Ways you can help advance our mission to spread awareness about why and how to reform university policy governing supervisor-student power relations in Canada.
The impetus behind establishing this ambitious policy reform advocacy website was a personal supervisor bullying story involving University of Ottawa postdoctoral research fellow Baha Abu-Shaqra and his uOttawa PhD thesis advisory committee members, professors Rocci Luppicini, Liam Peyton, and Andre Vellino.
In short, mine was a case of shameless arm-twisting to force me to acquiesce to the egregious dictates of Rocci Luppicini, including his claim to first author role for publications off the PhD thesis (I show Rocci’s contribution to the intellectual development of the thesis – and it amounts to little more than cheering. I was happy to split first authorship status 50/50 with him but he wanted it all).
After being his graduate student from 2012 to 2021, Rocci unceremoniously cut off communication and support. Rocci was my sole academic supervisor through my MA and PhD journey as well as a short postdoc at uOttawa. I specialized in ethical hacking sociotechnology – there were no jobs waiting for me outside of academia.
Rocci knew he would not be held accountable.
But don’t think this is about him.
I was ready to put it all behind me – see Update #3 (July 1, 2021).
The real problem arose when, upon calling on my other two thesis advisory committee members for support, they “punished” me for bringing Rocci’s cowardice act to light by denying me any academic support. Up to this point, I’ve had no problems with Liam and Andre. Why would I?
But they too knew they would not be held accountable.
The three of them broke the gentlemen’s agreement – more importantly, they broke the social contract forming the basis of honourable and professional relationships between teachers and students in higher education: I, the student, succeed, and they, the teachers, do a simple thing called not trying to ruin my life.
Dr. Abu-Shaqra obtained his PhD in Digital Transformation and Innovation in April 2020 from the PhD in DTI uOttawa Program at uOttawa engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). His uOttawa PhD thesis focused on the topic of ethical hacking sociotechnology (thesis title, Technoethics and sensemaking: Risk assessment and knowledge management of ethical hacking in a sociotechnical society).
First, read our letter to uOttawa President Jacques Frémont about how to easily implement policy reforms to prevent supervisor bullying of students: Letter to uOttawa President Jacques Frémont. You may also be interested in How to end supervisor bullying at uOttawa.
Ways you can help*
1. Share your supervisor bullying story: Submit your university supervisor bullying story.
2. Share content/spread the word about this website/this public policy initiative.
3. Contribute content/research/blog posts to this website under your byline (we will consider a pseudonym under certain conditions).
4. Ask us: we are open to exchanging (back)links with legitimate/reputable websites.
5. Suggest ideas/resources to help us in our mission.
6. Sign the petition to reform university policy governing power relations between university supervisors and students/postdoctoral researchers to restrain supervisor bullying, harassment, and exploitation of graduate students.
7. Make a donation to support this website.
8. We welcome Canadian businesses of all sizes to join our list of supporters.
*For now, only options 1-5 are available. This page is under construction.
Meanwhile, the best way to contact us is via the following Google Form: Supervisor Bullying Contact Form.
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