Sir

Carl Djerassi's Commentary makes the most insightful and useful suggestion I have seen on the issue of mentoring in graduate school ( Nature 397, 291; 1999).

Djerassi calls for the candid evaluation of professors as research administrators and mentors, a proposal that might genuinely improve the lives of graduate students. He has taken a bold step in addressing this issue squarely and honestly.

I am in a graduate programme at Harvard University that has long employed advisory committees, and the difficulties with them are exactly as Djerassi says. Senior members of faculty hold complete sway over these committees, and other committee members contest the opinion of these individuals at their peril. The committee system is in no way independent or objective, nor does it provide the opportunity to discern, let alone to correct, conflicts or deficiencies in the working relationship between professors and graduate students.

It is widely agreed among graduate students here that Jason Altom would have been no better off with a committee than he was without one. Perhaps this is also recognized by faculty members, but Djerassi is the first to acknowledge it in my experience.

Many students will suffer in their careers, or be driven to abandon science altogether, because of difficulties and abuses in graduate school. In addition to the personal suffering that this engenders, it is an enormous waste of scientific talent. Any effort to provide graduate students with fair, reasonable and considerate advice will not only improve their lot but will be positively reflected in the manner in which they conduct themselves throughout their careers and in their relationships with colleagues and students of their own.

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