft of manuscript on the effect of domestication and long-term breeding on Avena species were sent to my former supervisor (the copy of the files enclosed).

The results and parts of draft of the manuscript on developing the subtractive microcosm were sent to Prof. F started from January 2010. The complete manuscript of this article has been sent for revision to Prof. Finlay on July 2010.

I have got no help on data analysis or writing from Prof. F on nether of these two manuscripts. Nevertheless, I managed to complete at least one article . The file with final version of the article on subtractive microcosm is enclosed.

I am ready to present all my notebooks and the results of the rest of the experiments to any unbiased committee. I consider that my part of the work has been done in an appropriate time and with a good quality. Nevertheless, the PhD project is a result of the joined efforts of both a student and a supervisor. It is impossible to succeed and make any considerable progress in the absence of any interest to the project from the supervisor’s side. That is why, I have been expecting that the questions about the “lack of the progress” might be addressed to my former supervisor at least at the same degree as it have been addressed to me. However, I understand that it demands much more bravery fighting with influential and mighty PhD student then to press the defenseless professor and the Head of the BioCenter.

Sincerely,

Elena K

From: Jan S

Sent: 27 August 2012 09:21

To: Elena Kalle;

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: SV: study plan

Elena,

The starting date is when you were accepte to the Lic/PhD programme irrespectively of what the final project description looks like. Many (if not most) students undertake drastic changes in their research plans. This is normal.

Thank you for sending the domistication manuscript draft. This was apparantly gone relatively far before the half time. It still needs a lot of putting together results and discussion, though.

I have sent also the questions you got about lack of progress to Roger. It is critical that there is an answer.

Best regards,

Jan

From: Elena K

Sent: 27 August 2012 09:44

To: Jan S;

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: study plan

Dear Prof. S,

I completely agree with you that for the most of the Prof. F’s student it has been a normal practice to undertake drastic changes in their research plans. However, the good practice is when a new PhD student joins the ongoing research project, does his part of work under the supervision of more skilful researcher and gets his degree. Starting one project from a scratch, then the second one, then the third and doing it alone can not be called a norm. Or could it?

Sincerely,

Elena

At this point SLU broke communication again until October.

Part 1: How SLU covers unprofessional behavior of its professors. Part 1

Roguish Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart was an exception for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Other teachers at Hogwarts clearly saw his lack of skills and, at the end, forced him to perform his duties. If the SLU would discover Prof. Lockhart among its teachers, how would the SLU treat him? Most likely in the same way it treated my former supervisor: protect him from any questioning and promote him up to the Deputy Dean.

When my supervisor ignored his duties for years, and when it became the main obstacle for me to obtain a PhD, I informed the Head of the Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology about the problem. Three months passed after this, but nothing was done. There were no meetings, no investigation. 

Since Department was covering unprofessional behavior of my supervisor, I appealed to the Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, SLU:

From: Elena K

Sent: 17 April 2012 15:09

To: dekanus.nl; Stig L; Göran H; Håkan M; Monica Th

Subject: termination of PhD education

Dear Dean and the Members of the Faculty Board,

Recently I faced a problem that severe impair my career and I would appreciate if my case can be inspected by the Faculty.

I was a PhD student at the Department of Forest Mycology and Pathology. My supervisor was Prof. Finlay. In January 2012 my PhD education has been terminated without any notification. Although I have been asking several times after, my supervisor did not explain me the reasons of ending my education. There was no evaluation of my research project. There was no any meeting of the Departmental Board where the progress of my PhD project has been examined. My supervisor also did not explain me why the 75% revision of my study plan did not take place. So, it was an unexpected shock for me to find out that my education was ended when I lack just few months before complete my research project.

I feel very upset and find such treatment unfair, especially because I got very little help from Prof. F during my PhD research. There were many moments when I was left alone with the problems and it took me up to several months to solve them. However the most serious problem I encountered when the time came to wrap up results into manuscripts. The complete manuscript of my first article has been sent for revision to Prof. F on July 2010. During the next 1.5 years he did not find time even to read it. In December 2011 I included new material into manuscript and sent it again for revision. After being forced by the Head of the Department, my supervisor read the manuscript and sent back with minor changes of English and without even looking at the tables and figures. I was trying to explain Prof. F that this is my first experience of writing scientific paper in English and I am not able to do it on my own. I am also not familiar with publishing process. Several times Prof. F promised me to give his comments and help me with writing, but he have not done so. In the end I have been forced to beg the external experts for the scientific feedback and to send my manuscript for proofreading to the professional company.

Since I still have to complete the experiment that appears in my study plan (which is approved by Prof. F and the Faculty) I decided to stay in Sweden on my own expenses. However, my financial recourses are very scarce. I spent several years to do my PhD project and it is very shocking to lose all result now. In spite that I am alone mother and lived here with my son I worked at laboratory six days a week 9-10 hours every day and after all these efforts I was not given opportunity to complete my PhD education.

I shall appreciate if my case would be investigated by the Faculty. Thank you for the time and consideration!

Sinceraly,

Elena K

Former PhD student

Dept. Forest Mycology and Pathology

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

The mail exchange below gives an idea of what happened after:

From: Jan S

Sent: 17 April 2012 17:05

To: Elena K; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär

Subject: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Hi all,

We have now reached a situation for the PhD studies of Elena where the normal time has run out. We should sit down to discuss and agree on a realistic updated plan for how Elena can finish her studies. The faculty and department directors of study should take part in this. It can build on the previous discussions and plans.

There is a a possible time Friday the 27th of April at 9.00 at the department of Forest Mycology and Pathology that could work for several of the group.

Please respond me to tell if you can attend then.

Best regards,

Jan S

Prefect

From: Jan S

Sent: 29 April 2012 15:35

To: Jan S; Elena K; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F; Shahid M

Subject: SV: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Hi again,

Thank you all for the discusssions last Friday. Although we did not reach a final plan then, it is still very important that we base the plan on realistic expectations. So Elena, we relly need your view on what is left to be done.

To me it seems as some of the problems you talked about in terms of low specificity in the PCR best are handled with sequencing.

Also, we need to find a supervision situation that is constructive.

Looking forward to get the contribution.

Best regards,

Jan

From: Elena K

Sent: 30 April 2012 03:15

To: Jan S; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Dear all,

Please, find enclosed a file with the description of the current status of my PhD projects.

The technical problems that I was mentioned are not connected with low specificity of primers. As I told before there is a single band on the agarose gel with a specific size. Since I run nested PCR the specificity is high. The problems are common for the amplification of a mixed template (mixture of homologous genes) and it does not matter what kind of methods are applied later on to visualize the PCR products of these reactions. For the basic information on this problem you can read Kanagawa 2003 Bias and Artifacts in Multitemplate Polymerase Chain Reaction. J Bioscience and Bioengeeniring 96: 317-323 and as an example of practical study Hongoh et al. 2003 Evaluation of primers and PCR conditions for the analysis of 16S rRNA genes from natural environment. FEMS Microbiol Letters 221:299-304.

In a previous study I have develop a method to monitor the quality of PCR reaction in a mixed template. It allows estimating whether particular PCR is reliable enough to apply the subsequent analysis to the obtained PCR products. The problem was that I am not satisfied with the quality of first PCR.

I am open to the suggestions on a new supervisor.

Best regards,

Elena K

From: Jan S

Sent: 04 May 2012 14:17

To: Elena K; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Thank you Elena for the information.

In order to proceed, Do you have any suggestion for a suitable supervisor?

Best regards,

Jan

From: Elena K

Sent: 04 May 2012 17:04

To: Jan S; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Dear all,

Unfortunately, I am not very well acquainted with SLU personnel and I have never personally met the candidates I listed below. My judgments relay on the information I could get from their homepages. On the current stage it is important for me to get advices on my third project, which is related both to the microbial ecology and to the plant genetics and breeding. I shall highly appreciate if the scientist that will be appointed as my new supervisor has a deep knowledge and practical experience in population ecology and/or quantitative genetics and is publishing actively.

So far I find four candidates that, to my point of view, could meet these expectations:

(In alphabetical order)

Prof. C, Dept. Soil and Environment

Prof. R, Dept. Plant Breeding and Biotechnology

Prof. P, Dept. Ecology

Prof. W, Dept. Crop Production Ecology

Nevertheless, I am open to any suggestions.

Best regards,

Elena K

From: Elena K

Sent: 14 May 2012 06:22

To: Jan S; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Dear All,

Two weeks have passed since our meeting on 27th of April. I shall appreciate if you can provide any information regarding current status of my case.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

Elena K

From: Elena K

Sent: 21 May 2012 04:57

To: Jan S; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Dear All,

Three weeks have passed since our meeting on 27th of April. I shall appreciate if you can provide any information regarding current status of my case.

Best regards,

Elena

From: Jan S

Sent: 21 May 2012 09:38

To: Elena K; Roger F

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Dear Elena,

We have not been able to finalise this yet. You will have to carry on as before for the time being. I am on travelling until the 7th of June and have limited possibilities to contact new people during the trip.

Best regards,

Jan

From: Elena K

Sent: 22 May 2012 23:28

To: Jan S

Cc: Marianne C; Christer B; Pär F; Monica Th

Subject: RE: Meeting invitation. 27th of April. Agreeing on a plan for the final period for Elenas PhD

Dear Prof. S,

I am very upset by your answer. I have been “carry on as before” since February. This reply indicates an absence of concern for my case.

Regards,

Elena K

What genuine professors can do that the fake ones cannot

When, after 1.5 years I got draft of my manuscript back from my supervisor, with his 311 changes (most of which were formatting changes) and no comments on the scientific value of the manuscript, I understood that help can come only from genuine professors.

I wrote to three people at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and got comments and help from Dr. A. One professor wrote that he is busy at the moment and the other did not answer at all. 

I have also sent my manuscript to external experts, I did not complain to them and I said nothing about my difficult situation, I only asked them for a feedback. I thought that it would take a lot of efforts to find someone who would spend their time to read 40 pages manuscript from an unknown student. I was mistaken. The first two professors to whom I have sent my manuscript answered immediately.

Prof. T (Group of Plant-Microbe Interaction, Institute of Plant Science andResources, Okayama University, Japan) provided his comments, pointed out important questions that should be discussed more thoroughly and advised on improving the structure of the manuscript.

Prof. B (University of Arizona & The Northwestern Center for BiologicalResearch (CIBNOR), Mexico) was on a trip and wrote that he would read my manuscript when he comes back. He did what he promised and even more. He went through my manuscript and checked it sentence by sentence, writing his comments. He explained what difficulties I might have during publishing, and how to present information in a better way. He did what my supervisor must have done. I was very thankful and asked him to be a co-author of the article, since he invested so much time in it. Prof. B wrote that he provides same help for many people and considers this service as a part of his work.

Prof. B, Prof. T and Dr. A acted as true professionals. Genuine professors can work, while fake “professors” cannot!

Part 3: how Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart supervises manuscript writing

What can happen when Prof. Gilderoy Lockhard, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honourary Member of the Dark Force Defence League; and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, became your supervisor

After doing data analysis the time finally came to write manuscripts. By that time, my supervisor was already very annoyed by the slow progress of my work, in spite of his talented leadership. He told me that I better start to write two manuscripts at the same time, in order to speed up a progress. But the absence in me of a talent for simultaneous writing, forced him to agree on an alternative approach. I was supposed to send him immediately every bit of manuscript that was ready and he would improve my scribbles.

Well, I am not complaining about his lack of work on my first draft: it was only half done when I sent it. But my second draft I have sent to him 16 (sixteen!) times.

However, my supervisor did not find time to read my manuscript and send his feedback for the next 1.5 years. When he finally sent it back after his edition, there were all together 311 changes: 256 of which were deletion of double spaces, mistyped letters and words, and 55 were formatting changes. Figures and tables were not even opened; there were no comments on structure, no scientific comments at all. The sight of these changes at last set my mind in a proper mode and I decided to seek help from real professors.

My supervisor was not evil, he was simple lazy. But does he have a right to be lazy? Does supervisor has right not to do his job? Can charming smiles and a good nature of a supervisor compensate a damage that his sloth causes?

The end of the story was pathetic: after all these long hours in the lab, battles with statistics and tortures with writing, I was simply fired, fired without notice and without explanations. My supervisor probably thought that if he stops paying me, than I would leave Sweden and nobody would know about his inability to work.

Part 2: how Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart provides technical support

What can happen when Prof. Gilderoy Lockhard, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honourary Member of the Dark Force Defence League; and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, became your supervisor

It was a little difficult to talk with my supervisor about my research, because he never used the required experimental techniques himself and also was not strong in the theory. But he possessed a talent to steer a conversation in a direction where he felt comfortable and we spent hours discussing his household repair skills and his family’s summer trips. When he was in a mood for a more scientific talk, he examined a growth of his h-index and remembered minutes from conferences that he attended.

Well, I had enough experience to perform lab work on my own and this part went quite smoothly. The first problem appeared when the time came to analyze the data. I had only a basic knowledge of statistics, my supervisor, however, was an author of more than 120 articles on microbial ecology and should be an expert in statistics. To my surprise, he was unable even of choosing an analysis method (PCA? CA? CCA? NMDS? * Not so many...). On my perpetual questions about which method he considered more suitable, he kept saying that Dr. X advised to use PCA and Dr. Y advised CCA and so on. Questions like why did Dr. X and Dr. Y advised this or that method, or what is the difference between the methods puzzled my supervisor enormously.

One day, trying to solve once and forever all my questions, my supervisor organized a consultancy meeting. On that meeting Ms. F, a docent from our Department, was explaining how ecological data should be analyzed:” … and then you export your Excel file ...and then you press this button ...and then you press that button...” All attempts to find out why she chose, for example, a coefficient of similarity, got no understanding... She told me in an injured voice: “I do it in an autopilot mode! I have more interesting things to do in my life than to find out which coefficient to use!”

After concussion that I got on the meeting, I buried my hope and decided to use CA method. I bought a book “Cluster Analysis for Researchers” by H. Charles Romesburg(my enormous thanks to the Author!), and spent few months in a battle with statistics all by myself.

* PCA – principal components analysis; CA – correspondence analysis; CCA – canonical correspondence analysis; NMDS – nonmetric multidimensional scaling: the tools for data analysis in community ecology.

Part 1: how Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart works out a project.

What can happen when Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League; and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, becomes your supervisor

My former supervisor is a good-natured person and an owner of a charming smile. Everyone, who knows him, would agree on this, even I still think so. At the beginning, I thought that my supervisor has a clear vision of our goals and a firm plan of action. The instructions that I got, however, sounded like these: “You know, I am interested in arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi*... Please, investigate something interesting about them.” Up to that point of my life, I have never seen miracle arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi before and trusted supervisor that AMF are the last hope for sustainable agriculture. Probably, I was not agitated enough to propose something truly grandiose, so after a while, my supervisor provided me with an article of another respectful expert in AMF, and a heap of PVC pipes, and asked me:

a. to construct traps for AMF from the PVC pipes and pieces of mesh;

b. to catch and tame wild AMF from Uppsala region

I must admit, I am a very bad plumber – traps, constructed by me from the PVC pipes looked awful. Nevertheless, eager to perform the task, I made my own, more feminine traps. They seemed to work and after a few months I caught my first sample of the arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi! But after I saw them under a microscope a heavy doubt started teasing me: AMF caught by me must have been in a last stage of dystrophy, or otherwise they cannot be a hope for agriculture. For more than a year I nursed my AMF flock. I watered and fed them and provided with different host plants to live on, but nothing helped – my AMF did not want to grow the way that was prescribed by the classic articles, plus other fungi overgrew them rapidly.

I tormented my supervisor with questions on how to improve AMF cultures. He was always an inexhaustible source of stories about ancient techniques of taming AMF. Unfortunately, he found it difficult to show how it was done in practice.

After more than a year struggle, I decided prepare carefully my supervisor's mind to the idea that nothing useful can be done about AMF without tampering the results and that I do not possess the necessary result tampering talent. Probably he still thinks that I failed with the implementation of his grandiose plan because I am a squib. When it became clear, that all attempts to “investigate something interesting about AMF” came to a dead end, I proposed him my own project and finally got his blessings to start with it.

__________________________________________________________________

* arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi (AMF) – mysterious microorganisms. A little thicker than a human hair; 1-5 cm long. Found on plant roots. “Scientists” believe that AMF defend plants from biotic and abiotic stresses; supply them with water; persistently feed plants with phosphorus, nitrogen, magnesium, iron, potassium, calcium, magnum, copper, cadmium, selenium, and, possible, iodine. AMF also were proved to purify plant's karma.

My employment history at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Sweden manages to create very nice image of itself for the outsiders. Being attracted by that image, I came to Sweden seven years ago with a desire to master modern techniques in molecular biology, to grow professionally and to get my PhD degree. I got a position at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Before coming to the SLU, when I saw a scientist who was a parasite I thought that he is only a rare exclusion. But year by year grew the realization that parasitism in academia became a norm. Fake “professors” pump out money from public and suck out energy from their students. Flourishing on these resources they quickly gain power and spread parasitism further. My experience at SLU can show how far this contamination infiltrates. I admit that I cannot be completely impartial, because for every bit of this experience I have paid with my time.

Since my first days at the Department of Forest Mycology and PlantPathology, SLU, I was promised that my PhD project would begin soon. But it started only 3 years later. Of course, it was a mistake to believe promises for such a long time. The only excuse was that I had no money to move anywhere else. My scholarship and all the savings I made was just enough for me and my son to settle at the new place.

Finally, when in October 2008 I got a blessing for my own PhD project I rolled up sleeves and started working. Three years without clear goals, without meaningful outcome can make anyone desperately hungry for results and I worked 9-10 hours a day 6 days a week. Well, the process was hard, but the results were good. Suddenly, in January 2012 I got a notification from the SLU that from the next month I will no longer get my salary. My studentship was terminated! My PhD project was going on, but SLU would not pay me for the work.

SLU canceled my salary without notification and did not provide any explanations. It was especially unfair, because my supervisor used me as a worker for three years before my PhD project started. During the whole period of my PhD he could not provide adequate supervision. My supervisor even did not find time for 1.5 year to read my manuscripts and send his feedback. 

My choices were to continue working for free or to leave Sweden and to lose all the results of the last 4 years. I decided to stay at my own expenses and to complete the work. But loosing salary was only the beginning of the story. Next posts will show what can happen if foreign student wonders about his rights and the duties of the SLU professors.