Abusive Treatment of Graduate Students

Tue Apr 26 17:13:41 UTC 2005

To All Members of the Slavic And Eastern European Academic Community:

The purpose of this email is to alert you to the existence of a website
detailing the abuse of graduate students in the UCLA Department of Slavic
Languages and Literatures and the subsequent attempts by faculty members
and the UCLA Administration to minimize and cover up this abuse.  There
have long been whispers in the Slavic academic community in this country
concerning the treatment of graduate students in this particular program,
abuse which came to light officially in the 1999-2000 Eight-Year Review.
The situation had become so grave by the late 1990s that students were
actually taking it upon themselves to speak, off the record, with officials
of the UCLA Academic Administration, informing them of the conditions under
which they had been forced to pursue their studies in the UCLA Slavic
Department.  The UCLA Academic Administration encouraged these students to
use the upcoming review process to air their grievances and to bring about
change, and further guaranteed that these students would be provided
anonymity and protection from any retaliatory moves that might come from
the UCLA faculty.  This promise of protection was repeated several times
during the process, and in fact was featured prominently in the Eight-Year
Review report itself:

"It goes without saying that the willingness of numerous students to speak
with the review team (but not to be quoted) was critical in arriving at the
decision to take the above actions. Let it, therefore, be clearly
understood that the slightest indication of retaliation by faculty against
students will be aggressively investigated by the Graduate Council to
determine whether charges should be filed with the appropriate Senate
Committee for violations of the Faculty Code of Conduct, not only for
recent but also for any past offences."

Unfortunately, when the initial reports from the investigating committees,
reports that were extremely critical of the UCLA Slavic Department, were
made available to the Department itself, some of its faculty members
immediately began questioning graduate students in the Department as to
their role in the review.  Although the UCLA Academic Administration
initially directed the faculty of the Slavic Department to cease asking
such questions, this same Administration quickly backed down in the face of
threats by members of the Slavic Department faculty to challenge this
prohibition in court as an abridgement of their First Amendment rights.

This was the turning point in the process, and it quickly became clear that
not only were the faculty members of the Slavic Department willing to do or
say anything to deny the charges being leveled against them, but also that
the Academic Administration was going to renege on the promise made to
graduate students to the effect that they would be protected from
retaliation and interrogation at the hands of the Slavic Department
faculty.  Even more disturbing, it quickly became clear that the Academic
Administration was going to do whatever it took to protect the UCLA Slavic
Department.  The Eight-Year Review report was extremely critical of the
UCLA Slavic Department ("This level of graduate program dysfunction is
unprecedented in the collective experience of this review team...") and
recommended that the Department:

1. Be prohibited from admitting any more graduate students;

2. Be put into receivership.

Although the UCLA Academic Administration imposed a short ban on graduate
student admissions, it quickly relented and allowed the UCLA Slavic
Department to admit students for the next academic year.  The
Administration also refused to put the Slavic Department into receivership,
allowing the chairman of the Department to keep his position, this despite
the fact that he repeatedly lied during the investigation to UCLA's own
investigation team (documented repeatedly in the report itself) and despite
the fact that he actually broke the law by releasing to unauthorized third
parties the grades from the undergraduate transcript of the one student
(actually, a former student) who allowed her story to be told publicly.

At this point it became very clear that no real change in the system itself
was going to be initiated.  Not a single professor was ever disciplined or
terminated for his or her actions, and indeed, there was never even an
official investigation into the abuses themselves.  There was a follow up
review of the Department two years later in 2003, and two years after that
(2004-2005) there was yet another review, the third and final act in this
tragic-comedy, no doubt meant to provide the wider scholarly community with
the impression that the UCLA Slavic Department had risen like a phoenix
from the ashes, new, improved, and completely reformed.

The details of what went on during the first review and how the University
conspired to cover up and minimize the abuse uncovered by that review, are
to be found in the report located at the aforementioned website,
www.graduatestudentabuse.org.   It is a large report divided into eight
sections and includes narrative, commentary, original documentation,
letters, email communications, and publications. It is comprehensive and
detailed, and more documentation involving the abuse of graduate students
in that particular department is currently in preparation.  The purpose
behind making this information available to the public at large is not only
to expose what was happening in the UCLA Slavic Department, but even more
importantly, to expose the processes of minimalization and cover up
employed by the UCLA Academic Administration in its attempt to keep the
true conditions at the University from being made known to the public.

The past decade and a half has been a trying time for the field of Slavic
and Eastern European studies.  As the market for scholars in this field has
steadily shrunk, it has become that much more difficult to attract top
academic talent to enroll in our various graduate programs.  Those who
nevertheless do choose to take the chance and make the leap into this
uncertain field deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.  The type
of abuse that went on for years in the UCLA Slavic Department should have
no place in academe.   Such abuse, and the attempts by the University to
cover up this abuse and protect those faculty members who were guilty of
this abuse, only serve to harm the field of Slavic and East European
studies. Students in the UCLA Department of Slavic Languages and
Literatures at UCLA did everything in their power, as can be seen by
reading the report at the website mentioned above, to work within the
system to bring about change.  It was only when it became apparent that
this system was designed not to bring about real and substantive change,
but only superficial change intended to keep the system itself intact, that
no other choice was left but to go public.

Not every department at UCLA was as abusive towards its graduate students
as was the UCLA Slavic Department, and this report is not meant to suggest
that students should not enroll in graduate school at UCLA.  Graduate
students from the UCLA Slavic Department know very well that there are a
number of departments at UCLA that do indeed treat their students with the
respect and dignity commensurate with their status as scholars in
training.  And yet, the fact is, there are very real limits to which the
UCLA Academic Administration is willing (or even able) to go to protect
these students should they become victims of abusive behavior on the part
of faculty members.  Those of you who are considering doing graduate work
at UCLA would do well to know all the facts before making your decision.
If, after reading through this report, you still decide that UCLA is the
school for you, then at least you will have made this decision knowing
ahead of time what to expect in terms of options should you yourself run
into the same type of behavior which for years characterized the UCLA
Slavic Department.  Likewise, those of you who are in a position to advise
and recommend graduate students should also be aware of what is happening
here at UCLA, both in the Slavic Department itself and with regard to the
Academic Administration and its attitudes towards protecting graduate
students (all graduate students, not just Slavic graduate students) who
choose to pursue their studies here.

Abusive behavior by those higher in the academic hierarchy towards those
lower in the hierarchy is hardly an unknown phenomenon within the world of
academe.  This abuse can take many forms, as it did in the UCLA Slavic
Department, but the one thing that most instances of abuse have in common
is that the abuse itself can only flourish in the dark.  When the light of
day finally shines on such abuses, and when those involved in the system
demand transparency instead of secrecy, it is at this point that such
abusive behavior and misconduct can be exposed and eliminated, and it is
indeed for this reason that this report was compiled and posted publicly.

There will be those who decry efforts such as this, claiming that abusive
behavior on the part of professors towards graduate students has always
been a part of higher education, and always will be.  It is possible that
they are right.  But if change is ever going to come about, it will not be
because people stood by and looked on silently as this abuse was being
meted out to graduate students.  If change is going to come, it will be
because people who are in the know find the courage to stand up and make it
known to the larger scholarly community and to the public at large just
what exactly is going on behind the benign scholarly façade presented by
the University.  It may or may not be the case that exposés such as this
one will succeed in preventing the abusive treatment of graduate students
in the future.  What an exposé like this one will do, however, is make
clear to those who perpetrate such abuse that there is no longer any
guarantee that they will be able to continue to do so in the dark and
without others knowing of their conduct.

www.graduatestudentabuse.org

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