Disagreement between supervisors regarding interdisciplinary program design
I'm trying to understand what the norm is when there is growing disagreement between supervisors in different departments regarding the framing of a highly interdisciplinary research proposal right from the start:
to what extent is it the student's responsibility to help reconcile differing perspectives on program design and requirements for physical presence in the respective departments if the two supervisors have not been able to come to an agreement?
if one supervisor has offered an RA position, would there be a strong expectation the student volunteers close to comparable time in the other department?
I know there is a lot of information missing here, but I'm trying to understand the competing perspectives and time requirements, as they are not particularly talking to each other anymore and are routing things through me. And at this point I'm literally forwarding things back and forth. I'm coming from a work background that has given me some experience in how to arbitrate disagreements, but I don't have the expertise to parse their arguments before I even begin. And this has been going for close to two months now.
1 Answer
To be honest, it's not entirely clear-cut who should take the lead in resolving the disagreement between your supervisors. However, given that you're the one caught in the middle, it's probably a good idea to gently suggest a mediated meeting between the two supervisors to discuss their differing perspectives. This way, you can facilitate an open conversation without having to take on the responsibility of arbitrating their arguments. In terms of time commitments, if one supervisor has offered an RA position, it's likely that they expect you to dedicate a significant amount of time to their department. However, it's not necessarily a one-to-one ratio - you might be expected to spend a certain amount of time in each department, but this can vary depending on the specific requirements of the research proposal and the expectations of each supervisor. One potential approach you could take is to propose a structured timeline for your research, with clear milestones and time commitments for each department. This might help to clarify expectations and provide a framework for resolving the disagreement.
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