This is old news, but I just heard about it. A microbiology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin has a blog. He finished his rotations and chose a lab. His to be advisor found out about the blog and read it. After concluding that the student did not really want to be in grad school, he decided to not accept the student into his lab. The grad student got dooced:
Yesterday I received an email from my (former) PI, a Dr. WH, that I can no longer join his lab, despite having already joined about a week and a half ago. Needless to say I was perplexed...
I frantically emailed my (former) PI and asked him why he had a sudden change of heart. I also tried to contact the chair of the microbiology department to see what happens to me now. About four hours after emailing my (former) PI he calls me on my cell phone. I asked him why I could no longer be in his lab and I get the most shocking answer - I can't be in his lab because either he or a faculty member in my department found this blog and passed it onto him. After reading the contents of my blog, he feels that I do not really want a PhD and joined his lab so I can stay in Madison for another year and master out once I fulfill the requirements for a master's.
[LINK]
I have not read the entire archives, so I can't say whether or not the faculty member's actions are justified. It's a fairly interesting situation, and the first time I've heard of a grad student being punished for blogging. Thankfully, my university has invested far too much money in money to dooce me. Also, it would be hard to find a dooce-able entry in my archives. Oh, and my advisor openly talks to me about blogs in the ScienceBlogs network, which means he knows about my blog. As long as I don't write something mean about him, the department, or my graduate program (don't worry, I won't), I should be safe from the dooce.
But, ssshhh, let's keep my identity hush hush in case a potential post-doc advisor or tenure-track employer is anti-blog.
(Via Syaffolee.)
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It's interesting that this grad student's blog appears to be rather infrequently maintained (postings were one or two a month from the looks of it), and more about personal musings than anything - being effectively fired flat-out doesn't appear to be justified in the most remote sense.
Thank goodness that blogging has only been a boon to me - I've gotten a few emails over the months from successful researchers thanking me for blogging about cell and molecular biology topics that they found relevant to their research interests (esp. since I switched from A Concerned Scientist to Migrations and wrote posts on pure biology more and ramblings less).
And I'm lucky too, that (just yesterday), I went to an interview for a future postdoc opportunity, with the professor who is perhaps my first choice as a postdoc mentor - and one of the first things out of her mouth upon welcoming me was acknowledging that she found my blog (by googling me). Of course my CV and cover letter probably did the bulk of the work for me in selling myself as a researcher, but I think my blog helped empasize that I'm enthusiastic and motivated about science. Her comment was very brief though, but she was certainly open-minded about it, and viewed it in a positive light, anyway.
So I guess the question that comes to my mind is: Why are some PIs more open-minded than others to novelty (i.e. blogging) in the science::society dynamic?
It is quite unfortunate that many feel that "Freedom of Speech" somehow also gives you "Freedom from Consequences", which is patently untrue. It is likewise unfortunate that many young people first discover that the expression of their thoughts can have consequences when this reality smacks them down.
While I feel that the PI in this case over-reacted and should have discussed this with the student, it is a typical reaction. In the past, it might have been a chance statement overheard at a restaurant that got back to the wrong people. Nowadays, you can't even fall back on the righteous argument that it is impolite to eavesdrop, since blogs are published for all the world to read.
Brian:
Sure, there's no such thing as "Freedom from Consequences," but in this case - consequences for what? It appears that this kid was let go not for saying anything in particular, but just for having a blog in the first place.
So, I for one am curious how your comment relates to the topic at hand. Do you think that PI might be justified in saying that blogging about personal perspectives once or twice a month might be taking up too much of his time as a grad student?!
I am also a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin and am somewhat familiar with what happened to this person. One of the things that I think didn't go over well was that he actually used names of people and professors, something that he edited out after he was asked to leave his lab. While using peoples names isn't that bad, referring to people you rotated with as "a big pussy" or something to that effect kind of is, he additionally made several other negative comments about other professors that he rotated with. But I think that the thing the professor had the biggest problem with was that he stated several times in that he wasn't that interested in the lab and that he was probably just going to take a masters and leave. Whether he still felt that way at the time he was aked to leave I couldn't tell you, but I do know that most professors will not take someone into their lab if they have the attitude that they are not that interested and will probably just take a masters and leave.