Nathan Steinmeyer

As someone who did their PhD (DPhil) in the UK, I absolutely do not understand how/why US vivas have like 4, 5, or even 6 examiners and one of them is your supervisor. This seems wrong-headed on so many levels: 1. Your supervisor being is (or should be) redundant. They should have already given you all their feedback and critical questions. In fact, they’re kinda doing a bad job if they haven’t? 2. Likewise, the student should have already addressed/integrated all their feedback into the submitted version. So there shouldn’t be anything left to talk about that hasn’t already been talked about in supervision meetings/emails. 3. If you’re going to ask the student a question you’ve already asked them, it’s kinda like giving the questions for the test ahead of time? Which is very much not the point of a viva. So what’s the point here? Performing something you and your supervisor rehearsed or being able to think on your feet, defend your views, and engage with critical feedback in real time. The former tests your ability to memorize a script. The latter tests whether you are actually an expert in your field and can defend your arguments. 4. Again, on the supervisor, there is a clear conflict of interest here. When you supervisee’s work is being assessed, so is the supervisors’. Vivas are an opportunity for colleagues at the same institution to evaluate and hold each other accountable to high standards of research and argumentation. 5. Similarly, there will always be a temptation for a supervisor to subtly (or not so subtly) come to a student’s defense during a difficult line of questioning, or one where their view is aligned with the student’s perspective over and against one of the other examiners. Not saying this always happens (it shouldn’t) but the incentive structure allows for it. 6. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Vivas can go very fast (mine was little over two hours, but felt to me like half that time). Oftentimes, additional assessors are brought in to give an interdisciplinary perspective. Well and good––and outside-of-discipline feedback can be very helpful. But I’m not convinced that the viva is the right context for this. The other edge of the disciplinary sword is that you risk bringing in folks who do not know the main discipline’s field very well and can lead the conversation down rabbit trails that are less relevant to the central argument being evaluated for the purposes of the degree. 7. Too many assessors means each one of them gets a limited time to engage with the thesis and ask questions. You can end up only have one or two questions per committee member; not enough for deep engagement with the argument or details of the thesis. 8. Relatedly, having lots of examiners disincentivizes the examiners from careful, close reading and engagement with the thesis. When you know others are going to be there to ask questions, you feel less responsible for the examination and thus are more likely to be underprepared for the conversation. Anyway. No system is perfect and UK/Euro-model vivas can also go poorly. But to sum up I think the incentive structures are all out of whack in the US system. And it seems liable to produce shoddier work where the UK system, at least ideally, seems set up to incentivize everyone doing their best before, during, and after the viva. Would love to hear others’ thoughts on this.

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JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸🔥

"For the first time, US Central Command's drone Task Force, called Task Force Scorpion strike launched countless one way attack drones achieving massive effects. I'd like to point out these drones were originally an Iranian design. We took them back to America, made them better, and fired them right back at Iran," CENTCOM Commander said.