CORRUPTING HIGHER EDUCATION

In the Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, corruption is defined as “dishonest or illegal behaviour”. To be corrupt means “willing to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain”. Willingness means to act in defence of dishonest behaviour. The desire for personal gain can be fed by jealousies or animosity towards another, which is in and of itself wrong, but corrupt behaviour would be considered to be a character flaw.

A normal assumption to make, when a student is accepted into a doctoral program, is that the school is committed to training students to become career academics. Naturally, the training would involve directing the PhD thesis at each stage of the program towards meeting the standards of the university so that the student advances towards candidacy. The incentive for universities to ensure students succeed through the PhD program is to prove their training capacities, which is evidenced by students’ publications once they have achieved the status of academic.

The assumption that the academic training institutions will respect and create a positive and productive learning environment is normal if not mandated. The Auckland University student charter makes known that it has “a special responsibility to foster and preserve scholarly values; support the search for truth and curiosity-led investigation; maintain intellectual integrity; encourage critical appraisal; and to nurture these values in their students” (1.1). The Charter further acknowledges that it holds the university accountable for “providing (sic) an academic environment in which students can be stimulated to reach a high level of intellectual attainment” (2.5) These standards have not been fulfilled with respect to my case. Rather, the feedback on my written work has ranged from suggesting that I write to the level of a 12 year old in light of the complexity of resilience theory to adding extraneous information to the research proposal that is better left expounded in the literature review chapter, to failing to understand the manageability of my research. Doing field observations of the food systems to two composite cities (small ones), coupled with collecting survey and interview data, over a period of six to eight months is more than manageable, and is certainly do-able. In addition, I have been discouraged from using resilience theory in my study rather than being encouraged and supporting my research interest in resilient food systems even after I had explained the importance of this study and the need to it in Bukidnon Province, an agricultural centre of the Philippines.

The lack of encouragement has been made worse by the veiled threats of failure in my provisional year despite the progress I have made in my thesis. As I told one supervisor, I have exceeded the minimal requirements (the literature review and a full research proposal) in the provisional year. My achievements have included these two milestones as well as the background and methodology chapters, and survey and interview questions. I have also developed my itinerary for my fieldwork as well as the table of contents, complete with summaries about the content of the remaining chapters. Essentially, I have completed almost fifty percent of my PhD thesis; the remaining chapters can be written only after I complete the fieldwork. This second stage of my thesis, primary data collection, meets the originality requirement expected of all PhD theses. As so, the fieldwork becomes inevitable and cannot be avoided. My doctorate work (under "Camille Tuason Mata's Projects") speaks for itself.

In a phone call, upon learning about my situation, one European professor opined that “they (my committee, possibly the university) are taking advantage of you”. Another professor, from Canada, upon hearing my concerns regarding the conduct of key university personnel, expressed the view that they were bullying me. I concur with him. One committee member displayed a lack of confidence in my ability to do the fieldwork, who expressed in August (2013) that he will not release me for the fieldwork if I was not clear on the methodology and research objective. Since he made that statement to me, I have made both clear and have elucidated both in the research proposal, but I still have not been cleared for the fieldwork. Yet, the Student Charter makes explicit the importance of “providing (sic) an environment free from harassment and discrimination, consistent with the Human Rights Act 1993 and University’s Harassment Policy” (2.10).

As anyone interested in succeeding in the provisional year would do, especially in light of the expensive costs of studying, I approached the student advocacy office. Apart from the e-mail from one advocate informing me of the breaches in policy of one supervisor’s attitude, I have not been aided adequately. I have requested new supervisors, but the graduate centre has ignored these requests. I have also sought help from entities outside of the university, such as the different Citizens Advice Bureaus, and contacted attorney offices that can refer me to lawyers, who can advise me properly. I have spent time seeking out legal advice because the entities at Auckland responsible for ensuring that student rights are respected and “endeavour to act in the best interests of students through wide consultation” (3.1), but with little help in referring me to anyone who may know education law. I have not had a lot of success either from the Head of School, who has not acted in the interest of my academic success.

What is the incentive to create obstacles for me? Returning to the Oxford Dictionary, corrupt conduct for personal gain can also be fuelled by racist sentiments towards a group or individual perceived as not belonging, and can manifest in the misuse or abuse of power. One legal advisor at one of the Citizens Advice Bureaus even informed me that retaliation may be part of the system. Failing to hold systems accountable for corrupt behaviour can acculturate corruption into social systems, making it a normal feature of everyday operations. This appears to be the situation at Auckland, evidenced in the circuitousness and sluggishness of the pace of feedback, and the failure to give me the proper representation and advocacy I need.

AN AFTERNOON IN MANGERE

               Today, I digress from my disclosures about the problems at Massey and Auckland Uni, thoughts which have troubled and preoccupied my mind all throughout the 16 months of my doctorate life in New Zealand, to focus on more pleasant experiences. This technique, one I have perfected throughout my life, allows me to dissociate from those individuals obsessed with creating problems in my endeavours so that I can gain some perspective. It is also a technique that recharges my batteries after battling with ineffective systems, accurately characterized by sluggish, do-nothing bureaucracies that have failed to respond to breaches of academic policies.

            This week, as I have done every week since arriving in New Zealand in 2012, I consciously took a detour to be in the company of someone who calms me. I spent an afternoon in a Mangere neighborhood, where I became acquainted with my new-found friend’s guard dogs, nibbled on pastries purchased at a bakery in my neighbourhood, and sipped Turkish coffee made with a press. I learned that the right equipment is absolutely essential to brewing Turkish coffee just to get the right rich flavour out of it. In between, we chatted amiably about odds and ends, his family history, land troubles, New Zealand settler history, took a brief walk to the Massey homestead, a massive Victorian house bequeathed to the Auckland Council, and about being rooted in the North Island. He, an aspiring writer, is attempting to chronicle the burdens of protecting lands owned by his Maori half in order to reveal the betrayals bestowed on his kin by the Pakeha government. That afternoon, though, we barely talked about his book project, preferring instead to putter around in his yard, pulling out weeds from his garden patches. He pointed out edibles and ornamentals to me, and encouraged me to taste the leaves of plants for identification. His face, stern, was deep in concentration as he flicked unwanted weeds to the side.

            Mangere, as with Otara and Otahuhu, are Auckland’s Pacific Island communities. Like the neighborhood patterns of segregation in the US, these three districts are inhabited by a population of low-income families. Violence and vagrancy also partially define these neighbourhoods, but are not as obvious as in America’s inner cities. In comparison, Mangere, Otara, and Otahuhu are relatively clean and maintained, hiding the poverty of the families there.

            In between exuberant bursts of energy I devote to revising and re-writing my thesis (which is all I’m doing on it, these days), I like to search for inspirations in books and around the community made accessible to me. This day was no different. After I departed my friend’s home, I trekked the long walk to Burswood through now-familiar streets. After four days of making appointments at the public library, the smells of feijoa and Chilean guava trees have become familiar. On this day, I was eager to view the Highbrook Reservation Park, a nice respite before the landscape merges with the industrial, commercial section of this district. I stopped at the bridge, which crosses the lagoon, where locals seem to like to fish. If I’m lucky, I catch glimpses of the lagoon’s inhabitants when they fly into the air, their precise form veiled by sprays of water as they leap into the air and reenter. A barely audible splat and concentric ringlets signify their submergence into the lagoon’s depths.

            In the later afternoon, still hours before my evening run, I finish off Amanda Knox’s memoir and then slide into John Zilkiowski’s story about creating educational opportunities for youth in inner-city America and in developing countries. I find strength in the courage and tenacity of both protagonists. These digressions, with which I consciously pepper lazy hours in between those spent on my thesis, maintain my sanity and keep my chakra balanced.

            The slight chill in my bedroom reminds me that autumn is just around the corner. I interrupt my reading to brew another cup of coffee. Easy motions allow me to reminisce about another place representing serenity. Although I can’t see these views of another lagoon along the Pakuranga-Panmure from the kitchen patio door, they are attainable on foot from my neighborhood. No one can ever deny that the New Zealand landscape is quite plausibly unmatched by any other place.

An inlet separating Pakuranga from Panmure

The beginning of the path which winds along the edge of this lagoon

Lots of sailboats moored

Wooden bridge allowing pedestrians to cross the sandbars

A view of the lagoon from the bridge

More sailboats

This path has these tiny houses facing the lagoon

A shady spot along this winding path

Low tide

Nearing Tamaki Bay Road, this view shows the distance of this walking path

Another beach bather's house

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION (PART 2)

Once I was re-accepted as a transfer student at the University of Auckland, I thought I could leave all the problems I encountered at Massey where they belonged (at Massey) and resume my studies seamlessly without more interruptions. There were two reasons for this thinking. My application went forward smoothly after confirmation by the Graduate Centre that I had completed draft chapters while studying at Massey for seven months and intended to bring my research with me. As I was self-funded, there was no question over who owned the copyright of my PhD thesis chapters. After signing a legal declaration in front of a lawyer (my witness) confirming that I had indeed written and completed the chapters I claimed to have written and submitting this legal document to the Graduate Centre, I was asked to send the admissions committee another set of official transcripts (which cost another USD $90.00 or so) directly from my alma maters. Massey was among these institutions, although I had not graduated from there. Some weeks later, Auckland accepted me, again. In the process of moving my records to Auckland, I saw no signs of problems to come.

Another reason for feeling that the transition would be smooth and uncluttered is because of Auckland’s high international ranking. The university rates itself as being globally competitive in terms of educational quality and says as much in the billboard ads they put up around the city and in the marketing language on their Facebook page. My understanding of world ranked universities are shaped by schools like UC Berkeley, U of Hawaii, and the Ivy leagues, whose professors publish prolifically, present papers regularly at conferences, and receive positive ratings from students for their teaching abilities. The University of Wollongong would also belong in this ranking for the same reasons. I assumed the quality of education and the academic staff at Auckland would be of the same high quality. At the doctorate level, the knowledge of professors is extremely critical to advancing and honing the knowledge of students in research development and analytical thinking. The schools mentioned have demonstrated through the academic work and commitment of the staff and therefore the universities to advancing disciplinary knowledge and to training doctorate students. I thought Auckland professors and academic staff were similarly committed to providing quality education to doctorate students.

Only after I had fully committed to Auckland, which was signified by the transfer of my federal loan records to the financial aid representative to Auckland and the submission of a formal declaration, signed by me, of my intention to enrol on 1 July 2013, did I begin to see red flags. The first sprung up when the graduate advisor assigned to me declared “there’s no such thing as a transfer student at Auckland” (26^th June, 2013). I knew this to be untrue as I knew that transfer students were accepted at the discretion of the Board of Graduate Studies as per the University of Auckland statutes. At the Board’s discretion, I was accepted. Moreover, the Graduate Centre had sought confirmation of my academic work (in progress) completed at Massey, which they included as part of my application.

Another red flag surfaced at the first meeting with my committee with respect to a comment that sounded like a “conflict of interest”. This committee member wanted to know what had transpired at Massey, a question I found to be inappropriate considering I did not transfer to Auckland to discuss my experiences at Massey. If anything, we (the committee and I) should have discussed my goals for the upcoming year. Starting this meeting with this more pertinent discussion would have been productive, especially since I had already made considerable progress in my PhD program in the seven months I was at Massey. It occurred to me then that this committee member was the person to whom my former Massey supervisor referred when she declared to me that “she knew him” at the final meeting with her on (roughly) 15 May, 2013. At the time, I didn’t realize that this former supervisor had a wide professional network or that she may have a group of allies, who were prepared to defend her conduct regardless of how wrong they were (although another doctorate student at Massey HAD informed me before I left that this woman – my former supervisor - knew a lot of people). A more professional individual would have made it known to this former supervisor that he couldn’t have any conversations with her about me, as he is on my PhD committee and is considered by the University of Auckland statutes to be a compromising situation for me if he allowed her to influence him in any way. Objective assessment is honoured by Auckland as disclosed in, again, the statutes governing academic conduct with respect to students.

My concern about conflict of interest forced me to turn, as I had done at Massey, to the Head of School of the School of Architecture and Planning in October 2013. I explained that I wanted my final years to go smoothly, as my only reason for applying to New Zealand universities was to complete the requirements for the PhD to the standard expected by the university. Unfortunately, instead of receiving support and agreement from this Head of Schhol that my goals and focus were consistent with the expectations of Auckland University, she instead accused me of not having completed any of the requirements of my provisional year (e.g. DELNA English test, academic integrity modules, the research proposal). Clearly, these accusations were untrue – I had completed all within three months (by October 1, 2013) of enrolling (on 1 July, 2013) at Auckland. Moreover, she claimed that I didn’t have all the qualifications I claimed to have. She then presented me with a form that demonstrated an incomplete list of university of qualifications. Only one of four university qualifications was listed on the form. Her comments led me to suspect that this person was more than acquainted with my former supervisor at Massey, and had chosen to align herself with her professional connection rather than enforcing the university policies assuring objectivity.

I began to feel as if I was being shoved into a power game, with my PhD committee and the Head of School at the helm. This power play was also beginning to characterize my relationship with the academic and administrative staff. This former supervisor seemed to have the power to influence not just my committee member and the Head of School, but other academic staff at Auckland, evidenced by the false claims about my qualifications, the delays in the progress of my research proposal, but also in the failure to correctly interpret and enforce university policies. For instance, I had been informed that I had to be at Auckland unequivocally for another three years, forcing me to reaffirm the policies regarding the provisional year of the PhD program. In November 2013, I was able to confirm with a managerial employee at the international students office, it IS possible to not only apply my graduate work started at Massey towards my current, provisional year at Auckland, but it is also possible to leave for my fieldwork in the provisional year, make changes to the provisional year in light of my transfer status, and apply to submit my PhD thesis in two years time, all of which would allow me to still complete my PhD in three years. This is preferred by me, as any doctorate student borrowing money to complete their program would understand. Obvious to anyone, another year would force me to borrow money unnecessarily for another year, increasing my debt to another USD $20,500, a personal hardship.

When the feedback on my research proposal began to also stymie my PhD progress, I felt that familiar sinking feeling in my stomach and the need to vomit. The nature of the feedback to contents of my research proposal was simply peculiar. The comments pertained to explanations in the methodology, the literature review, and the background chapters, which I had been accused of not including, but upon reading were obviously scribed in the relevant sections of the research proposal. Then, even after reviewing the proposal contents, and informing my PhD committee member of the presence of these missing elements, he would return it to me with the same requests. This unproductive communication back and forth went on for five months, and had caused considerable delay in my provisional year. Keep in mind that Auckland only requires that provisional year students submit a formal research proposal and a completed literature review chapter draft. In my case, I had done more, having completed both of these documents as well as the methodology and the background chapters. These finished draft chapters exceed the expectations from doctorate students, so the delay is perplexing.

There were other consequences to me, but not to the academic staff. Delays forced me to miss the deadline for the AAUW scholarship awarded to American doctorate students matriculated at international universities in the final writing year of the PhD. If I had been able to apply, receiving the scholarship would have offset the cost of financing the final year. With my publications and my expedient progress, I felt I had a good chance. Delays have also pushed my departure back by more than two months  and could result in additional financial burdens. 

The demonstrated lack of understanding of the policies at the University of Auckland by academic and administrative staff, coupled with what I have begun to perceive as a power game being played by these same people at my expense, forces questions about the job descriptions of university staff and the mission statement of the university. What is the purpose of Auckland with respect to accepting and agreeing to train research students? What is a reasonable expectation from doctorate students regarding the integrity of the conduct of academic and professional staff at the university with respect to students’ academic progress? If students are expected to test and obtain a score of 100% on the required academic integrity modules, shouldn’t academic and professional staff do the same? Shouldn’t this outcome, then, be demonstrated in their performance on the job in the way that doctorate students are expected to perform at an acceptable level in their doctorate program? Shouldn’t there also be reasonable protection for doctorate students from being targeted by professors, who are violating integrity standards?

So far, I have yet to see a person in authority create a buffer around me (a tuition-paying student) to protect me against the personal attacks from this former Massey supervisor and those whom I have perceived to be her allies. (In a future blog, I’ll describe just how criminal her conduct had become). How can a mere lecturer (senior or otherwise) have such absolute power in an educational system, where the people are expected to ensure that student progress is made? Aren’t universities solely in the business of education and research? Shouldn’t politics be left to the politicians?

Unfortunately, I have not seen Auckland conduct itself as a world-ranked university, contrary to the way it markets its image. Is it a learning institution or one established to simply employ people?

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION EXPERIENCE (PART I)

          The decision to embark on a PhD program requires some thought, in which the pros and cons of taking on yet another higher education qualification are weighed. Foremost among these considerations is the cost of doing so. Certainly, the competition for these funds is high because there are more qualified students than there are funds available. Moreover, many of the scholarships are restricted to studying particular subjects, a fact that merely increases the competition for any one scholarship. As in my case, my publications were not considered by the universities and the New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarship to be strong enough reasons to warrant being given a scholarship. Therefore, I relied again on the US Federal Loans to finance my first year, after which I had anticipated continuing to look for other scholarships.

            Regardless of how one finances the PhD education, it is an investment in terms of time and effort, which can be draining - if not discouraging - if the supervisors involved in the student’s progress do not have the requisite qualifications or, more importantly, the educational philosophy to do the job well. This deficiency in qualification at Massey, I discovered rather quickly created obstacles to my progress; I am also discovering that competencies at the Auckland may be also a factor in my timely progress.

            It did not take long after arriving at Massey in late September for me to realize that I might have walked into a system that might not be aligned with the standards assumed and expected of academic institutions. Besides the false scholarship notification issued to me by the International Program Office (IPO), a point I raised in an earlier blog, I soon began to suspect that my primary supervisor did not have the thinking skills, nor the doctorate qualification, to be able to supervise a doctorate student. This suspicion was magnified when her guidance on the content of the literature review chapter was erroneous. There were other comments from her, which I interpreted as having been of a sexual nature, such as showing me provocative photos of an older woman and declaring they were of the Head of School of People, Environment, and Planning after going to the photo image printed on the bottom of one of my publications, and asking me how old I was in that photo. What was she implying exactly?  Perhaps I was misreading the situation, but that conversation on my fifth day in New Zealand (in 2012) made me uncomfortable. I, thus, interpreted these allusions to be inappropriate.

Moreover, all within my first week of studying in New Zealand, in meetings with her, she repeatedly brought up the desire to co-author, alluding also to my then to-be-published book as the target of her desired co-authorship. I refused her offer. However, this decision seemed to have triggered her subsequent abusive behaviour, which ranged from slapping me on the head, following me around campus and Palmerston North and periodically hitting me, going into my desk drawers and taking important medical documents, bills, and letters I needed to send to my creditors, tampering with my completed draft chapters to delay the pace of my academic progress, letting herself into our (doctorate students’) office and logging into her account on the computer assigned to me, and eventually entering my living quarters. I presumed the people holding the master keys were influenced or possible pressured into letting her in or giving her the key combination to enter my personal life, as I have sometimes heard her use her university lecturer position as leverage. 

         I became enlightened about the alliance between this senior lecturer and other influential staff at Massey in the late summer of 2013. An unprovoked encounter with her, in which she approached and whacked me on the side of my head while depressing coffee grinds in a coffee press in the third flour lounge of the Geography building evoked snickering from the vicinity of the couches. As I had never been treated so violently by a supervisor or academic staff at previous universities where I had completed degrees, this senior lecturer’s behaviour, in combination with her unhelpful instructions on the contents of the literature review, led me to start investigating her credentials.

Although she was listed as having earned a PhD thesis on the Massey library website, my requests for the hard copy of her dissertation failed to produce hard proof of this document. I also typed in the titles of her articles on Google.com and found the authentic publications, which did not have her name printed alongside the authentic author. In other words, she did not in fact co-author the articles. I verified this fact by going to the online journal, typed in the volume and issue numbers, only to learn that she was indeed not the author of these articles.

As I slowly worked my way through my PhD thesis, organizing readings, taking notes, I realized my situation would not improve if I did not get administrative and legal help. I approached the Head of School twice to ask for a different supervisor. I also clandestinely stepped into a law office of barristers and solicitors to ask for advice about obtaining a restraining order against this woman. Neither attempts resulted in an outcome favourable to me; rather, in both cases, they seemed to favour this senior lecturer. The Head of School wavered on pairing me up with a different supervisor, informing me that she would have to speak with this senior lecturer (as if this would resolve the abusive situation I had unsuspectingly walked into), and the barrister informed me that because my accusations were of a criminal nature, I would need to get legal representation, which could be very expensive. On my doctoral student loan budget for living expenses, I could not afford to pay for a decent, knowledgeable, and skilled lawyer. Otherwise, I would have been willing to get witnesses to come forward.

Such financial constraints, and the apparent alliance with this senior lecturer demonstrated by the top administrative staff, forced me to apply to transfer to another school. Because the University of Auckland had accepted me for the same year (late in 2012) as Massey had, I re-lodged my application with them. My acceptance there, I quickly learned soon thereafter, seemed to have incensed her because her violent behaviour escalated, culminating in her pulling out a lock of my hair with silver pliers. In another incident, again in the third floor lounge, she descended on me with a knife obtained from the utensils drawer and jabbed me in the back with the sharp point. It was clear this woman is unpredictable and possibly dangerous. (As I will explain in a subsequent blog, within a few days after transferring to Auckland Uni, it dawned on me that this senior lecturer too had professional relationships with the people in the School of Architecture and Planning, and had possibly contacted them ahead of time to plot to perhaps derail my academic progress.)

As a result of these happenstances, debilitating enough to seek out the assistance of a therapist, several questions have come to mind. Why would the School of Graduate Studies at Massey approve the pairing of this woman with me, a student who clearly demonstrates an earnest desire to publish, push the boundaries of her discipline, and carry out independent research? Why would Massey keep a woman like this employed for twenty two years? Are there not more qualified and more ethical individuals more committed to teaching, research, and possessed a stronger academic philosophy than this woman, who could replace her? I believe Massey University has long understood her state of mind. I also do not think my experience with her was isolated, as both she and another senior lecturer hinted at the possible abuse of another student in the PEP (presumably at the hands of this senior lecturer). A final question is was all this abuse simply an effort to get me to drop my PhD program after working through my research design and objective in order to help “get” either her or one of her colleagues a PhD thesis?   

What is the minimum doctorate students can expect from supervisors? What about from educational institutions? Academic staffs at other universities are required to include their degree, the institution from where the degree was earned, and the year earned on the staff page of the departments. Most of the time, they will include a link to their CV, which includes the two or three people who had supervised them on their PhD thesis. Universities should be obliged to post all this information in the interest of applicants, but at Massey and Auckland this is not common, an indication that the lecturers may not have the adequate qualification. I fail to understand why any university would retain the employment of individuals, who are only interested in punching the clock and making an appearance to work for posterity. Trust me when I say that getting through the PhD program entails lecturers with critical thinking and knowledge management skills, but not those who have no interest in teaching or supervising.

The university should also ensure that academic staffs exercise fairness in assessments and in other dealings with the students to ensure timely progress. On the occasion that these requirements are undermined, appropriate accountability measures should be in place with the intention of supporting the student’s continuation, rather than demoralizing the student. A PhD thesis is stressful enough without worrying about unfair treatment.

The lesson learned from this experience is to thoroughly investigate the lecturers in your intended department, and research testimonies of previous and current students’ experiences with the university. Do not take anything for granted. Although not all students are treated in such a heinous manner, the fact that one has been is a good enough reason to do your research. The next student could be you, after all.