Peter Francis , Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.111.44

Throughout the years, I have been mentored by three professors: Professor Autonomy, Professor Mastery and Professor Meaning. In order to be a professor, you must have an element of all three, but like science, all of them have a bias.

Professor Autonomy

A doctoral journey is not for the faint-hearted no matter where you start, but this is particularly true if you start it with Professor Autonomy.
Professor Autonomy invented the term ‘independent researcher’ (or perhaps, universities invented the term as a cover for professors who leave you up s*** creek without a paddle). In the quest for guidance you will be reminded of your status as an independent researcher. However, autonomy in relation to your educational journey does not mean autonomy in terms of your role in Professor Autonomy’s research ambitions. In this context, you will wonder if Professor Autonomy was derived from Professor Autocratic.

Professor Autonomy is a big fan of mastery but only after you’ve proceeded with an inappropriate study design, collected questionable data and made what seem to him like utterly speculative interpretations. Cue demotivation and the need to develop resilience – fast. Professor Autonomy’s meaning lies largely in the next grant he or she is trying to obtain and in demonstrating superiority to university colleagues. As you become more informed, you may find there is little meaning other than the metric.

Every autonomous professor has a silver lining. Firstly, his or her drive toward the metric provides opportunity via grant funding for students. Secondly, provided you have sufficient resilience to begin with, you will experience failure and criticism of a magnitude that will develop a level of resilience you did not know you had. Finally, you will be an independent thinker, a skill that will sustain the rest of your intellectual life. Independent thought begins to emerge from a weariness to intellectual punishment beatings. You eventually learn to fight back with intellect. If you like research but need to develop resilience, don’t start here – you won’t make it through.

You will spend long hours in a lab collecting data you don’t fully understand but as your professor will remind you – it is of course central to the ‘bigger picture’ and ‘your thesis’ (whenever you get to write that). Maintaining your autonomous and therefore largely un-informed status means you will chart this course for longer than you should. In meetings about your PhD you will be encouraged to become part of the academic community and bring your own ideas to the table, provided they don’t interfere with your time in the laboratory.

Professor Mastery

Professor Mastery is just that. Everything is flawless: your registration form, your weekly meeting appointment, your ethical application, your study design, your protocol and your data. Professor Mastery is patient and will teach you every trick of the scientific trade until you are capable of publishing systematic reviews worthy of inclusion by the Cochrane collaboration.

You will publish early and often; there will be no last-minute writing of a thesis, as is the case with Professor Autonomy. Speaking of autonomy, you will not have much, particularly in the early days. This is a system designed to perfection, and although you will be free within the system, there is not much room to get lost. Professor Mastery slowly increases the autonomy you are afforded toward the end of the process, without ever completely removing the shackles.

Professor Mastery finds meaning in your education, as well as the advancement of his own scientific career. Professor Mastery is the perfect starting point no matter what end of the spectrum you perceive your resilience or scientific capabilities to be. If you start with Professor Mastery, quickly move on to Professor Autonomy or Professor Meaning otherwise you may have a career of mastery with little meaning. In the words of Adam Grant, ‘practice makes perfect but it doesn’t make original’.

If you start with Professor Autonomy, then move to Professor Mastery next. You can already think for yourself; he or she will show you how to turn that thinking into tangible productivity.

Professor Meaning

There are two times when you want to encounter Professor Meaning. Really early in your doctoral journey in order to be inspired or much, much later, but not too late. To maximise the value of Professor Meaning you need to have already acquired the skills of Professor Autonomy and Professor Mastery, but not be too far gone that you no longer have the will to change the course of your career.

There is no time for any developmental skills with Professor Meaning; he or she assumes autonomy and mastery like a cup of coffee that morning. Professor Meaning does not even know where to get an ethics form (seriously). Someone else takes care of that; he or she cannot remember whom.

Professor Meaning is totally focused on making a difference. The evidence of this will be littered around the University in the form of admiring and resentful colleagues, books and public engagement. Professor Meaning is not to be confused with Professor Publicity who is not discussed here. Professor Meaning uses publicity to advance the issues he or she finds meaningful rather than advance public persona.

Professor Meaning cultivates a people-centred environment for he or she knows that this is the only way to achieve anything meaningful. The administrators, placement students, PhD candidates and lecturers are all part of one giant human wheel rolling toward meaning. Outsiders will portray Professor Meaning as a maverick and perhaps arrogant; he or she simply believes that something different is possible. Professor Meaning is still human and draws on the compassion of the human wheel during times of sticks and stones.

Experience of working with all of them at some point is better than only having met one or two in the correct order. Good luck!