Dr. Fowler would not help me prepare for the oral qualifying exam, and then my graduate advisor barred me from registering until I passed the oral exam; meaning, if I did not pass the exam, I would be automatically expelled. I brought all my Army medical records to the Office of Students with Disabilities to ask for assistance. I was at the time rated for schizophrenia. They said I had to submit a written statement.
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Office of Disabled Students University of Texas
Austin, Texas
To whom it may concern:
I claim neglect by the Aerospace (ASE) Department, as evidenced by the following actions, which are in violation of the Department’s own written rules:
- No advise on Thesis course
- No advise on Research classes taken in conjunction with Thesis courses – the Department guidelines say to take these research classes to do extra research associated with the Thesis.
- Students are instructed to write their name and advisor’s name on a 3×5 card and tape this to their desk so their desk is not reassigned at the beginning of a Dr. Bishop re-assigned my desk, which was properly labeled, twice – the second time he bad the desk, with the label still on it, removed to the main 4th floor hallway.
- There is no limitation how long students can take to take the oral qualifying exam after passing the written qualifying My Graduate Advisor, Dr. Hull, is making me take this oral exam before the beginning of classes in the spring semester. There are current grad students who have taken over a year; I know one student who took over two years. If Dr. Hull is claiming that there is a new limit on taking oral exams, then it doesn’t apply to me anyway because I entered the program under the same catalog by which the aforementioned students were granted over a year’s time.
- When I asked for additional time to get some of my research evaluated so I would know exactly who to ask to be on my dissertation committee, Hull placed a bar on my registering for the spring semester. This puts my financial aid and scholarships in jeopardy, as I will not be registered when they make their determination over the holidays.
- When I asked for an extra week beyond his deadline because I was having trouble coordinating the schedules of the professors for the exam, Dr. Hull told me to schedule it sooner in case one of the professors had a last minute deadline; he implied that it was not successful in making the arrangements I would be out of the program.
- I am discouraged from giving a presentation in November at a mathematics conference in North Carolina on some of my This is not considered grounds for having the deadline extended on taking the oral qualifying exam. Whereas the aforementioned grad student was given over two years to take this exam because she was romantically involved and got married.
I have complained about all of the above to Dr. Terry Kahn and others at the Graduate College. They have discussed the situation with Dr. Hull and evidently support his position in all of this.
Clark- 2
When I met with Dr. Hull three weeks ago, particularly to talk about the problems I had with my previous advisor, Dr. Roger Broucke, in getting my research evaluated, Dr. Hull said I was the one to blame because:
- I should have told Hull I was having problems with Dr. Broucke; I did tell him, on many occasions. At one point, when I was a staff columnist on the Daily Texan last fali I went on a “sick out” – boycotting classes that whole semester until somebody evaluated my research. During this period I complained to Dr.s Hull and Dolling, the Graduate College, the Dean of Engineering, the President of the University, and even Dr. Klein on the Board of Regents. Nobody ever took any action. It wasn’t until a brand new professor, Dr. Ocampo, in the Department asked me to do a formal presentation of my research at a Department seminar last November, that I went off of this boycott. Evidently Dr. Ocampo was informed of the “party line” over the holidays, however. Whereas after the seminar he was anxious to be my advisor and to read the draft Thesis I had written on what I had said at that seminar; when I went to him the following spring, he said he no longer wanted to be my advisor. This, despite the fact that his specialty is trajectory optimimtion – exactly what all my research is about. (you can find about half the research I have done on the web at http://www.inviticus.com)
- I should have complained to the Department Graduate Studies Committee; I did complain on many occasions to Dolling the Chair of our Department and head of the GSC. At no point did either Dr. Hull or Dr. Dolling tell me I could, or should, go directly to the GSC for resolution of the problems I was having. I did not even know it existed for such things.
- I should have found a new research project, because obviously my advisors were not interested in my work and I was wrong to expect them to critique or help That is not correct; I did just what Dr. Broucke told me to do, and kept him informed of my progress until he retired this past summer and said he would have no more graduate students. Similarly, Dr. Fowler my new advisor said he liked me work- he should, it’s a direct extension of his own dissertation on interplanetary trajectories.
- I should have gotten the message, and stopped trying to get people in the department interested in my work because it is obviously That is not correct either because I have had several papers accepted at conferences, many good comments from people around the country in industry and research; several of these people have agreed to be on my dissertation committee to help me further this research. They would not do this if they though my work completely invalid. Nor would the ASE Department itself have arranged for me to present my research at a formal seminar last November.
Clark- 3
I can think of a few possible reasons why all this may have happened:
- ASE Department policy is to help students on research only after they pass their qualifying exams. Apparently even my Thesis research was beyond the normal level of research work in this field; thus they could offer no comments.
- If my research is beyond the normal level of Thesis work, so they cannot say it’s any good because they would get into trouble for allowing a graduate student to do unsupervised research, which is against Department policy.
- The 99 hour rule works great to motivate students to complete graduate school quickly, but there are no incentives for professors to participate in this process. Graduate students are in the fast lane, while professors are still in the old system.
- I have managed to optimize one of the most complex non-linear problems without using any traditional ation methods; so not even Dr. Hull, whose specialty is nonlinear optimiz.ation, will show an interest in my work. Whereas I have three national experts in optimiz.ation asking to be on my dissertation committee, one of whom is the Dean of Engineering at Northwestern.
- My work also competes with another standard method in orbital mechanics, called the “genetic algorithm” approach. This is favored by most people in orbital mechanics, and they resist any new methods.
- It is well known that all the professors in the Department hate Dr. Broucke, and so they hate me because I have been his student. I might even go so far as to say this hatred was transferred to me after Dr. Broucke retired two years Coincidentally Dr. Broucke is disabled, as am I.
- Broucke was the last expert in Celestial Mechanics at the University; I was his last graduate student. Orbital mechanics people don’t much like CM, because it has the potential of outdating accepted methods as told in items #4 and #5 above. CM is to aerospace like the IRS is to business; they don’t like having us around.
I have no idea if any or all of the above notions are correct. I just know that I have done what is expected ofme in the Research and Thesis classes I have signed up for, and that the Department has done bad things to me because I have been assertive in asking them to carry out their end of the deal. In particular, I think the idea of barring from registration a student who is in otherwise good standing (I have passed all the courses required for aPh.D with a GPA of3.7, and I passed my written qualifying exams this past summer) is unethical and unprofessional if not illegal. To claim that I am not a good student or that I have nothing to show for all the Reseach and Thesis classes I have signed up for is not supported by the mets. To use this premise as reason to force me to take the oral qualifying exam before I am ready and prepared is not right either.
William H. Clark II, P.E.
