Chronicle: Summer 2005--Spring 2006

Chronicle: Summer 2005--Spring 2006
(Please see Correspondences from Summer 2005 to Spring 2006)

Zihui Tang

On May 26, 2005: I reported to Professor Edward Balleisen, Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) in History Department, on the exploitation, humiliation, discrimination, and lack of academic support and professional training I had been suffering from working with my former advisor Sucheta Mazumdar over past two years.

After the meeting the DGS came up with three options for the solution to my complaint: the first option was to search another advisor; the second one was to write two research papers and to end up my program study here with a master degree; the third was to continue to work with Professor Mazumdar, which both of us thought not feasible.

Following the meeting, I also wrote to Chair of History Department, Professor Sarah Deutsch, requesting an emergent talk about my situation.

On May 27, 2005: Professor Deutsch said in her reply “it’s unlikely I would be able to do anything the DGS cannot do, and quite likely I would be less able to do something.”
On May 29, 2005: I wrote to the DGS as a response to his solution and expressed my slim preference to the second option considering all difficulties and limited available options.
On June 3, 2005: I had a meeting with the DGS and Professor Alex Roland, Associate Chair of History Department, at which they put forth a probationary period to me as a solution. They would set up some requirements for me to fulfill in ten months in order to continue my doctoral program, which seemed a revised version of the first option.

With the hope of completing my doctoral program, I waited for their final official decision and in the meanwhile, wrote a term paper as the department suggested to remove “Incomplete” Professor Mazumdar had put on one of my courses.

On June 27, 2005: The DGS put in my mailbox a written solution which made many negative comments on my academic performance and turned out to be a punishment to my complaint. I disagreed with the official document; in addition, they never mentioned Professor Mazumdar’s misconducts. As the result, I requested a meeting with the department

On June 29, 2005: I had a meeting with the DGS and Professor Roland, at which I told them the probationary letter with discriminatory evaluations and impossible tasks within the limited time was unfair; it was not a solution but a punishment.

On June 30, 2005: I reported my complaint against Professor Mazumdar to the Graduate School; Dr. DeNeef, Associate Dean of Graduate School, listened carefully to my story for over one hour and assured me that he would talk with the people in History Department.

On July 5, 2005: I filed a written petition with all the emails and other relevant documents to Dean DeNeef as a follow-up to our meeting; Dean DeNeef confirmed with me that he received my dossier.

On July 15, 2005: I put the hardcopy of my term paper in the mailboxes of both Professor Mazumdar and Professor Roland as the department suggested on June 27.

On Aug.1, 2005: Dean DeNeef sent to me the opinion of Graduate School on my case. He commented,”I can certainly appreciate how the difficult relations between you and Professor Mazumdar have adversely affected your work in the doctoral program thus far.” He further said, “I and Professor Roland hope that you can concentrate on constituting a new faculty committee with a new dissertation advisor.”

From July, 2005 to December 24, 2005

In order to complete my doctoral program in the Department of History, I began to contact professors inside and outside Duke University to constitute a new advising committee. In the entire fall semester of 2005, I contacted 17 professors via emails and spoke to 12 of them including 9 in History Department, after overcoming numerous obstacles. In order to convince one of the professors, the Chinese-American professor I mentioned in my second complaint, to serve on my committee, I registered his class and found that he shared the same interests of research as my dissertation project. Unfortunately, Professor Roland, who is Chair of my committee and also supervises my constituting, indicated his reluctance to have this professor as my advisor in Chinese history; he showed his preference to Professor Jonathan Ocko from NC State University who didn’t respond to my request on his possibility of being my advisor at that time. Professor Roland also told me that I must have three committee members from the History Department of Duke University. During the process of waiting for Professor Ocko’s response, Professor Roland once suggested that I seek the opportunity of transferring to other American universities. Following his suggestion, I wrote to two professors at Cornell University; they encouraged me to apply for their program the following year. Yet, good signs showed up in the end of the year: two professors in my department eventually agreed to be on my committee; Professor Roland also told me that Professor Ocko would be on committee too.
I registered two courses in fall semester of 2005, and got A and A- for the courses.

Here I would like to highlight the following points:

Professor Mazumdar was the only faculty in the field of Chinese History, and the History department couldn’t afford losing her, at least at that time. Even after some undergraduate students wrote about her ignorance of academic freedom at Chronicle (Jan.25, 2005), the department still kept silent. After I reported to the department her manipulation of our relationship by unequal power and the perpetration of emotional abuse, the department protected her by imposing on me an unfair probationary period.

The Department insisted on my seeking three faculty members from within the department, which only served to obstruct my successfully constituting new advising committee under the circumstances at the time. During the summer of 2005, most of faculty members already knew my story. It’s almost impossible for them to agree to be on my committee. Please also be advised that Professor Mazumdar is the only professor in my academic field, and other faculty members have totally different interests of research from my project.

During the whole negotiation process, I didn’t see any sign that my academic pursuit and the professional training I deserve were taken into account by the department while they sought a solution to my complaint. All that the department had done was not to facilitate my future academic pursuit but to enhance its demanding requirements and to squeeze out opportunity for my study until lastly discontinued my program in a seemingly reasonable way.

On Jan. 11, 2006: I had the first and only meeting with my new faculty committee at which only Professor Roland and Professor Ocko attended. As far as other two committee members were concerned, one was not notified according to Professor Roland’s suggestion; the other never responded to my emails.

We agreed: i. I submit to Professor Ocko a short pre-dissertation research;
ii. My major is Modern Chinese History; my other minors are International Business History and American History from the Gilded Age to WWII. I’ll work out three reading lists and submit them to the committee members in order to prepare for my future preliminary exams.
iii. My preliminary exams are scheduled to September of 2006.
iv. I will have a one-month research trip from mid June to mid July in 2006 to collect primary materials for my prospectus research and prepare for the prospectus defense in October.

In conversation to Professor Roland, I agreed to submit a Master’s thesis on Chinese Women Studies to the committee this semester.

On Jan.17, 2006: I sent to Professor Ocko my writing of pre-dissertation research as I agreed at the meeting. (After one month, Professor Ocko sent me his feedback on my research, exactly on Feb.18)

On Jan. 23, 2006: I sent to APSI my application materials for a research grant related to my future dissertation project.

On Jan.24, 2006: I finished up my first reading list about Modern Chinese History and submitted it to Professor Ocko and Professor Roland.

On Jan. 25, 2006: I began to work as a TA for HST 126D American Dreams/Realities which was assigned by the department.

I contacted two other committee members Robert Korstad and John Richards about my work; neither of them responded to my emails.

On Jan.31, 2006: I sent to Professor Korstad my reading list about American History from the Gilded Age to WWII for his advice (no feedback).

On Feb.6, 2006: I sent my reading list about International Business History to Professor Richards for his advice (no feedback).

On Feb.16, 2006: APSI notified me that I received the maximum award from them to support my research trip.

From Mid February on, I began to prepare for the Master’s thesis on Chinese Women Studies and to collect materials for my forthcoming preliminary exams.

On Mar.20, 2006: I submitted my revised pre-dissertation research work to Professor Ocko in response to his advice in his last email. I never received feedback on this research work since then.

On April 15, 2006: At the meeting with Professor Roland, I told him that I needed some time to modify my Master’s thesis given that I had such a tight schedule in the spring semester. I also mentioned to him that no committee members had given me feedback on my research despite that I had tired hard to contact them. Professor Roland pulled out the probationary letter from his drawer and said it was my responsibility to meet the requirements set in the probationary letter.

On April 30, 2006: I submitted my 70-page thesis to Professor Roland as the probationary letter required, despite tight schedule they set for my case from the very beginning, and absence of academic advice on this Master’s project.

On May 16, 2006: I wrote to Professor Roland for the feedback on my thesis.

On May 17, 2006: Professor Roland replied to me that “… I hope to get back to you with a response from all of us next week.”

I continued to prepare for prelims and began to plan the research trip to China as Professor Roland and Ocko required at the beginning of the semester.

From May 17 to June 26: No feedback ever came to me from the committee.

In the afternoon of June 26: I contacted the DGS Assistant for the documents I need to reapply for my visa because of the research trip.

June 27, 2006: I went to the DGS Assistant’s office for the documents. The assistant excused herself out for a while and came in unexpectedly with the new DGS of History Department, Professor John Thompson, who announced to me the department’s final decision of discontinuing my study in an overwhelming and arrogant way.

Here I would like to highlight one coincidence:

At my first and only committee meeting on Jan.11, 2006, we agreed that I should make a research trip to China in mid June to collect necessary materials for my dissertation prospectus. In an email I sent to Professor Roland in early March, I told him that I would delay my research trip to late June because of my hectic schedule. During the semester, I mentioned to Professor Roland my trip to China in late June a few times. On June 27, when the DGS announced to me the final decision of the department, he said Professor Roland left for a long academic trip that morning right after sending him the comments on my thesis as well as the decision of discontinuing my program. If it’s the truth, the timing of Professor Roland’s feedback is very interesting. He picked up a time that I should have gone back to China according to my original itinerary, to send out his feedback and decision after the silence of almost two months. The intention has to be obvious: once I go back to China, it will be virtually impossible for me to come back and fight for my student rights since my program has been officially discontinued (I will fail to reapply for my visa without necessary paperwork). What the History Department didn’t know is I had to reschedule my flight to July because of the unavailability of air ticket and didn’t get opportunity to report to Professor Roland. Another unexpected thing to me is, after I brought up the issue to the Graduate School and the Office of Duke President, Professor Roland sent me an email on June 30 in which he said he would be available for a talk.