日志
华女留学生自杀 揭美大学的龌龊 Finds Serious Issues
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华女留学生自杀案调查 揭露美国大学的龌龊
在美国犹他大学攻读物理与天文学系的中国留学生(专题)唐晓琳，去年10月被证实在旧金山(专题)金门大桥跳桥自杀。唐晓琳的死亡引起质疑声潮，犹他大学去年宣布对此事进行独立法律调查。
本月，犹他大学公布了最终的调查报告，停止了学校物理系的研究生招生，并进行了一系列的人事变动。犹他大学聘请佛罗里达的Foley and Lardner律师事务所，对学校的物理与天文学系进行独立调查。律师对该系的前任、现任学生，教授、学校管理人员、唐晓琳的朋友和家属等40多人进行访谈，并查阅与唐晓琳相关的文件，试图了解她在学校就读的情况。
6页的研究报告并不长，但是此调查发现了犹他大学物理与天文学系的严重问题：学生过度劳累，学位被推迟；实验室内气氛紧张，大吵大闹时有发生；学生为争夺资源分裂；派系化的老师脾气暴躁，彼此不相闻问。这份报告的第八项总结是专门针对国际学生的，这也是普遍存在于中国留学生中间的问题。近年来很多例中国留学生死亡或成为犯罪受害者的案例，似乎都与这些因素有关。
以下为《美国新闻速递》整理的简要报告分析
一：虽然之前有关于性骚扰(专题)等含糊不清的说法，但是独立调查无法证实这个说法。一些匿名举报的电子邮件也未能回应提供额外信息的要求。没有任何一个被约谈的人提出该系实验室有任何不正当的性骚扰、歧视或性侵犯行为。没有证据指出该系存在此类不正当行为。
二：报告证实，唐晓琳的学习课程被推迟，毕业似乎遥遥无期。特别是，唐晓琳直到研究生第7年才参与博士生资格考核（Qualifying Exam），这与该部门的政策不符。该系规定学生在研究生第3年便需要通过该考核。至2017年10月，唐晓琳进入博士研究的第8个学年，却仍旧没有明确的论文计划，这也与该系政策不符。该系规定学生在7年内完成博士学位。此外，唐晓琳的学生签证曾于2015年12月到期，直到2016年12月12日才恢复，导致她的研究至少延长6个月。在签证恢复后，2017年1月，她只有连续两天到实验室报到，接下来的一年她虽然名义上隶属于该大学，但是校方对她的日常活动和去向未知，也未做努力去了解。
三：调查人员对学生实验室环境和人员问题进行调查，发现学生们经常超出预期的工作量，这是一个严酷的博士项目。学生经常需要在深夜和周末，在紧张的实验室环境中进行研究。实验室工作人员脾气暴躁和大喊大叫的情况频发。实验室成员会因物质和资源方面的使用分配而争论，这也导致分裂，有些成员会到其他物理实验室中使用自己的器材做实验。
四：调查人员发现该系没有贯彻执行部门的政策，也没有为学生提供足够的指导。唐晓琳并非唯一遭到拖延的学生，该系还有其他研究生在第4、5年才参与资格考核，直至第8年或第9年才得以毕业。根据学校政策，研究生主任（DOGS）有监督学生学习计划、资格考试等职责。但是这种监督似乎没有帮助唐晓琳以及其他研究生进步。
此外，唐晓琳和另一名研究生被要求帮助一名教职员写支持其申请终身职位的推荐信，这与大学的规定不符。调查指出，虽然大学和各系的政策在学校网站上获得，但是学生并不能获得所有信息，学生对他们的权利和提出质疑的权利并不了解。
五：犹他大学物理与天文学系内部不和谐，该部门的教员缺乏凝聚力。这个问题在2015年便浮出水面（电视剧），当时因一名研究生的进度引发争议。当时，很多教职工都发现自己与同事观念不合。这也显现出作为学生的监督顾问，他们缺乏清楚期望和指导，以及在发生矛盾时如何继续督查学生的进步。直至现在，一些教师间还形同陌路，凸显了忠诚和信任的问题。教职员工间缺乏沟通直接对学生产生负面影响。想要继续推进后续项目需要全体教职员工的讨论和批准，这种不和谐造成重大障碍。
六：教职员工派系化，个别团体之间也几乎没有沟通，这就需要系领导的外部干预。然而系领导的执行力度不一，新政策的推行情况也被拖延。所以虽然系领导在努力改进，但一直未能有效解决教职员工中随着时间而增加的障碍和隔阂。
七：学校没有对学生签证提供保证。唐晓琳的学生签证中途失效，教职员工有义务及时提供所需的信息。一些教师认为这一过程令人困惑，规定的教师职责不清，导致及时更新签证的责任落在第一语言可能不是英语的国际学生身上。
八：调查结果认为，学校国际学生参与师生团体以及研究生咨询委员会的数量少，他们对负面经历忍气吞声。拥有监管学生进度、研究方向、推荐信、签证相关文件的学生导师的权利，在国际学生面前无限放大，有时可能会被滥用。国际学生并不了解大学提供的所有健康和心理咨询服务，或者不愿意使用此类服务。虽然大多数国际学生的英语熟练，但是他们也会面临与私人问题有关的英语表达，特别是面对不熟悉学生文化背景的辅导员时。
调查结果：
调查人员建议学校从新生入学起就加强对国际学生的关切，并聘请具有国际背景和讲其母语的辅导员。学校的国际部应该考虑为新入学的国际学生制定计划，指派同系的学长学姐为他们提供指导，国际学生也应该结伴，保证学校有人知晓他（她）的学术和大学生活。
犹他大学在公布了这份报告后，同时发表声明，宣布物理与天文学系在2018至2019学年不再接受新的研究生，以后是否继续仍待定。数学教授特拉帕（Peter Trapa）将接替现任系主任伯曼利（Ben Bromley）。
唐晓琳和导师萨法瑞在实验室中。犹他大学图
案情回顾：来自中国北京大学的唐晓琳2008年到美国犹他大学物理与天文学系攻读博士学位，作为导师助理研究员，2017年唐晓琳进入读博的第8年。然而2017年10月1日，唐晓琳突然失踪，唐晓琳的朋友表示她曾透露想在金门大桥结束生命。5天后的10月6日，湾区马林郡（Marin County）警方证实在海湾中发现唐晓琳的尸体。据媒体报道指出，唐晓琳离世后，她的导师萨法瑞（Saveez Saffarian）第一时间删除了其科研团队里唐晓琳和另一名中国女生的资料。很多人质疑唐晓琳的死是否与其导师有关，犹他大学去年宣布调查她的导师，但是完整的调查报告中并未提到萨法瑞。犹他大学的网站上仍旧显示萨法瑞是物理与天文学系的助理教授。
Investigation After U Student’s Death Finds Serious Issues Within Physics and Astronomy Department
March 28, 2018 e.vandersteen@dailyutahchronicle.com
The death by suicide of a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Utah’s Physics and Astronomy Department in October 2017 sparked an independent legal investigation into the student’s experience at the school. This March, the U released that investigation’s final report to the public.
Following the completion of the investigation, U administrators are replacingphysics chair Ben Bromley. The Mathematics Department’s Peter Trapa will be assuming the position, advised by Bromley and a second physics faculty member, Christoph Boehme. Administrators also closed the physics graduate program to new enrollment for at least the 2018-2019 school year and possibly longer, a step which some professors in the department call rare and extreme.
The investigation report — compiled by attorneys from the Miami-based law firm Foley & Lardner — details both issues that the student experienced in the Physics and Astronomy Department as well as problems with the department itself.
After the student’s death, allegations were made that the report said were investigated through reviews of documents and interviews with more than 40 people. However, the memorandum notes that the firm was not “able to access all potentially relevant emails from personal email accounts, which may have further informed our findings and conclusions.”
The Student’s Time at the U
Accusations of sexual harassment and “other unlawful action[s]” were made, which the report calls “vague” and “anonymous,” but no evidence of such action was found, nor did anyone close to the student mention any related concerns.
What the report did find was that, “the student’s course of study was delayed and the student did not appear to have a clear path to graduation.” The student was found to have not taken the program’s qualifying exam “until well into the seventh year of graduate study” — four years after policy dictates.
In some Ph.D. programs, students take classes for a few years before they identify a specific research interest and make arrangements to join a lab for the rest of their time in the program. Prior to beginning work in a lab, students take a two-part exam. The first half consists of the student’s advisory committee members asking general questions about the field; these should have been covered in the student’s coursework. The second half consists of the student proposing their research interest for the rest of their time in the program.
At the U, this is called the qualifying exam, and policy in the Physics and Astronomy Department dictates that students should take it by the end of their third year.
In addition to the delayed qualifying exam, the student was in their eighth year of study at the time of their death, and “had no definitive plans to defend a thesis” and graduate. According to the report, policy in the department stipulates that students complete the program and graduate with a Ph.D. in seven years.
During the student’s time in the Physics and Astronomy Department, the report said, the student worked in a “generally tense lab environment” under a workload that “at times went beyond the expected workload and experience of a rigorous Ph.D. program.”
According to the report, “Temper flares and shouting matches among lab personnel occurred with relative frequency, and the lab members experienced a number of intense disputes over access to materials and resources.” The report also stated, “These disputes became disruptive to such an extent that certain personnel were assigned to conduct their work with their own equipment in a different physical location from other lab members.”
The report also found that the student, an international student, experienced issues with their visa. The student’s visa expired for about a year between December 2015 and December 2016, “leading to a hiatus of at least six months” in their research work toward a Ph.D.
The memorandum said the “loss of visa status stemmed from a lapsed submission deadline” and that both University employees and the student themselves have responsibility in this process — faculty members to “timely provide required information,” and students to “[keep] abreast of deadlines.” The report said that some faculty are confused by the process.
The investigation’s report also found that the student, along with another graduate student in the program, was asked to write a letter of support for tenure for a professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department, which is a breach of the U’s code of conduct for faculty members.
It additionally found that, shortly before the student took the qualifying exam in their seventh year, “a unilateral substitution was made to the composition of the student’s advisory committee, contrary to university policy.”
The advisory committee is composed of five faculty members chosen by the student, one of whom is the head of the lab the student researches in. That faculty member serves as the student’s research advisor and the chair of their advisory committee, as the research the student works on — under their direction — is the topic of their thesis paper.
Until early 2017, the only responsibilities of a student’s advisory committee were to participate in the student’s qualifying exam and again in the defense of their thesis, after which a student would graduate. Students pass qualifying exams only by consent of the entire advisory committee and, similarly, only graduate if the committee agrees they are ready to do so.
A Dysfunctional Department
The problems the investigation found were not limited to this particular student’s experience. The report said that “the student’s delayed course of study was not unique,” oversight of advisory committees “does not appear to have occurred to a significant degree,” department policies “are not uniformly enforced” and “students have incomplete knowledge of their rights and options with respect to raising concerns.”
The investigation also found that tensions in the department extend beyond the specific lab in which the student worked to the entire Physics and Astronomy Department.
“The department suffers from a lack of cohesiveness and disharmony amongst many faculty members,” the report said, which were in part caused by disagreements over another graduate student’s progress in 2015. Professors disagreed over “the role of the student’s supervisory committee and advisor, and how decision-making should proceed in the event of conflict among individuals who are responsible for a student’s progression.”
The memorandum continued, “Currently, a number of faculty members refuse to speak with each other, pointing to issues with loyalty and trust … Faculty members remain factionalized, with groups of individuals barely communicating with each other, requiring outside intervention by administration at times.”
The report concluded that international students in particular are not well-represented in the Graduate Student Advisory Committee in the Physics and Astronomy Department, essentially the only form of student government open to graduate students at the U. It also said these students may be unwilling to report issues they experience and may not know about health and mental health services available to them. It noted that international students are particularly vulnerable to potential “abuse of power” by their advisors, “who [oversee] progression, [control] research and recommendations, and [certify] visa-related documentation.”
The memorandum concludes with recommendations to address these problems, suggesting — among other things — outside leadership of the Physics and Astronomy Department, management training for its faculty members, proper oversight of students’ advisory committees and changes to the way in which visa issues are handled.
The report noted that policies which changed the responsibilities of advisory committees — broadening their supervision over graduate students in an effort to ensure students have somewhere to report concerns — were put into place in March 2017, just five months before the student’s death. “This policy facially addresses a number of concerns illuminated by this review,” the report read. However, it noted that the policy must actually be implemented, along with consequences for faculty members who don’t follow it.
Elsewhere in the report, it said, “To the extent that follow-up items need to be discussed and approved by the faculty body, [interpersonal issues in the department serve] as a significant barrier to doing so.” The report continued, “Department enforcement of policies has been inconsistent and its implementation of new policies has been delayed. Department leadership has consistently made efforts to improve but has not been able to effectively navigate the many barriers and roadblocks that have arisen over time among the faculty.”
According to a statement from the U, the change in department chair and the suspension of graduate enrollment are part of the school’s efforts to address the issues in the physics department.
“The University of Utah is committed to providing a supportive environment for its graduate students, and we want to do everything possible to ensure they are able to complete their degrees in a timely manner,” said Associate Vice President for Faculty Amy Wildermuth in the statement.
Wildermuth continued, “As a learning institution, we constantly evaluate our ability to keep these promises. If a program is unable to fulfill these commitments, we make necessary adjustments — always with our students’ best interests in mind. The outside review’s recommended changes will better support current students and foster a professional learning environment — important outcomes that we all share at the University of Utah.”
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If you or someone you know is at risk of self-harm or suicide, seek help as soon as possible by contacting agencies specializing in crisis intervention and suicide prevention. Services are available to University of Utah students during business hours through the Counseling Center at 801-581-6826. Utah residents can call the UNI CrisisLine 24/7 at 801-587-3000, and theNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
