Lovitts (2005) suggests "that students are typically admitted into doctoral programmes because they have been good coursetakers. Yet, the PhD is awarded for doing independent research and making an ‘original contribution’ to knowledge. Graduate faculty acknowledge that the transition to independent research is hard for many students, and that they cannot predict who will successfully make the transition and complete the doctorate based only on students’ undergraduate records or even their performance in their first year of graduate school...
Lu Gang, a graduate student from the People’s Republic of China, was one of the most brilliant graduate students ever in the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics, at least when it came to solving relatively well-defined problems, but not when it came to selecting significant problems and original thinking. Two years into his programme, his status was eclipsed by Shan Linhua, another brilliant graduate student from the People’s Republic of China. Thus ensued several years of vicious competition, at least in the mind of Lu, who was described by colleagues as a loner and who arguably had other personality problems (Chen, 1995). Not only did Shan complete his dissertation a semester before Lu, but, to add insult to injury, the Department of Physics subsequently nominated Shan’s dissertation for the D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Award, a prize that recognizes ‘excellence in doctoral research’, where excellence is defined as ‘highly original work that is an unusually significant contribution to [the field]’...
As soon as Lu learned that Shan was the department’s nominee, he began appealing the decision to various administrators. A month later, in May, he applied for and received a permit to own a gun, purchased three guns, and began shooting at target ranges around Iowa City. Lu continued his appeals even after it was announced in late August that Shan had won the prize. Finally, on 1 November 1991, Lu murdered Shan, his dissertation adviser, two professors who had been on his dissertation committee, one of whom was the department Chair, thus effectively wiping out the university’s Space Physics programme. He also fatally injured the Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs and critically injured a student who was working in the Associate Vice-President’s office before committing suicide. Although this is an extreme case, many graduate students have difficulty making the transition from being good course-takers to being creative, independent researchers".
Lu Gang, a graduate student from the People’s Republic of China, was one of the most brilliant graduate students ever in the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics, at least when it came to solving relatively well-defined problems, but not when it came to selecting significant problems and original thinking. Two years into his programme, his status was eclipsed by Shan Linhua, another brilliant graduate student from the People’s Republic of China. Thus ensued several years of vicious competition, at least in the mind of Lu, who was described by colleagues as a loner and who arguably had other personality problems (Chen, 1995). Not only did Shan complete his dissertation a semester before Lu, but, to add insult to injury, the Department of Physics subsequently nominated Shan’s dissertation for the D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Award, a prize that recognizes ‘excellence in doctoral research’, where excellence is defined as ‘highly original work that is an unusually significant contribution to [the field]’...
As soon as Lu learned that Shan was the department’s nominee, he began appealing the decision to various administrators. A month later, in May, he applied for and received a permit to own a gun, purchased three guns, and began shooting at target ranges around Iowa City. Lu continued his appeals even after it was announced in late August that Shan had won the prize. Finally, on 1 November 1991, Lu murdered Shan, his dissertation adviser, two professors who had been on his dissertation committee, one of whom was the department Chair, thus effectively wiping out the university’s Space Physics programme. He also fatally injured the Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs and critically injured a student who was working in the Associate Vice-President’s office before committing suicide. Although this is an extreme case, many graduate students have difficulty making the transition from being good course-takers to being creative, independent researchers".
See here.
6 comments:
This is wrong on so many levels! It does seem that Lu was strongly motivated by extrinsic reward derived from doing well in competition and that this is a far easier thing to achieve at an undergraduate level. At a postgrad research level comparisons are difficult to make and there are few proxy's of success except perhaps number and quality of research papers, conference success and the final dissertation. In physics from the limited pieces I've heard it seems like success rests or falls mainly on the dissertation so perhaps Lu who was obviously very intelligent had very little comparative feedback within which to situate and upon which to scaffold his work and achieve this extrinsic rewards thus demotivating him. Postgraduates are often described as "at sea" during their first year. You have to wonder is this a neccessary condition or one which is the result of a poorly framed induction for new researchers. Research groups are an easy solution to problems of situating your research, scaffolding of learning from colleagues etc and perhaps the looseness or tightness of such groups in terms of room for individual expression can be varied so as to specify the reign given to the which can be tailored to the individual student based on interests and evidence of an aptitude for creative thinking & prior history of creative expression. How to measure creative thinking is then the question- an overview- http://courses.ed.asu.edu/kerr/measuring_creativity.rtf
Richard Florida's book on the Rise of the Creative Class also comes to mind - this might give an indication of who is thinking creatively, which is at least one metric for creative thinking:
<*a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Creative-Class-Transforming-Community/dp/0465024777"> Rise of the Creative Class<*/a>
The Rise of the Creative Class
Second time lucky on this again!
I'll have to get a hold of that, the chapter on "the experiential life" looks especially interesting.
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