In December 2021, IISc removed ceiling fans of enrolled students on the advice of mental health experts. Things became so grim they had to restrict access to any means of self-harm on campus.
To add to such unnoticed grievances, the prevalence of depressive disorders among PhD students is estimated to be six times higher than that of the general population. According to a meta-analysis of nearly 24,000 doctoral students, 24% of doctoral students suffer from depression and 17% from anxiety.
So, why is no one talking about it out loud? While many supportive supervisors respect the research sphere. It is, in fact, pretty haphazard, driven by funding and ego, reliant on inspired intuition by its top-flight practitioners.
To begin with, students are overworked with immense pressure from multiple areas and face humiliation by peers, which completely shatters morale. Then it doesn’t end there, students are pitted against each other, fostering a toxic work environment.
Oh, and it’s not something with no impact. PhD students are three times more likely to develop a depressive disorder than research professors. For instance, in a nationwide UK study, 35% of PhD students considered ending their studies altogether because of their mental health. Unlike corporate, where people can switch to a different organisation in research, it is doubtful whether the Project Investigator would let the student off the hook that easily.
This stress doesn’t just stay at work. It seeps into their personal lives as well. To put things into perspective, 80% of PhD students reported experiencing mental health challenges in a survey from IIT Kanpur.
And here is another kicker. The term “sir/ma’am” has colonial roots. It neither represents Indian heritage nor culture. In India, it has evolved into a common form of address for anyone in a position of authority or seniority, irrespective of their actual title or rank. Sadly, students enrolled for the same position enforce such hierarchical structures based on the date of joining. This results in a lack of communication from the beginning, which is the stepping stone for innovation.
It’s no wonder private sectors are moving from such a medieval mindset to fostering growth and a positive work culture.
But here’s the thing. Even with all this toxicity, doctoral and post-doctoral students don’t have the luxury of quitting. So, they do the next best thing. They continue doing the ‘quiet research.’ For the uninitiated, it happens with less to zero colleague support and unrealistic supervisor expectations, where students do the bare minimum to get by with no extra effort or engagement.
End Result: Productivity takes a nosedive!
Sure, they will still show up for work, but they’re just going through the motions. Innovation dries up. Students stop coming up with fresh or creative ideas. Even absenteeism starts rising, with more sick days and no-shows.
If you think a large pool of peers could help improve the situation, it has been found that large peer numbers reduce student productivity. For each additional peer, the number of publications decreases by 0.12, the number of citations decreases by 0.042, and the number of co-authors decreases by 0.39. Being a part of STEM themselves, supervisors fail to acknowledge the numbers.
If you really think about it, supervisors play an essential role in promoting a toxic work environment with no defined working hours and unreasonable extension of work on the weekends. I am not saying this; an Elsevier publishing Journal on Research Policy with an Impact factor of 12.8 is saying so.
Science, for example, likes to project itself as clean, logical, rational and unemotional. On the contrary, different forces come into play. Research supervisors who finished their doctoral thesis before the stipulated period are less likely to give the same opportunity to their students. This suffrage on the scholar’s side sometimes results in a high volume of research articles with negligible social or academic value.
Then, there is looming job security after conferring the doctoral degree. Merit has been toppled with a political and ideological leaning toward recruitment drive, even for ad hoc positions. This was ephemerally highlighted when Samarveer Singh committed suicide after being rejected for the permanent position after teaching for six years at Hindu College, University of Delhi.
But here’s the silver lining.
Despite the challenges, one study conducted by Ghent University, Belgium, shows that maintaining a positive relationship with supervisors can lower stress levels and improve overall satisfaction. And this can only happen with good leadership. Point being a good leader is like the conductor of an orchestra. They guide everyone to stay in sync, set the pace, and ensure focus on the important parts. Without effective leadership, even the best performers can fall out of tune. And acknowledging mental health as an important indicator of overall well-being goes hand in hand.
In an academic environment, improving communication, reducing clutter (like unnecessary meetings), and removing bottlenecks can make everything run more smoothly. Additionally, just as driving too fast can damage an engine, pushing students too hard can lead to burnout. Setting achievable goals and manageable workloads for students by the supervisor can boost productivity without overburdening them, similar to how maintaining a steady speed conserves fuel.
Time for supervisors and students to take note, eh?
Well, until we ourselves recognise the seriousness of the ongoing epidemic, people(in power) will continue denying any toxicity in the academic sphere.
References-
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6499355/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9247661/
3. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/01/12/is-doing-a-phd-bad-for-your-mental-health/
4. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00983-8
5. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0288103
6. https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2021/02/academics-are-toxic-we-need-a-new-culture
7. https://tos.org/oceanography/article/the-culture-of-science-in-academia-is-overdue-for-change
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7956351/
9.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2019.1672647#abstract
10.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733322000853#ac0005
11. https://theprint.in/india/education/after-4-suicides-in-a-year-3-by-hanging-iisc-begins-removing-ceiling-fans-in-hostel-rooms/783764/
12. https://www.outlookindia.com/national/academic-orphans-caste-and-recruitment-in-delhi-university-news-288591
12.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733317300422#:~:text=The%20prevalence%20of%20mental%20health,of%20PhD%20students’%20mental%20health.
grewal 