This story give alarm/concern for aspiring graduate students. It is hard to imagine the agony of Utah’s graduate students’ suffering in this torture mill.
Are these kind of environment common among Graduate schools?
How will a prospective graduate students find these abusive environments before applying?
Lots of grad programs have varying levels of toxicity.
You’ve found one way to find info on this - school newspapers.
Additional methods include:
Talking to your undergrad professors in the field.
Visiting the schools and talking to the current grad students.
There are some busy online grad school forums.
Google.
Keep in mind that in certain fields, a scant handful of grad programs have vastly superior results in tenure track placements, and sometimes those highly selective programs have highly toxic cultures which creates a trade-off: miserable six years v. tenure track job.
I agree that the student’s current professors should be consulted about recommendations for high quality graduate programs. Once accepted, the student should go visit the program and seek out conversations with a variety of other students.
There’s lots of stuff your son can try, but unfortunately none of it is foolproof. People all try very hard to pick good PIs, but a lot still end up in pretty toxic groups. They check all avenues, do their due diligence, and still get stuck. It can be… difficult to avoid certain toxic groups in physics, and in astronomy/astrophysics especially. I had entire schools wiped off my list because (1) they had an awful faculty member, and (2) the university was known to be covering it up. Even the AAS covers stuff up. And you have to deal with them no matter which program you go to or who you work with. Pick a good supervisor and you can still be abused at a conference.
Googling: Most incidents are either never discussed or are actively hushed up. News reports and student newsletters are probably the most useless places to look for this info. They only scratch the surface, and you’ll notice that they always reference labs that have been toxic for a long time.
Talking to their current students: Plenty of students will straight-up lie to your face if you ask them about their PI. Trash-talking your boss to a stranger is never a wise idea. Saving your son from torment is hardly going to be worth it if they’ll make their own life hell and destroy their career in the process. Most people who complain are planning to ditch academia and can afford the burnt bridge. But even then, they need letters of recommendation from their supervisor. Don’t expect them to tell the truth and don’t blame them if they lie. They may give small indicators, like: “he’s very involved”, “he’s very busy”, “he has high expectations”. Praise should be glowing.
Talking to professors: Also don’t want to trash-talk their colleagues, especially not based on gossip or accusations because they could be lies/exaggerations. Very few accusations ever make it past that stage too. If you hear the mildest warnings about someone (e.g. “don’t sit next to John at the conference, he’s handsy”), assume it’s much more serious. Professors don’t know everyone in the general field, have worked directly with far fewer, and have been a student of effectively none. My professors didn’t know anyone I applied to work with. Someone can be a great colleague but a terrible mentor too. They may treat their peers with respect and treat their subordinates like slaves.
Reading RMP reviews: Like above, someone can be both a fantastic lecturer and teacher, and a terrible supervisor. And someone with consistently low RMP scores may end up being a great PhD supervisor.
Skype/meetings: It’s super easy to pretend to be nice and balanced for 20 minutes or a couple of days. The act may stay up for a year or more. Graduate students get stuck because they dedicate years to a certain project only for their supervisor to turn on them when it’s too late for them to leave.