The Expert Inside You with Dr. D. Anthony Miles
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:20:03]
And the dissertation, like you said, as much work as people do on that and as much as some people are very passionate about their dissertation projects, I teach our students not to do that to to get something done. But whatever it is with the dissertation, once it’s done, it’s done. And ask students all the time, how many people do you think are going to read your dissertation when you’re done? And one guy told me at one point, well, I know one person and I said, Is that your mom? He said, yeah. I said, your mom’s not gonna read your dissertation. She’ll say, read it and you’ll be nice, respectful and not challenge her on it. And you guys will not talk about it. But nobody reads your dissertation because it’s a school project, right? Very rarely. I opened a lot of effort into it and make their dissertation something that can live beyond that. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s a bit of a waste of energy. Make your dissertation, do what is supposed to do. Turn your first name to the Dr.. And then put the extra energy into writing a book or developing podcast or whatever it might be, get out there so people can actually find you because they’re not going to find that dissertation.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:21:10]
It’s just absolutely the dissertation is actually to start. And let me tell you what I did. And maybe some people get some mileage out of this. We started a group of people and we we had a local library in our neighborhood. What we did is, listen, would you be interested in if we donated our dissertations from different universities, from the people that we have in our group to start a special section in a library. And I loved it. Yeah. So we got about ten of us together. And we also could you give me your dissertation, you know, hardcover, what? You know, at the beginning we started a group and we have a special a special collection area and a library for dissertation. So people that want to read a dissertation and it’s cataloged in this catalog and a library system in Congress. And that’s just not something that, you know, the idea that I had I didn’t expect to do anybody else. I said, hey, I’m doing this. You want to do it with me? And I was surprised. A lot of people responded. So you get some mileage out of your dissertation doing it that way as well. And remember, that document stays there. Whether you die or you’re living, that’s a living document. Is there how you build your legacy? And that dissertation is going to stay at that library and it can’t be checked out. You can only look at it within the library, the library system or whatever. But yes, that’s what we did. And I think that’s the idea like that.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:22:40]
Now, tell me about what it was like to to finish this process up and graduate. What was what was that experience like for you defending your dissertation? I’m assuming they say congratulations, Dr. Miles, at the end, like they usually do. How did that process go for you?
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:22:57]
Didn’t go too smoothly of the the war stories here. All right, I have a chair. I actually had a problem on my school. I had a succession of three chairs. The first chair that I had was incompetent. She had no business being a dissertation chair. She was traveling outside of the country. And we would meet we’d be lucky if we met once a month or once every two months. Yeah. And we would sit me if she forgot what we had discussed the last time I did this for a year. And I said, you know what, this isn’t working. And I believe that she knew that I was getting frustrated. So she removed herself instead of me getting rid of our she removed herself. The next chair that I got…
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:23:41]
Was that mutual or did she just decide to do it herself? Did she talk to you about it?
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:23:46]
She decided about it came as a surprise because I was going to fire her. And you know what? I make it hard for the student to do that. And I believe she saw the writing on the wall, because here’s the thing. You know, you are doing anything I don’t have to tell you aren’t doing anything. We both know you were I should have been graduated a year before she graduated. Yeah, well, because of her, you remember when you’re a student, you’re you’re expending resources, right. You have to pay dissertation hours and somebody keeps you in purgatory for a year and a half, two years. That can be a problem.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:24:21]
Now, that same report is the that the tuition and some of some of our students, when they’re going to school, the tuition is high, very high. And they’re pulling some of them. They’re paying a reduced rate because they’re in dissertation now or some other paying full freight the whole time. Regardless as to that, the real money that you’re spending comes into two forms. It’s opportunity cost. So you’re not out there earning doctor money when you’re in school, being a doctoral student and that career that you’re going to be embarking on once you graduate is being pushed off. And that can be easily thirty, forty fifty thousand dollars a year, right, in the first few years that you’re talking about. And then the other thing is a frustration here, you know, the frustration of getting there with this thing on your shoulders for an extra year.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:25:12]
And what’s critical is that they don’t teach you this, obviously, when a doctor program to my doctor program, I have a small pool of people that can only share dissertations. OK, so you don’t have a whole lot of people to choose from. And if you get a bad chair, which this woman was, that could be a long day at the office. And I had to be proactive with mine because I said, why are we still here? I’m giving you ask me why are you I won’t let her sit on my chapters and not send them to me. I’ll be a phone call. She goes, Well, I’m still looking at us as well. It’s been about a month. That’s a long time. Well, yeah, you don’t rush as well that with all due respect, you know, you talk to your professor, you always start off with all due respect.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:25:57]
But you don’t know. I mean, it’s it’s something I want to get done so.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:26:01]
Right. Yeah. And and it was it was a best in my friend. She had the same chair that I did. She never graduated. And he kicked her out of school and they gave her master’s degree and they thought they were going to get sued by the university. And that’s what a bad chair does. That leaves out leaves a track record.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:26:20]
We understand that you’re kind of the chair of your dissertation committee, your chair of the secretary there administratively running things, but they’re not they’re not driving this process forward. That’s not some of the agree. Some of them are really dedicated. They want you to graduate, but a lot of them have a lot of other things. You are not their priority. So that’s got to take responsibility for yourself being proactive. Like you said, it’s a big deal. Now, I know a lot of universities these days are acting a little bit more businesslike. They actually have two week turnaround times for committee members to get papers back, folks, and that’s very helpful.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:26:59]
My school didn’t do that, and you probably graduated around the same time I did. Dr. Strickland, they kind of just did what they wanted to do. Like, yeah, they took a month to look at it. Well, so be it. You better not say anything to them. And that’s unfortunate because I think we ought to be held accountable for something.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:27:16]
Exactly right. Exactly. Right now, the worst story I’ve heard about this and I’m trying to remember where it came from. I think it was a faculty member that I that worked with told me the story. But he there was a student who turned in their paper for it to be read round the first part of the year, I think it was. And the professor went off to a conference and came back and it was getting to be around Valentine’s Day. And he said, so, OK, well, can we set up some time, maybe next week or two to talk about this paper? And the person said, well, spring break is coming up shortly. Let’s do something after spring break. Then there was another conference and then the professors like, well, I’m going to be gone for the summer. Let’s set something up. You know, just at the start of the of the school year, this is for a paper review that she had turned in basically at the beginning of the year. And the professors like to talk about it September. I mean, can you imagine, you imagine and that something happens in traditional university sometimes because quite honestly, the professors are bringing in a lot of money for these universities when they’re doing research and they’re going on publishing and presenting at conferences and all the things they do. Being a teacher, a mentor, a dissertation chair is is low on the priority list. For some of them. It’s not everybody, but certainly.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:28:37]
Oh, yeah, that happened to one of my friends. She was attacked, she talked to our chair once or twice a year. Yeah, and that’s that’s that’s not good cornbread, OK?
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:28:49]
Not a good way to do it. So. Absolutely. All right. So your chair was kind of dragging your feet a little bit, but you started setting expectations, which I think is excellent. I think that’s what everybody should do, is set those expectations that you mentioned choosing your chair. An important thing for students to consider is you need to be strategic as you’re going through this process and decide what are you trying to do? Why are you getting your doctoral degree in the first place? For a lot of people, it is that people that I work with, certainly it’s to to further their career is to have a doctoral degree. It’s not to get into the research community. If that’s the case, then you don’t need to spend a lot of time in the research community getting to know everybody publishing over and over again. Before you write your dissertation, you just need to get your dissertation done. Whether that’s you or not, you have to think about what your why is and what your why says about what your dissertation journey should look like, and then if you get to do things like pick your team, pick your chair, make sure you’re interviewing people to the extent that you can, or talking to other students about reputations where having somebody move things forward is important to you. Where you’re getting feedback on a timely basis is important to you. It might not be important to you if that’s not your goal, if your goal is to be in the research community, maybe spending three or four years with a superstar in the field is the right call for you because it’ll take you a long time to graduate. But then you’re set up for your career. You just have to know what your why is and make sure you’re acting strategically to move towards that at every step along the way.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:30:24]
Oh, yeah, when I started working with doctoral students, I was actually working with doctoral students before I graduated, and my friends would ask me how did I be successful in moving forward? And I said, when you look and taking your job, you should look at your chair like you do on a job. And if you need to look at what they’ve done, committee, the stuff they chair. Right. How many students graduate under tutelage? What do students say about them? What what type of what’s their background in their research? And, you know, you know, the Internet is the truth. It’ll tell you everything about that person. And that’s how you decide who will be a good share, will be a good fit for you. Now, some students, they have the antithesis of that. They want somebody this easy. Somebody is not going to give them a hard time. And, you know, just to get them on ahead and give them a gold star and then they wonder why their work a nothing, because that’s the downside of that. You want to do a good dissertation, but you don’t want to sacrifice it. Finding an easy chair, that’s not going to hold you accountable. Right. Not only do you have to do that for. You have to do that for the chair and the committee members. Now here’s the downside of that. You have committee members that don’t get. And you don’t they’re not going to tell you that that’s something you usually find out on the back end and so be it, you know, they should be professional. And the goal is to get you out of school, not because they know somebody didn’t make good cornbread, but somebody else remember the dissertation. And I sent this to you when we first met Dr. Strickland. The dissertation is 90 percent politics and 10 percent research. Believe it or not,.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:32:07]
I don’t know about those numbers, but the politics is important, and I will I’ll totally agree that when we talk about interviewing your your chair, if you pick your chair first, then you should consult with your chair on who should go on the committee, because making sure that folks work together, getting your chair’s feedback on how is this person about turning things around? How is this person about getting things approved? You know, once once you and I mean, you’re in your chair and you have agreed that it’s good enough, really kind of like the committee to say, OK, that’s fine, it’s OK if they have an expertise in something and they can help you make it a little bit better. That’s one thing. But if it’s their attitude that they have to put their two cents in all the time, that’s not necessarily productive. That’s just like you said about ego before. That’s them ego stroking, saying, hey, I know something. You need to put what I know in your paper, whether it belongs there or not.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:33:03]
I totally agree, I totally agree with that is the other part, when the chair and I’ve learned this from chairing students now a chair, can’t do everything. You can’t guide to student and be the editor and be the content expert. Right. You can’t do that. That’s why you have a committee. You let us know if you get the student through the dissertation. You could ask somebody else, the editor. Correct. You get to do the dissertation, say, hey, I think you should talk to Dr. Strickland. This is his area of expertise. Let him look at your chapters and see if there’s anything that’s missing. That’s the most functional way, how your committee should work. But you have chairs that have egos. Yes. Me and I and him. And I don’t like it. I’m not going to I’m not going to listen to anybody. And that’s not only a detriment to the committee, that’s a detriment to the student will.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:33:53]
So if if the egos get out of hand, you’re absolutely right. It becomes it becomes pathological. But you have to realize that all committee members have egos and that they’re going to ask you to do something to customize your dissertation for them. It’s important for students to realize that this dissertation, although you’re listed as the author. It’s really your committee’s dissertation when they like it, when they’re happy with it. That’s when you graduate. If you take this pride of ownership of your dissertation, to the extent that you don’t want to listen to them and accept their feedback and you’re intractable, then it’s going to be a long day at the office or many years to graduate.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:34:34]
So so that’s how students that are so brilliant that they can’t take direction. And yeah, I caught myself early almost like that. And you can’t you can’t help but know everything and you just can’t do that.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:34:48]
Exactly. You you know, you mentioned type A personalities before. And I think there’s a lot of those folks that go into doctoral degree programs. Part of what comes along with that as being a perfectionist. And you’ve got to let that go as quickly as you can. You know, A, the dissertation is going to get you to graduation and you might actually get it done at some point. But if you’re looking for like an A-plus dissertation. What, you’re not going to get any extra kudos, you’re not going to get any extra degrees, you’re not getting anything extra for that unless you’re going into the research space. If you want to be in academia, then writing a stellar dissertation that people are talking about will help you. It’ll help you get your next job. But if you’re going into a field where you know what you’re doing is something different, you’re helping people in business and industry, maybe counseling, doing public speaking. They’re not going to care about your dissertation. They’re going to care about what you can do in the quote unquote, real world.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:35:43]
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you obviously want to do a good dissertation. You don’t want to do something like the difficulties of basket weaving.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:35:53]
Well, yeah, that’s the thing is when sometimes people will come back to me, when I tell them that and say something like that, I want to do a good dissertation, like, listen, good enough, your university setting the bar up here, OK? They’re not going to drop it for you. They’re setting the bar for you. What was the problem? A lot of dissertation students. If you think about like the high jump in the Olympics, the guy who the all of them do it now is they run up to it and they jump over backwards and they kind of scrape their butt over the bar. It’s called the Fosbury Flop. I invented this in like nineteen sixty eight or something like that. I forgot what year it was, but the guy who invented it basically said I wasn’t a very good athlete. I couldn’t keep up with the kids on my college team and I wanted to go to the Olympics. So I had to do it differently than they were doing. And they were at the time, they were all jumping over for doing barrel rolls, getting style points. There’s no style points in that event. This is the bar. And so he jumped up and he I told you I had my initial background in physics. The way that you go over the bar when he does this, your center of mass actually goes under the bar. So literally, you don’t have to have enough strength in your in your legs to get you over the bar. You just contort your body so that initially it’s under the bar because your butt’s low, but your head’s up high. Eventually your head goes over and it starts to drop below the level. The bar, your feet are still below the level bar. You’re just get your butt over and your center of mass goes like two or three inches under the bar is the way it works, which I thought was really cool when I learned about that. But the point is interesting. It’s ugly, though, when people look at what you’re doing, they call it a flop, that’s literally what they call the thing. But those are the guys who had the world record right now, the guys who say, I know the bars up here and if I’m going to go over the bar, I got to scrape my butt over the bar. I’m not getting style points for not taking selfies over the bar. We’re just getting over the bar. And that’s what a lot of students said, that’s when I say perfectionism, that’s what I’m talking about. The bar is high, so don’t try to do extra, do what you need to do to graduate. And that’s that’ll I think that’ll serve you well if you understand that just having that doctoral degree title is very, very important and fighting with your committee about how perfect you can be about getting it. Nobody’s gonna remember that after they’re just going to last for 10 years instead of five years to graduate.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:38:16] Some people then you got the other side and Dr. Strickland at your committee, members on your chair upon you when you don’t listen. What do they make you do it? All the 30 times I’ve seen that you bought the 29th time, you figure out maybe I should listen. Yeah. You know, I could have an attitude and just listen and do what I’m told and, you know. Yes, sir. May I have another instead of you know, every day is a battle, you know? Right.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:38:42]
Yeah. That’s when I tell our students all the time, listen, when we get feedback, we’re going to go over it together and we’re going to figure out how to strategically address every single item that they that they brought up, whether it’s noting, hey, I said this over here, do I need to repeat it? And sometimes the answer is yes. But but by communicating with your community and always trying to respond to everything they ask you to do, you’re showing respect to your committee. And that might sound like some old Mafioso code or something like that. But listen, everybody wants to have that. I mean, if you’re in a position of authority to have somebody tip your cap a little bit, to say thank you. To say please. To say, sir. It gets you a long, long way. You know, I taught my kids about, you know, I will tell that in a customer service rep on the phone. Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. Even if I’m going to pick a fight with them. Because, you know, if you show respect, I mean, I don’t pick a fight with them usually because they can’t do anything about it. But you know what I mean. If you show respect to somebody, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them, it’s helpful. And you know the respect.
Dr. D. Anthony Miles [00:39:45]
I like that I was raised my dad was a strict disciplinarian and that’s why I was raised this way. Those Southern values, you say? Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. And if you don’t like something, you say, with all due respect, this is the way I see it or whatever and, you know, not show on your chair respect. That’s like that’s the beginning of the end. And because I have your future in our hands. Exactly right. I don’t understand how logic.
