Call for action regarding student deaths in MSK/WCM

Regardless of whether you think it's the school's responsibility or what you think the causes were, the fact is: these tragedies were preventable. The least that can be done is to critically examine the policies and culture of the Tri-I community and actually commit to changes, and at a minimum, the outcome will be better safeguards for students and postdocs who are in vulnerable positions in their careers and lives.

We all need to meet to discuss these ideas and define exactly what we want to ask the institutions. I don’t think you really understood that point of the petition. We understand that dealing with conflicts within the lab is also responsibility of the mentor. And it doesn’t matter how much training a mentor gets about mental health issues, they are not doctors to diagnose anyone. However, they can learn things like when they can put pressure in a student or not, to touch base with their students/postdocs in a regular basis not only to get scientific results, but also to know how motivated/demoralize they are, etc. These are things I do get from my mentor and, guess what, they help a lot.

I support this petition

Fyi: grad student strike at UC Santa Cruz: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/789268753/there-s-really-no-refuge-santa-cruz-grad-students-strike-amid-housing-crunch

Re: In every lab, there are always one or two people, with victim mentality, saying mean and harsh stuffs about their PIs and lab, although majority of the people are quite happy and enjoy their time and have not faced any sort of abuse. In such scenarios, it is a clear instance of mismatched expectations between the mentee and mentor, not the abuse. Sometimes the abuse is targeted based on visa-status, race, sex, or more selfish reasons for targeting a particular person. Real example from my friend: PI racist against non-US citizens and threaten to take away their green card(?) and send them back to their home country if they don't do 80 work hours a week. They don't do it to the US citizen lab members. Another real example: Lab primarily consists of caucasian lab members, but the 1-2 non-caucasian lab members get abused. Yet another real example (except crime related): Person targets another person for assault but acts completely normal to others. They do this so to isolate that person and make their claims look false. Fast forward 2 years later, person comfortable that they can carry out the assault, was arrested after victim called 911, and there was a lot of evidence found in the person's home by police that supported the victim's statement. But the victim had to fend for himself/herself for years against the harassment before the assault was attempted. Not saying you're wrong. I want to bring awareness that targeted abuse/harassment happens.

I have a problem with this bulletpoint which I would like to see modified before signing for the following reason: "sensitivity and leadership training for all mentors on an annual basis that includes tutorials on how to detect the warning signs of mental illness in their students and outlines an institutionally approved protocol to address the situation appropriately" PIs can use their "training to detect mental illness signs" as a way to have power or take advantage of the situation over a student. I do not recommend anything that gives PIs the power to make *any* assessments on student's mental health. Sure they can receive training, but you know they're going to leverage that "training" to bash on the student and say they've gone through training so they know what they're talking about and they're 100% correct in whatever they say when it comes to their student's mental health. They can give any assessment they want about a student (even if it's false), back up their assessment by saying they underwent "training" through this petition, and use this petition (which is meant to help students) as another route to gain advantage of the situation and get the student to do whatever they want - whether it's to leave lab, leave science, leave a project (and give it to someone else the PI favors), state the student is not smart enough or fit for whatever career paths they want, disregard a student's valid concern as nothing because they're just "imagining things" and it's just a consequence of their shaky mental state, etc. I can't imagine all the ways selfish PIs can manipulate this, but you know selfish people get creative. I don't think the PI has to take all the blame, but they do take some of it when they don't try to resolve conflicts within their lab. Sometimes it's labmates (other grad students, post-docs, staff members, etc) who are the reason why someone committed suicide. All those HR videos about harassm

I agree with this statement. Postdocs and graduate students are faced with tremendous amounts of pressure that are often complicated by many of the issues raised here.

You're missing the point. People who are more likely to suffer from mental health issues shouldn't be limited in their options and/or penalized for taking care of themselves. They shouldn't be viewed as less dedicated or working less than people who have the privilege of not suffering from these issues. PIs should not expect all students/post-docs to fit a certain mold - they need to remember that mentoring is a critical part of their jobs and that they are ultimately responsible for the lab environments. In contrast to your very specific scenario, sometimes PIs will put on a front that their labs are easygoing/low pressure (as to not seem "abusive"/toxic) then show their true colors later on.

Aside from the direct accusations of labs with no basis of truth, this is a required initiative.

Please remove the names of the students from the petition.

I strongly support this petition, but it is very unfair to use names based on unsupported conjectures. Mental health is a very serious issue and needs immediate attention with effective measures. Using recent two suicides as a basis to start the petition is very vague and it is going to seriously hurt the reputation or may be the careers of few people. I will try to further clarify couple of points which I mentioned earlier: Communication helps you to understand the demands and the work culture associated with the laboratory. If a PI demands you to work for 10-14 hours each day, does not let you to take or enjoy your own vacation, demands you to come on weekends or holidays and demands you to have groundbreaking results every week, thrashing you or mocking you consistently for getting negative results; then that’s a clear-cut case of abuse. Such PIs are same for everyone and needs to be flushed out of the system as soon as investigation proves the case. Asking honest and frank questions during your rotations are extremely important for incoming postdocs or students and it can save your life. In every lab, there are always one or two people, with victim mentality, saying mean and harsh stuffs about their PIs and lab, although majority of the people are quite happy and enjoy their time and have not faced any sort of abuse. In such scenarios, it is a clear instance of mismatched expectations between the mentee and mentor, not the abuse. There are students or postdocs with victim mentality who use such terms “abuse” whenever their mentor present criticism to their work. Just because something doesn’t get reported, it doesn’t mean such incidents do not happen. PIs, specially the junior ones, have fears to lose the opportunity to get tenured if such cases go outside. Many PIs sacrifice the first authorship or hard work of some other person to get his or her student graduated. A strong graduate student who worked with dedication, accepted the criticism constructively

I strongly support this petition, but it is very unfair to use names based on unsupported conjectures. Mental health is a very serious issue and needs immediate attention with effective measures. Using recent two suicides as a basis to start the petition is very vague and it is going to seriously hurt the reputation or may be the careers of few people. I will try to enhance couple of points which I mentioned earlier: Communication helps you to understand the demands and the work culture associated with the laboratory. If a PI demands you to work for 10-14 hours each day, does not let you to take or enjoy your own vacation, demands you to come on weekends or holidays and demands you to have groundbreaking results every week, thrashing you or mocking you consistently for getting negative results; then that’s a clear-cut case of abuse. Such PIs are same for everyone and needs to be flushed out of the system as soon as investigation proves the case. Asking honest and frank questions during your rotations are extremely important for incoming postdocs or students and it can save your life. In every lab, there are always one or two people, with victim mentality, saying mean and harsh stuffs about their PIs and lab, although majority of the people are quite happy and enjoy their time and have not faced any sort of abuse. In such scenarios, it is a clear instance of mismatched expectations between the mentee and mentor, not the abuse. There are students or postdocs with victim mentality who use such terms “abuse” whenever their mentor present criticism to their work. Just because something doesn’t get reported, it doesn’t mean such incidents do not happen. PIs, specially the junior ones, have fears to lose the opportunity to get tenured if such cases go outside. Many PIs sacrifice the first authorship or hard work of some other person to get his or her student graduated. A strong graduate student who worked with dedication, accepted the criticism constructively and incu

I strongly support this petition, but it is very unfair to use names based on unsupported conjectures. Mental health is a very serious issue and needs immediate attention with effective measures. Using recent two suicides as a basis to start the petition is very vague and it is going to seriously hurt the reputation or may be the careers of few people. I will try to enhance couple of points which I mentioned earlier: Communication helps you to understand the demands and the work culture associated with the laboratory. If a PI demands you to work for 10-14 hours each day, does not let you to take or enjoy your own vacation, demands you to come on weekends or holidays and demands you to have groundbreaking results every week, thrashing you or mocking you consistently for getting negative results; then that’s a clear-cut case of abuse. Such PIs are same for everyone and needs to be flushed out of the system as soon as investigation proves the case. Asking honest and frank questions during your rotations are extremely important for incoming postdocs or students and it can save your life. In every lab, there are always one or two people, with victim mentality, saying mean and harsh stuffs about their PIs and lab, although majority of the people are quite happy and enjoy their time and have not faced any sort of abuse. In such scenarios, it is a clear instance of mismatched expectations between the mentee and mentor, not the abuse. There are students or postdocs with victim mentality who use such terms “abuse” whenever their mentor present criticism to their work. Just because something doesn’t get reported, it doesn’t mean such incidents do not happen. PIs, specially the junior ones, have fears to lose the opportunity to get tenured if such cases go outside. Many PIs sacrifice the first authorship or hard work of some other person to get his or her student graduated. A strong graduate student who worked with dedication, accepted the criticism constructively and incu

I support this petition.

Hopefully the stigma will be gone once an investigation proves no wrong-doing. - Hassan Muhammad

good initiative

Some people might want to seek for h_lp outside of the instit_tion, but might not be able to aff_rd it, especially with our salari_s.

Second, some people might not want to seek for h_lp in the same institution where they feel unsafe or unprotected in the first place. The fact that these institutions are keeping ab_sive people as untouchable can make those in vulnerable positions feel defenseless

They wouldn't be stigmatized if there were proper investigations

First, they might feel ashamed to do so. Seeking for help already requires acknowledging that there is a problem in the first place, and unfortunately m_ntal illness/d_sorders are still highly stigmatized. There is still the general feeling that a person with m_ntal disease is responsible for having it, that is self-inflicted, or that only happens if you are weak. Having laboratories with such hostile environments where only those *strongest* can survive contributes to this idea that some are strong and some are weak. And in the same way that having other diseases such as c_ncer or diabetes has nothing to do with the strength of an individual, developing a depression could happen to anyone. Even if there is a predisposition (as also happens with c_ncer and diabetes), you wouldn't blame those who have it for developing the disease. We need to stop the stigma associated to m_ntal disease and increase the understanding and the awareness, which is one of the goals of the petition.