She thought she secured an adviser when a lecturer in the department, a Harvard Medical School affiliate with a doctorate in psychology, agreed to oversee her thesis.
But when MacMillan turned in her proposal, the department informed her that her adviser had to be a full member of the faculty.
“They wouldn’t let her advise me just because of the title,” she says.
MacMillan was irritated that she was “told after the fact,” and that her adviser is “now someone I don’t know. It’s just a formality. I have no interaction with my on-campus adviser.”
“It’s sort of insulting to my adviser who was basically told she wasn’t good enough even though she has a Ph.D,” she says. “I never got a good explanation why she couldn’t [advise me]. We were just told it was the policy.”
—Staff writer Margaretta E. Homsey can be reached at homsey@fas.harvard.edu.