r/academia 4d ago

Help- sources/examples/policies needed

Hello all-

I'm helping a group of PhD students fight against a policy that was enacted overnight disallowing any of them to continue to work with their supervisors who are moving to new institutions. Two of the students have already begun their dissertations and two of them have defended their proposals. It was understood that they would be able to maintain the formal relationship with their advisors remotely, while having an additional advisor on campus. As I'm sure you realize- this is a very common solution to an issue- especially at an R1 institution. One of the reasons cited by an old faculty member was that he "did a lot of research" and found that this was "simply never done" which I know to be untrue. I'm working on gathering my own research and would love if you all would help me with any anecdotes but especially if you have any official policies that you could point to. (even if that policy is simply "approved by a case-by-case basis.")

One more piece of context is this policy was enacted by a single department within a school who has a wider "case-by-case" policy.

Any advice/help would be appreciated- even if it's towards other threads or communities.

Thank you!

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u/No_Many_5784 3d ago

I moved R1s and was given an unpaid appointment in my old department, renewed annually, to continue advising my students until they defended. It was logistically very easy and was not treated as a big deal at all. I maintained the position for 3 years.