Posted by alexandra_k on January 2, 2020, at 21:41:28
In reply to Re: Universities. » alexandra_k, posted by beckett2 on January 2, 2020, at 20:02:27
I applied 28 February for 5 March start (2018)
University Calendar Regulations say 'applications for thesis enrolments are due one month before the intended start date'. Then there is guff on how late applications may be considered...
Regulations are ambiguous. Maybe you can apply any time in February to start any time in March. Or maybe if you want to start 28 March your application is due 28 February.
Either way they violated their regulations when they refused to enrol me until 01 May.
I have evidence of work done / supervision received by email since 5 March.
They just refuse to accept it.
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I submitted a thesis for examination 14 September (2018)
I couriered 3 softbound copies as I was required to do. I signed my portion of ethics statement (my own work, no misuse of human subjects, ethics approval granted for animals) and an electronic copy to the Research School.
They swore black and blue 'nooooooo, you need to hand it in in peeeeerson you can't post it!' and 'nooooooo, you need to send it to 'Research School' not 'Dean of Research School, Research School' and 'noooooo you can't submit it without your supervisors permission'!
They said it was too early because I'd only been working on it for 4 months and refused to accept evidence I'd been working on it since March.
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My 6 month review was not released to me until end September (after I submitted my thesis for examination). My supervisor said my progress was satisfactory - which is all regulations require her to say. My supervisor said it would be better if I 'kept working' but this is, of course, irrelevant.
My 6 month review had my 'thesis submission date' recorded as being '30 April 2019'. Which is 2 months extra on a 12 month enrolment. In other words, they decided before they sent it to examiners that they would not accept a thesis from me unless it was 2 months 'late' and unless I paid 2 months (at least) of additional fees.
The decision to refuse to accept a thesis to me any earlier than that was not a decision based on the reports of examiners.
It was a decision made before the theis went out for examination.
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My supervisor and the Dean persuaded me that I could 'keep working' for a couple more weeks and the examination process would continue without any delay because it typically took a couple weeks to get it to examiners, anyway. I kept working on it only becuase I believed the new version would go out without any delay in the examination process. If I understood that providing them with a new version meant they would then swear black and blue I never submitted the old one and if I wanted an outcome of examination by 7 December (3 months after submitting) I wasn't going to get one because they tricked / fooled me into submitting late.
So the last report came back a week later than it should have because they decided not to process the thesis that I submitted for examination in September. Which is not a decision that they get to make.
Only I don't suppose it says in the Calendar how long examination is supposed to take. They could take 10 years before they send it out for examination. They could take out shares in this that or the other thing on the basis of inforamtion contained. They could take out copyrights. They could take out patients. They could detain the work indefinately and profiteer from it themselves... There don't appear to be any regulations preventing them doing that.
The reports came back and the Dean decided to reject the reports of the examiners. Apparently she gets to decide whether she thinks the examiners have written well written reports or not, whether htey are considered enough. Whether they will listen to what the examiners have to say...
Or whether they will say 'keep working' because they decided that months and months and months ago.
Because they decided all the way back in April (when they got around to considering my application for a Masters along with the PhD applications -- when I had not applied to study a PhD) that there was no way that they were going to let me complete the 120 point MPhil in a timely fashion. Because nobody does, you see. Nobody does. If it means they need to violate every regulation in their book nobody completes graduate research degrees in a timely fashion.
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The only OUtcome of examination that is based on the reports of the examiners is that the thesis is accepted subject to substantive revisions ot be completed within 10 weeks.
That means they have 10 weeks to sign me off.
The first outcome is that it is accepted without any revisions. The second outcome is that it is accepted subeject to minor / typographical alterations that have been specified and that will be signed off by the supervisor. The third is that it is accepted subject to substantive revisions to be signed off by the supervisor or an examiner within 10 weeks. The fourth is that there needs to be an oral examination and another round of reports need to be written. The fifth is tha that the examiners *return the thesis to the candidate* and the candidate undertake no less than 6 months additional work and submit a thesis for another round of examination. The sixth is that the candidate is failed.
My supervisor read the reports of the examiners and decided I was failed. I did not complete the degree in the minimum time.
I don't know if she's intellectually handicapped or corrupt. I don't know what the problem is. The examiners did not say I was failed. The examiners did not say I was required to proceed to oral defence. The examiners did not return the thesis and did not say I was required to re-enrol or re-submit for another round of examination.
The examiners did suggest substantive changes.
My supervisor needed / wanted a holiday. Fine. Go nuts.
Then sign me off.
The Dean refused to pass my work on to externals so they could sign me off -- which is what they were required to do given that that was the outcome of examination that they both recommended.
Instead I get a letter from the Research School in January of 2019 inviting me (not to proceed to PhD -- which they could have done) but attempting to extort additional fees for a Degree they are required to sign off on, already (the Masters).
I was told I had 1 month to comply with their demand for re-enrolment or I would not qualify to complete the Degree at all.
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I followed University complaints resolution process.
I complained they did not enrol me in a timely fashion.
I complained they did not send a thesis submitted for examination out for examination so the process could be concluded in reasonable time (3 months on a degree that is supposed to take 1 calendar / 1 academic year only).
I complained that they did not deliver an outcome of examination in accordance with University regulations.I complained to the Reasearch Committee and the Associate Vice Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor.
None of them seemed capable of parsing the reports of examininers / following University Regulations.
I complained to the Ombudsman. Again, doesn't seem capable of understanding that the University is required to follow regulations and doesn't seem capable of understanding what the examiners said should happen in tehir reports.
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I meet with my supervisor trying to help her understand the reports of the examiners.
She says any changes done in less than 6 months aren't subbstaaaaaaaaaantive enough by definition.
She turns outright abusive in our meetings.
She brings along another panelist apparently for her protection -- but I was grateful another person was there because she was the one who was yelling and screaming at me that I wasn't done until she says I'm done.
She only suggests typographical errors for the most part.
Any changes she feels are substantive are ones that basically involve deleting a bunch of content and replacing it with a bunch of other content. Because we are at the word limit of 50,000 words and so there aren't any words left for the MPhil.
They start up about kicking me out of the University.
Somehow I get conned / manipulated into following University complaints resolution process that they threw me out of the University around April. Somehow I am appealing for them to re-enrol me.
But they are required to invite me to my graduation ceremony. We don't apply to graduate at this University -- they are supposed to send out invitations.
I don't get my invitation to graduation.
Then they start generating many copies of fake / false academic transcripts for me on this online system that New Zealand has now. They say my last Masters was conferred with Honors (but it was not. I had completed Honors year previously and my Masters research project was part time over 2 years).
They change the name on scholarships I received (which have subsequenly had their name changes) so the scholarship on my transcript doesn't match the scholarship listed in teh Academic Calendar.
The University seems to have gone into self-destruct.
I submit a thesis for examination June 30.
When my Degree should have been conferred already.
All this work from all these meetings about what substttaaaaantive means and all the abuse. All of this was just... My supervisor having fun, I guess, because it's all just time and energy and efrort that she could have spent doing something productive. But instead she decided to invest all that in abusing me. Oh yay.
The reports of the examiners came back after however many months.
The overseas examiner (Canada) says he recoomends it proceeds to oral defence, now.
I got hold of an email dialogue between someone and him and the someone was basically trying to persuade him by email that I shuould keep working for 6 months. Unfortunately, the University Calendar doesn't say tha tthe outcome of examination is required to be based on email correspondance wehre the University tries to get the examiner to change the outcome of examination from the one they actually reccommended in their actual reports.
But he seemed to think that if the University of Waikato was going to waste his time (getting him to write another report when he wrote them a report already and they chose to ignore it) then the University of Waikato could fork out for an all expenses paid trip to New Zealand.
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The New Zealand examiner said that I didn't do what they told me I should do in their last report. They expressed puzzlement about why I didn't do what they told me to do. They said that since I didn't do what they told me to do they were reccommending I be failed.
They said that they would be embarrassed to be associated with my thesis. They said that by that they meant that they wouldn't want to sign off on it without seeing some kind of commentary of why I did not change various things.
Of course I wrote them precisely that commentary. I wrote them a commentary on the first 3 or 4 chapters within 1 week of receiving their reports to allow for time to negotiate some of the things so that the person signing me off would feel comfortable in doing so. But my supervisor / the Dean did not give that commentary to the examiner. Instead they decided to set about extorting additional fees.
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The Dean said that this round of examination was a round wehre the examiners were in agreement that the thesis was not acceptable as it was and therefore the Dean decides that my thesis is failed.
I pointed out that one examiner said the thesis should be failed. The other examiner said the thesis should proceed to oral defence. In the case of divergent outcomes the University Calendar says the Dean is required to appoint a 3rd examiner.
The Dean says 'nooooooo and you can't make me'.
I appeal that to the Research COmmittee...
I appeal that to the Associate VC...
I appeal that to the VC...
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
You can't maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake us.
Give us moooooooooooooooooooooooooore money.
More money
Give us all the money
While you explain to us what our regulations mean.
Because we aren't capable of understanding them.
We wrote a clause in our Calendar that says 'the Dean must report violations to regulations to the researh school'.
And that gives us lisence ot violate all the regulations
And have many Research School meetings about how clever we are in violating our regulations because our regulations allow us to do whatever we want whenever we want!
Hurrah!And in this manner...
No research is produced.
Not by the research school.
Not by anybody else.It's like cancer. If people used to die from cancer then treatments that increase their life expecanacy increase the incicdence because more people are living with cancer.
They decide that they can double the size of their research school by refusing to sign people off for at least twice the time.
Medicine gave me a deadline. YOu are required to compelte a degree in the normal or standard time.
People in NZ don't know what the normal or standard time is.
They don't know what that looks like.
Because we are too used to goign at the pace of the slowest.
Then the slowest get put right up front and we give them big sticks so tehy can better beat the people around them back.
We don't want people doing things like developing the laws, developing the technologies, producing the infrastructures. We don't want the people with the capacity to do this tha tand the other thing to do this that and the other thing.
We just want to hang about in our swampy swamp swamp congraduating each other on our regulaition violations.
WE can do whatever we want and who is going to stop us!
And that is why you want to finish University? Because you want to join them?
What is it that they dooooo exactly?
ffs.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1107604
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20191212/msgs/1107625.html