• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

  • Home
  • Courses & Events
    • How To …
    • The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
    • The Art of the Article
    • Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
    • On Demand Courses
    • Upcoming Live Webinars
    • Free Productivity Webinars
    • Gift Certificates
  • Personalized Job Help
    • Document Editing
    • Quick Reviews
    • Specials
    • Interview Prep
    • Personal Negotiating Assistance
    • One on One Career Consults
    • Testimonials
    • Interview Testimonials
    • Graduate School Application Assistance
  • Productivity
  • Coaching
    • Productivity Coaching
    • Private Coaching
    • Leaving Academia Coaching Group
  • The Professor Is Out
    • It’s OK to Quit
    • Our Art of Leaving Program
    • Prof Is OUT Services
    • Our Prof Is OUT Team
    • Prof is OUT Client Testimonials
    • Ex-Academics: A TPIO Support Community
  • Workshops
  • Blog

How To Ask A (Famous) Professor to be Your Dissertation Chair

By Karen Kelsky | August 29, 2011

Today is a Special Request post for Meagan, who wishes to know how to approach a famous and influential scholar in her department to be the chair of her dissertation committee.

Ideally, you will have arranged to work with your famous dissertation advisor prior to arriving in the program. I always recommend to all students planning to attend graduate school, that they devote several months to a year to advance preparation. Taking a GRE prep class, putting your personal essay through months of revisions, and researching graduate programs and potential advisors are all steps that pay off exponentially in terms of the quality of program and quantity of funding you can expect to achieve.

Correspondence with the potential advisor is perhaps the most important element of all; refer to this post for advice on how to initiate the conversation. Ideally you want the advisor to commit to you ahead of time, to advocate for your application when it arrives, and to use her clout to get you the most generous funding packages offered by the program.

Now, this is not always possible. Some programs do not attach admittees to advisors ahead of time (although I would hazard to say that the best programs do). Or it is possible that the advisor with whom you came to work has left for another university, and you must find a replacement. Or perhaps your research interests changed. In any case, sometimes students find themselves needing to approach a professor to serve as their dissertation advisor after they are already underway.

You will do this in the same way that you approach any professor for any type of assistance: concisely, articulately, substantively, specifically, courteously, and professionally. In short, you will have a well-rehearsed “pitch,” which, in concise yet very specific terms, describes your current status, your past achievements, your planned research, your reasons for approaching that scholar in particular, your anticipated timeline, and your expected outcome.

Don’t be especially intimidated just because the professor is famous.  I just heard a story about a graduate student who asked famed physicist Richard Feynman to be his Chair.  Everyone was surprised when Feynman said yes.  But turns out, it was the first time he’d ever been asked.  All the other grad students had been too afraid.

So take heart, and ask away.  What you want to look like is a young rising star, a good bet, and a self-starter. The three critical elements here are: a) that you will not be a clingy burden; and b) that you will finish efficiently and successfully; and c) that your ultimate success will add to the glory and fame of the professor.

The more successful the professor is, the more critical these three elements become.

Successful professors are busy and in-demand. They are always flying off to Copenhagen and South Africa to give keynote addresses. They have no time for hand-holding and cheerleading. You must show that your past record proves you are highly self-directed and finish what you start without prodding and drama.  And you must demonstrate your efficiency right then and there by making an appointment (NEVER JUST DROP IN for such requests!), arriving on time, and presenting your request quickly and concisely, and wrapping up well within the scheduled time slot.

Successful professors are generally interested in important work that pushes boundaries in the field. You must show that your current and future plans are innovative and path-breaking, yet also based on solid research and a grounding in legitimate bodies of literature in your field.

Successful professors want to be associated with students about whom they can brag. You must show that you are aiming for a high-profile career by articulating clear career goals and the confidence to apply for top-tier fellowships to support your research.

Successful professors usually have complex research leave and sabbatical plans several years out.  You must show that you have an anticipated timeline for field, lab, or archival research, analysis, and writing–and beyond that defense, first publications, and job search–that is both efficient and feasible.

Work on your pitch, and be able to show clearly how this professor’s work is critical to it, WITHOUT FLATTERING! Nobody likes an obvious suck-up. You must learn to do it subtly.  Don’t make vast over-generalizations about the professor’s “brilliance.”  Speak about specific areas of scholarship in which she specializes, and how those are critical to your planned research and career.  Don’t drone and don’t monopolize the conversation.  You’re asking for an advisor, remember.  Show that you’re open to being advised.  And, at the same time, don’t be a doormat.  Have the confidence of your convictions and stand up for your passions.

And last, it goes without saying that your overall presentation must be highly professionalized. Read this post on the ways that graduate students sabotage themselves, and spend a weekend eradicating these behaviors to the extent you can. Yes, you’re still a graduate student. But that doesn’t mean you have to act like one.

Good luck!

Similar Posts:

  • How Do You Write an Email or Letter to a Professor?
  • It’s Not About You
  • How to Write an Email to a Potential Ph.D. Advisor/Professor
  • How Would You Mentor Graduate Students? Another #Facepalm Fail
  • Trailer Park Professor: On R1 Success and Learning to Value Yourself (A Guest Post)

Filed Under: Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Strategizing Your Success in Academia Tagged With: dealing with your advisor, graduate school in the humanities, how to assemble a committee, How to deal with professors, replacing dissertation committee members, the best advisors, women succeeding in graduate school

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Z says

    August 29, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    Are you sure that really fits everyone? In my field an undergraduate *that* convinced of what their PhD project was ahead of time would probably not be competitive, and a professor in their right mind would only commit to a student before they saw how they did *in graduate school* if they had some sort of nepotistic reason to do it!!!

    Reply
  2. equanimitynow says

    July 14, 2015 at 10:06 pm

    Thank you for making this advice available for free! I followed what you suggested as I asked a famous academic to be my external adviser. He answered:

    “Your proposal certainly looks interesting. My problem is always lack of time to get involved in new projects. If your host university would consider contracting with [mine] to pay for, say, a couple of days of input a year, that might be possible.”

    As much as I admire him and want him as my adviser, I feel this means he doesn’t want me as an advisee. Is his an odd request I should let drop and move on from, or can I recover and still get him as my adviser?

    Reply
  3. Tonia says

    October 20, 2015 at 6:36 am

    I need to write a formal letter letting my committee know that I will moving forward with another committee how do I do that nicely?

    Reply
  4. ogunemeke kennedy says

    June 1, 2018 at 10:36 am

    Dear Dr, with due respect to you. I am a prospective student.And I need a supervisior in the department of political science.thank you. Yours sincerely oguneme kennedy.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Further Anti-Advice to New Faculty, and an Advising Question | Mictlantecuhtli says:
    September 8, 2011 at 11:50 am

    […] would be inappropriate in my field, and could even get an application rejected. But according to this post, in some fields you have to arrange for a dissertation director by mail, before you even start your […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Buy My Book!

4.8 stars on Amazon!

The_Professor_Is_In.indd

Get Immediate Help

In addition to our blog and book, we have upcoming live webinars, pre-recorded webinars and other programs that you can get started on right away:

The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
The Art of the Article
Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
Quick Reviews
Free Productivity Webinars

Categories

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Academic Job Search
    • How To Choose and Manage Recommenders
    • How to Interview
    • How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters
    • How To Write CVs
    • Landing Your Tenure Track Job
    • Major Job Market Mistakes
    • Negotiating Offers
  • Adjunct Issues
  • Advising Advice
  • Alt-University Critique
  • Black Lives Matter
  • COVID19
  • Dispatches
  • Goodbye Ivory Towers
  • Graduate Student Concerns
    • Bad Advisors and Good Mentors
  • How To Do Conferences
  • How to Get Grants and Fellowships
  • International Perspectives
  • Intersectional Analyses
  • Makeup
  • Marginalized Voices
  • Mental Health and Academia
  • Ph.D. Poverty
  • Podcast
  • Post-Ac Free-Lancing and Small Business
  • Post-Ac Job Search
    • Careers Outside
  • Postdoc Issues
  • Productivity
    • Book Proposals and Contracts
    • Publishing Issues
    • Writing
  • Promote Yourself!
  • Quitting–An Excellent Option
  • Racism in the Academy
  • Rearview Mirror
  • Resumes & Postac Docs
  • Sexual Harassment in the Academy
  • Shame
  • Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student
  • Strategizing Your Success in Academia
  • Teaching and Research Statements
  • Teaching Demos
  • Teaching Portfolios
  • Tenure–How To Get It
    • How To Build Your Tenure File
    • Surviving Assistant Professorhood
  • The Campus Visit
  • Unstuck
  • Webinars
  • What Not To Wear
  • Women of Color in Academia
  • Work/Life Balance in Academia
  • Yes, You Can: Women in Academia
  • Your Second and Third Jobs

Footer

About Us

  • Who Is Dr. Karen?
  • Who Is On the TPII Team?
  • In The News
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs
    • Why Trust Me?
  • Testimonials

Community

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Peer Editing
  • PhD Debt Survey
  • Support Fund
  • I Help With Custody Cases for Academics

Copyright © 2023 The Professor Is In·

We Are Redefining Academic Community

That’s why we upgraded our private
Mighty Network.

We are committed to building a community with a focus on productivity support. Every day, in a dedicated space, we offer free coaching advice and encouragement. And the couple thousand people who have already joined are steadily building a supportive and interactive community devoted to that elusive idea of work-life balance.

Learn More

Get on Dr. Karen's Schedule

Get on my schedule to work on your tenure track job cover letter, CV, grant applications, book proposals, interview preparation, and more.  [si-contact-form form=’2′]