text:
How to avoid student favoritism in the classroom?
FYI: I am teaching undergraduates, and am fairly recently out of grad school myself.
I find myself unconsciously treating/regarding students differently based on their engagement with the class. I find that I tend to favor students who do their work, arrive on time, and participate in discussions over those who do not.
By "favoring" I don't necessarily mean that I give them special treatment or higher grades - but I find that I do treat them better, visibly. I am more patient with them and speak to them warmly. Enough that students have noticed.
I believe I am having trouble being professional, having been in their position so recently. I can see that certain students are really enjoying the material and find the work to be exciting, and I respond emotionally to that energy.
I realize that it is inappropriate to treat students differently based on the level of their engagement with your class, so how, if you teach, do you not take it so personally?

I realize that it is inappropriate to treat students differently based on the level of their engagement with your class — [citation needed]

Why is it not appropriate to match your level of commitment to the student's learning, to theirs? If somebody has not bothered putting in a reasonable amount of prior effort, I as a teacher cannot do it for them. This is a lesson that university students must learn, and the sooner the better: you are an adult with responsibility. Some think it harsh to treat them this way; it is worse to coddle them through and have them fail spectacularly later.

I think this is a good question and I'm interested in seeing some answers. Your last line, about not taking it personally when a student seems less committed or excited, really resonates with me. Some level of emotional investment helps you be a better teacher, but you still need the right level of detachment in order to be professional with all of your students.

It might be worth some self reflection on your social style (way of interacting) meshes with your 'favorites' - in that case you need to get a little out of your comfort zone.  Becoming more flexible typically requires conscious intent. You might look at Social Styles training (which I found quite useful in many contexts in life).

@Nij I definitely tend to veer in this direction, largely because my professors had never coddled me, and it had always been a motivation. My  problem now, as a professor, is more that I don't want to discourage under-performing students by favoring better-performing ones. I find it difficult not to appreciate students who are doing well in fear of offending or discouraging ones who are not. I hope that makes sense.

[Since there will be very different views on this matter, I've kept my answer in first-person to indicate that this is my viewpoint and not a guideline of a sort.]
Whilst I agree with the comments that to an extent, it is perfectly natural to respond differently to different levels of engagement, I think a good strategy is to consider the world outside of the classroom and remember that behaviour in the classroom is a product of many causes.
I do this when I teach and I notice that I start disliking students for not turning up, lack of engagement etc. I then recall my first year at Undergrad level. I was severely depressed, attended barely 20% of my classes, just about managed to pass the year. I am sure I must have appeared absent, disinterested, the sort of student that my lecturers would ask "why would they be here in the first place if they don't attend anything?" - but my classroom behaviour (or rather, the absence of it) had absolutely nothing to do with the classroom itself, nor the teaching, not even the material.
My personal background helps me to consider such a scenario- but I think there are plenty of other things, such as:

undisclosed/not-diagnosed disabilities and/or illnesses affecting students
international students having to find their way in a very foreign world
related to 2., oftentimes young students and their first experience abroad, on their own
family background: crises at home, responsibilities for parents/grandparents/siblings that would not normally be considered
Perhaps just the natural way of things: students realise that what they thought they would love to study turns out to have been an illusion. They are not at the stage of dropping out (possibly due to parental/financial pressures) but are clearly not willing to

Whatever they do, I try to refrain from judgements on their character as much as I can. When a student is not responsive to my teaching, it does not necessarily imply a judgement on me, either.

"refer" -> "refrain", I believe? Must have been an autocorrect.

Thanks so much for your insight! This has definitely been the concern for me, as I do not want to develop a bias towards a student without knowing the full context. It is self-concerned of me to think that a student's level of engagement with the class is fully reflective of the material.

The issue of favoritism has been extensively studied at the primary and high school level (K12) but not so much at the university level except when it involves student athletes. At the primary and high school level favoritism can cause havoc in terms of the learning environment, causing resentment, alienation, and seriously damaging your influence with the students. However, I am not sure if this translates to the university setting.
It appears your primary concern is with the social setting or how you interact with the students as you state that the grading is still fair and consistent. One way to make sure that your treatment of students socially is consistent would be to develop some sort of a log in which you track how many times you interacted with a student in class and how you perceived you treated the student. Make a table with the student names, number of times you interacted, and the level of warmth and you will begin to see a trend over time.
This assumes you have the time and patience for such an approach. I wouldn't waste a lot of time with this but maybe a 1-2 weeks of data collection followed by direct intervention to connect with the students who have had less contact with you would be enough for a semester.


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I want to change my thesis topic (to the extent that the ethos is still in tact) but my advisor does not agree. What can I do?
I am doing a phd where my aim is to solve a problem A which is very interesting. My supervisor has got a lot of connections in a technology B and he claims to be an expert in B. I came to this group because of these accomplishments. But soon I realized that B is not really a great technology for A.
So in my phd proposal I proposed a method which encompasses B but is more general (say R). Now I realize that I do not want to use B at all because my preliminary results are not encouraging. In fact, I am inclined to use E as a base technique which does not have any impact on R.  But my supervisor, who is interested in only publishing in B  and frowns upon everything else (it was a nightmare to convince him to let me work on R) is dead against it. He says that he is an expert in B and his vision of the group is not inclined with me trying other things.
There are other professors in my university who have worked in E and could collaborate but my supervisor won't collaborate with people from outside his kingdom. I also know professors from outside my university who could help me if needed. I could knock the doors of school committee in order to  help me but that would create a lot of problems as my supervisor wields a lot of power and influence everywhere.
Another query is, is it ethical to collaborate with people outside the university (of course after letting my supervisor know) for my PhD work. My Masters supervisor would be happy to help me out.
Edit: After looking at comments, I am thinking that after all, it is MY PhD. Yes, I have spent 1.5 years, but 1.5 years is left. Why should I spend any moment of my life on something I find to be not exciting, particularly less exciting because it is forced on me. And in those 1.5 years I learnt to write well and also learnt 'A' which is important. Its not total waste. My supervisor has his agenda, and why should I give up mine to make him happy? His vision is fine, but he does not have the right to force his vision on me.

Is there any particular reason not to change supervisors?

@PatriciaShanahan I have scholarship only for 3 years. I have spent 1.5 years in that.  Though I am fine with my secondary supervisor who is very nice it will be difficult for me to find a new primary supervisor because this one wields very high influence in my school and nobody wishes to antagonize him. But I am considering that and looking that is why I am here.

I understand the problem of finding alternative funding. The objective would be to find a supervisor who could adopt and support your current line of research, so the 1.5 years would not be wasted.

No more comments from anybody else? Has nobody been in or seen a case like mine? Is looking for another supervisor the only criterion?

Any advice on how to approach the other professors?   I have one in my mind who is more than capable of helping me out with E.

The research path you want to follow is not one your current advisor can or will support. Either you change path to match the advisor, or change advisors to match the path.

A great deal depends on the particulars of your university, the general ethos of your field / subfield, and to some extent your country's customs or patterns (or potentially those of your advisor's country of origin)

"Why should I spend any moment of my life on something I find to be not exciting?" Because a) you get paid for doing this b) because you agreed in written to do this (your PhD proposal said that you were going to use "B"). You have now changed your mind and that is perfectly OK but that does not mean that your supervisor was wrong in the first place.

@Alexandros I agree with your point. I cannot find fault with him. It is in fact not my intention to find fault with anyone. I just wish to do what appeals to me. I have people around me who can help me to do it. The suggestions I am looking for is how to do it and what is the right thing to do.

@Alexandros I would also mention that PhD proposal is not a binding contract on me. Its just a proposal which the committee said is fine. Moreover, I am not paid by my supervisor but by the university. Of course , he recommended it, but me accepting it , which is a much lower pay than I would have made otherwise by working for industry makes me think that I should try to do only things about which I am totally passionate about.

The problem that you are facing is that your supervisor is not necessarily wrong to say:

He says that he is an expert in B and his vision of the group is not inclined with me trying other things.

As hard as this sounds, as the head of a research group one needs to make sure that the people in the group follow some sort of unifying theme or vision. Otherwise, it is basically impossible to build any sort of profile. I am personally not a big fan of visions that resolve around a specific tool rather than a problem set or topic, because this often leads to the kind of research that boils down to "we have a hammer, and use it to punch whatever problem we can think of", but unquestionably a lot of research groups work like that. It also makes sense on some level, because in many fields techniques are more difficult to master than learning new problems and application domains, so it makes sense to keep the thing constant that is hard to learn and vary the things that are easier to get into from scratch.
Realistically, if 'B' is actually useless for your project, and your supervisor is adamant that you need to be using 'B', you can either change what you are trying to accomplish (the 'A' in your terminology), or change supervisor. That being said, depending on what you mean with 'preliminary results', this seems far from obvious to me.

Another query is, is it ethical to collaborate with people outside the university (of course after letting my supervisor know) for my PhD work. My Masters supervisor would be happy to help me out.

Ethical? Sure - but that does not mean that your supervisor needs to be happy about it or let you do it if (s)he perceives that your main work suffers from it. Look around on this site on the topic of side projects - this has been discussed a number of times here.

+1 for the suggestion of changing A to something where B (or R) is more suitable for. OP asked to work for this prof, and, while I appreciate flexibility in a person's attitude, this is not always a given, jealousy exacerbating it. Trying to make the best out of the situation (esp. since you are already 1.5 years into the PhD) is therefore now your priority. So, moving to a different application field that supports your profs' technique (that's why you came there to work) is probably a better route than changing the technique to one your prof is not interested in or has no expertise in.

I cannot change 'A' anymore, because it is the reason I am doing PhD. I would continue working on 'A' probably for the rest of my career but mastering 'B' is not my priority. In other words, I love 'A' but am not a fan of 'B'. The only reason I am sticking to it is because I do not want to offend the professor. I came to work in 'A' and never had thought I would be pushed to work using only 'B'. Also I have come to believe that my professor has a very narrow view of computer science, as he criticizes everything outside the realm of 'B' as his motive is to create his profile only in 'B'.

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In what order should I write acknowledgments?
In (pure?) mathematics, the order of the authors for a given paper is almost exclusively always alphabetical. This leads me to believe that there may be a similar convention when writing acknowledgements.
In what order should acknowledgments be written in a math paper? By order of importance (increasing or decreasing), by alphabetical order, or something else? Does it not matter?

It generally doesn't matter much (though I wouldn't suggest using in increasing order of helpfulness), but if some people deserve special thanks they should be singled out.  I'll often write acknowledgements in this sort of format:

I thank Prof A for encouraging me to think about this problem and Prof B for the realization that it could be approached by X ("chronological order").
I also thank C, D and E (alphabetical order) for useful discussions and feedback.
This work was partially supported by Grant 12345.

If it's a co-authored paper you can separate sentences/phrases for specific thanks from each author.
Generally my advice on questions like this is just to look at a bunch of other papers, see what they do, and learn from that.

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Do newly hired professors have to take a drug test before they start?
In U.S., Canadian and European universities do new professors have to pass a drug test before starting their career?  Or is it only required when they are promoted to full-time tenure professors?

Every country is different. Every university is different.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Voting to close because this question is attracting a lot of junk, in particular the apology of psychotropic drugs use which is not what this website should be archiving in my opinion.

@CapeCode voting to reopen because there are good answers.  Vote down the junk, not the question.  The answers effectively cover the breadth of the question, and also some interesting details.

In the academical sphere, I never heard any similar. I know only Middle Europe, but multiple countries there.
Its reason isn't that the Profs here would be addict, but its exact opposite: it is unthinkable on such a level, that nobody thinks it would be needed.
The wider context:
The long-term mental harms of drugs would make you probably ineligible to fulfill a full-time academical job.
Most of the drugs have a time until they are emptied from your body. You can google for that on the net. After that, the test will be negative. But it would be much better if you wouldn't need such tricks, i.e. you could simply pass the test without any problem.
Employers often have similar traditions, for example they can wish some papers from the police that you aren't an offender.
Considering things like these are in our cultural circles nearly unheard, it is really no more as a tradition. Maybe it could serve as a little positive psychological effect to show for everybody, that your university/company is perfectly "pure". Although knowing, that everybody laughs on this little ritual behind your back, can cause maybe more harm.
I suggest don't play the idealist liberal, allow them this show. They need it for the feeling that they are "clean", it doesn't cost for you anything, and they are your employer. There is no real reason to reject the test.

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Is this a serious question? I would refuse to work anywhere where my employer would require me to do such a test. It is simply none of their business.
I am actually not aware of any (European) university that would require anyone to take a drug test. In fact, it would be illegal in many countries to do this (or at least, there are very strict rules about the circumstances in which it would be legal).

This is absolutely a serious question.  For many types of jobs, in many parts of the world, drug testing is nearly universal, or even required by law.  Not everyone's willing to starve for the sake of high moral principles like you are. It so happens that this doesn't apply to academic jobs anywhere I know, but how is someone to know that unless they ask?

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In Germany you will be subjected to a medical examination if you become a civil servant. Full professors (W3) are typically civil servants. The levels below that (W1 and W2), are typically also civil servants, though not permanent and the examination tends to be a bit easier. Post-docs (TVL 13 or 14) are typically "normal" employees, and those are not subjected to the examination.
I believe that it is in principle possible to refuse the civil servant status and become a professor as a normal employee, and thus avoid the medical examination. However, I don't know of anyone who has done so voluntarily as the financial benefits of civil servant status are substantial (job security, lower tax rate, better pension).

Does the medical exam include drug testing?

It involved a urine sample...

@MaartenBuis the urine sample is probably for sugar/protein in urine, not for drug testing.

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While drug testing is very common in the USA, this is not the case world wide. In the UK it is rare. The uk government advises

Employers should:

limit testing to employees that need to be tested
ensure the tests are
random
not single out particular employees for testing unless this is
justified by the nature of their jobs

Workers can’t be made to take a
drugs test but if they refuse when the employer has good grounds for
testing, they may face disciplinary action.

Part of the difference is that trade union membership is much higher in Europe, particularly in white collar jobs, such as teaching.
The Trade Union congress notes that it drug tests are rare in the uk, outside of transport and energy generation.
It further notes that in many European countries, pre-employment testing is not allowed, however in the UK the law is less clear. Employment tribunals have established that possession of drugs outside the workplace cannot in itself be grounds for dismissal. There must be evidence of impairment.
This implies that a university lecturer would not be asked to provide a sample for drug testing prior to employment, nor during employment nor prior to gaining promotion, since a univiersity would not be able to convince an employment tribunal that such testing is needed.

In Australia, the case is similar. Drug testing by employers would usually be legal only if there is a clear health and safety case, and is, as far as I know, unheard of in academia: http://workplaceinfo.com.au/resources/employment-topics-a-z/alcohol-and-drug-testing

I did some web searching.  I found cases in the US where primary and secondary teachers were subject to pre-emplyment drug tests.  I found cases in the US where student employees at a university were subject to drug tests.  I found cases in the US where those in "high risk" jobs at a university were subject to tests.  But I did not find blanket drug tests for prospective university faculty.

What are "high risk" jobs?

@Kimball High risk jobs are typically jobs where you have to manipulate hazardous materials, operate machinery etc. Every job where you can cause damage to people if you are in an altered state.

@MassimoOrtolano Oh, thanks.  I was thinking positions which have a high-risk of drug use, and then I thought, teaching freshman calculus engenders a strong desire for mood alteration, but it can't be that...

@MassimoOrtolano in the US "high risk" jobs/jobs requiring drug testing are  jobs that require a commercial drivers license. The US department of transportation requires drug testing for CDL jobs.

While likely an outlier, faculty positions at USUHS are usually (possibly always) classified as test designated positions. It wouldn't surprise me if the same policies applied to the US military academis.

For the N=1 data point of a newly hired assistant professor at a U.S. state university: Nope.

-1 This is a Stack Exchance site, not a survey.

@DavidRicherby Technically, a single negative data point is an answer of "No" to the question, as it is implicitly asking about a universal policy.

Such questions are usually taken as asking if something is usually true, not universally. For example, if I asked you "Do Americans eat pizza?" are you seriously saying that your answer would be "No", on grounds that there is at least one American (say, a new-born baby) who does not?

@DavidRicherby The way the question is worded clearly makes it sound like the OP thinks it's a job requirement (see also the "or" part of his question).

@DavidRicherby To use your example, the question is more like "Do Americans have to eat pizza, or do they only eat it if they move to Canada?". The have is an important word in the OP, and one where a counter example is perfectly valid.

The City Colleges of Chicago are one of the largest community college in the US and they require a drug test for new employees including professors or adjunct, so I think it's not that uncommon in the States.

On the other hand, the actual largest community colleges of CUNY in New York do not require that.

You ask a very broad question covering the US, Canada and Europe. I (obviously) don't know the law and practices in each and every country but note that drug tests are extremely uncommon and widely considered unacceptable in most of Europe (cf. Damian's answer, which seemed unrealistic to many US commenters but shows how this sounds to European ears).
To give you an idea of the way this is perceived, the European Court of Human Rights heard several cases pertaining to drug testing at work. It did allow some in the end but only in very limited cases (think a ship's captain who is suspected by his employer of putting many lives in danger, not routine screening prior to employment). Very often, a test would be performed when an employee holding a job with particular security implications already seems to be intoxicated and the employer needs some hard evidence to initiate disciplinary action (and, again, not for prospective employees).

Another data point: In Finland, I think there is a drug test for persons managing research-purpose drugs, who are sometimes also professors. So the answer could be yes for some particular positions. Though, I am not sure if this practice is shared by all Finnish universities.

This is clearly an edge case, and does not tell you much about the average professorial post.


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Can you do a PhD solely on repeating experiments of others?
In here, they say there is a problem with results not being replicated. I know a PhD is supposed to be "original" research. But could you do a PhD solely on replicating the results of others? Especially given that there is a problem with results not being replicated, I believe you would be contributing a lot to science. Even if it is not "original research".

Maybe if one came to original conclusions about which or how many results are reproducible. But a PhD has to have something original, period.

Only your Ph.D. advisor can tell you whether this is OK in your case.  Arrive at the conclusion in discussion with your advisor.

@GEdgar I'm not in an experimental field and have no interest in doing this. Just curious.

I would say it depends:
a) If in medicine, you are the first one to replicate an effect in an independent study, then you actually did something original, namely confirming the effect
b) If in physics, you refine an experimental design to verify an uncertain outcome, or clean up a measurement to exclude artifacts, and make the effect more clear, it is also something original
The rest is in the shades of what passed in the journals as "original". But I guess as long as the experiment was set up freshly (i.e. not in the same group) and had any small improvement/change (analysis method, amount of data, statistical uncertainty, control experiments) over the original it would pass in many universities for a PhD (and I will not give my personal opinion on the level or originality required for a PhD in an average university here).

In addition to the consideration of finding a lab with all the necessary equipment to spend 3-6 years replicating other experiments, the lab willing to host you for doing just that, the funding bodies which find the work 'interesting' enough to fund for 3-6 years, this is the answer.

However, the "original" bits and pieces you describe make the new work not an exact replication of the original. Which means that we keep having the problems of incomparable studies on the same subject.

Well. Replicating IMHO does not mean copying everything, but do a design which tests the same thing, in your own way. If i copy everything, i also copy the design mistakes, making the replication worth less.

It is the knowledge created from research that must be original and not necessarily the research topic itself. May topics of research have been revisited throughout time when advancements in technology or methods allow a greater insight into the original hypothesis and results. If your hypothesis differed from that of the original research project - such as quantifying the impact of previously unaccounted variables or applying the original knowledge to a novel application - then there is grounds for originality.
I know of a colleagues research that has been based on the results of a previous researchers contribution to knowledge. When trying to apply this knowledge to an application my colleague found certain elements from the previous research did not repeat in the manner they should. This discovery highlights the original research as non-repeatable and possibly even discredits it. These results are valid and important to the advancement of knowledge.

In addition to the other answers: It may also be possible to produce new knowledge by using the results of other peoples' experiments and (for example) combining them in novel ways, or applying a different analysis.
Whether there is a PhD in this is something that only the advisor can answer, though.


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Is it moral to contact a questionnaire participant because of alarming response?
For a study, we sent out a questionnaire to members of the general public. The questionnaire was containing items related to well-being and happiness, among other items that are completely related to my field (computer science).
One respondent wrote about having suicidal thoughts because of personal issues. No signs of seeking treatment in the reply.
The participant left their e-mail address in the field "contact me back for the results and/or further clarifications".
What is my role here as a researcher? My first thought was to contact the participant and pointing them to seeking help (maybe also providing links to their national suicide prevention programs).

Did you give any assurance or implication of anonymity or confidentiality to the participant? If not, then I would think that it would be reasonable to approach this in the same way that you might if you had been told this by a stranger in any other context: offer help/advice, but don't force it.

We followed standard ethical procedures that the responses are kept confidential and anonymous with the exception of them leaving their e-mail address, which was an opt-in for further questions.

Given that the participant specifically provided an email address I would assume that mailing back to him should not be a big ethical quarrel. Of course this does not mean that (s)he will necessarily want to hear what you are saying or listen to it. There is also the question whether you would have expected "signs of seeking treatment" in your survey - this was a computer science survey after all, I see no reason to put this info into the survey even if the participant would be undergoing treatment since months.

Also, it seems to me that there are psychologists that have to deal with this situation regularly. What about trying to contact those?

@xLeitix you are right that the questions would by no way push the participants to report if they are under treatment for anything. I was wondering if there were researchers in psych here around to reply to my question. Otherwise I will ask around.

Isn't it a bit presumptuous to think that person seeks/needs help? They may have a valid reason for wanting to die. It's their choice, after all.

@101010111100 "Let's not get involved with this person that seems to be suffering - maybe she has a valid reason for wanting to die." I hope you are trolling.

@xLeitix Not really, no. It's about your perspective and worldview. There is a myriad of reasons why a person may decide they don't want to live anymore, and many of those reasons cannot be (practically) remedied. Selfishly forcing people to live is truly disgusting.

You may want to ask this of your ethics department. Typical conditions are that information may only be used for what you said you would collect it for, and not a single step beyond those limits. Unless you included this kind of follow-up in your ethics application and in the participant information, I expect that (whatever else is or isn't unethical) doing so is a clear breach of the permission you got.

Adding to the other comments: Depending on your country, there may also be legal aspects. I do not know of any specific country and IANAL, but there may be countries where you could be charged with a crime for failure to render assistance if you do not attempt to help the person in question, and they end up harming themselves. (If this would ever actually happen is another question). Just another thing to keep in mind.

@101010111100 What do you believe the ratio is between those who are suicidal and it would be selfish to help them versus those who are suicidal and it would be selfish not to help them? Most people don't want to die when they're functioning properly.

@101010111100 I agree that people shall be free to do whatever they want with their life. Still worth trying to attempt to help somebody that looks to be in need, just by checking them out. If there is no need for help, so be it.

Of course you had prior approval from your institution to do research with human subjects!  Didn't they have something to say about whether and to what extent the results should be confidential?

@GEdgar alas, no IRB/ERB at the institution I worked for when the study was executed. It is actually quite rare to find one in small and/or technical universities.

@JessicaB You are assuming that one chemical state (non-suicidal) is more proper/correct than another chemical state (suicidal), which I believe is wrong, but more importantly, it is (currently?) impossible to prove. And also, there often is selfless value (in fact, a value to everyone) in suicide.

http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/1031/how-do-you-handle-suicide-threats

@Nij: "information may only be used for what you said you would collect it for, and not a single step beyond those limits (...) doing so is a clear breach of the permission you got." - wouldn't this rather raise question whether clinging to the agreed upon rules (which were meant to determine how data is used with respect to a user study, after all) is still ethical if the alternative could mean saving someone's life? As malexmave pointed out, not attempting to help might be a criminal offence, and I don't think "My institution's ethics department did not allow me to use the information." ...

... would serve as a valid excuse in court - and in this case, I'd argue that ethical and legal right concur.

@O.R.Mapper unless the researcher is a mandated reporter (which only comes up as an issue in a few select fields) such a requirement is not reasonable. I would especially like reference to a country where one exists, since malexmave doesn't state that this is the actual case anywhere, either. Further, adherence to one legal condition isn't necessarily a protection from penalty for breach of another. It may well be a situation where the researcher is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Then, they should be talking to a lawyer about how to proceed, and we can't help.

@Nij: German penal code, §323c: "Failure to render assistance: Anyone who, in the case of an accident, general danger, or distress, fails to help, even though this is required and reasonable in the given circumstances, in particular, without significantly endangering oneself or failing to fulfil other important duties, will be punished with a fine or a prison term of up to one year." This applies to everyone, not just to "mandated reporters". From what I can find online now, the "other important duties" is commonly interpreted to refer ...

... to immediate duties that make it practically impossible to render assistance (e.g. watching children or already caring for another injured person after an accident). In particular, the one unable to help immediately is not exempt from the duty to try and ask someone else to render assistance. You're right in that you can get into legal lose-lose situations, but as in this case it's about preventing physical harm vs. preventing a breach of privacy related to the same victim, (without being an expert) I'm confident that both factors would be considered in court.

Is it possible the respondent could be trying to manipulate you? You know nothing at all about the person regardless of what they wrote. I would avoid involvement.

I know I've read something in a research textbook about unexpected ethics problems, but I don't remember where or what it said.
I think you need to contact your ethics committee (or equivalent), preferably quickly, for guidance. If there were enough questions about welfare on the questionnaire to be likely to bring up some sort of similar response, you should probably think about pre-empting it next time and automatically including links to suitable resources. It may be that now you can send out details to all participants (those who left email addresses, or perhaps the original distribution list, depending on how participants were recruited), as a way of offering help without singling them out. If the wording of the email address field requires it (I can't quite make sense of it), you could perhaps do so together with the results of the research, or a preliminary summary of the results...

Your work should have been approved (including being classified as exempt) by an institutional review board (IRB). You say

no IRB/ERB at the institution I worked for when the study was executed. It is actually quite rare to find one in small and/or technical universities.

This is actually not a valid excuse. You should have gone to an outside IRB if your university does not have one.
I would classify this a response indicating suicidal tendencies as an adverse event. Adverse events include both "events" like a subject dyeing and abnormal findings on tests (e.g., a blood test or an eye test). Further, since it is life threatening, it is a serious adverse event. Finally, since you did not predict this outcome, it would be classified as an unexpected adverse event. The safest route in the face of an unexpected serious adverse event is to immediately halt the study and contact the IRB.
You are also required to provide subjects who experience an adverse event (both expected or unexpected) with appropriate care (i.e., if a subject has a heart attack, you need to call an ambulance). In this case, this means contacting someone in mental health.

Thank you for the extensive reply. Is there such a thing as an external ERB? It is really not common in my field to have an internal one or to "use" one at all. At least in several universities in Europe (again, specifically to my field).

@dgraziotin in the US IRB approval is mandated for almost all research involving human subjects that is funded by the government. Many universities and hospitals outsource the IRB process to for-profit IRB companies.

You mean dying, presumably. I don't think this would be covered by the duty of care, because the problem was not a result of the study, it was just noticed by it. This person would have known of their feelings without the study. To say harm was caused by the study, you'd need to say that answering the questions made things worse, but  believe the current consensus is that that is not the case for suicidal thoughts.

@JessicaB if in an fMRI study you detect a brain abnormality, most IRBs require you to do something about it. If in a study of hearing, you find out a subject has a hearing loss, IRBs require you to do something about it.

In both cases you are discovering a previously unknown problem, presumably.

@StrongBad: "Your work should have been approved", "in the US IRB approval is mandated for almost all research involving human subjects" - that may well be the case in the U.S., but regulations differ wildly around the world, the expectation of approval by any IRB-like entity may either not exist, not considered warranting any ecpenses ("for-profit IRB companies), or be deemed not applicable outside of medical or other ...

... specific branches of research, the protection granted by U.S. IRB oversight might overlap with protections granted by other laws in other jurisdictions, and as a result, IRB-like entities that CS researchers could direct individual inquiries to may just not be a thing in many places.

There is clearly a sign that this person is deliberately reaching out to you... Why else would they say what they did and include an email? I agree in getting advice from your ethics people, but don't waste time... However, keep in mind you are committing yourself once you contact this individual so be prepared to offer resources for them, such as a way to contact a free mental health clinic in their area....

“Why else would they say what they did and include an email?” — because there was a survey question asking about their happiness and well-being, and question at the end of the survey asking for (optionally) an email address?  I’m not saying the person wasn’t deliberately reaching out — but I don’t think it’s obvious from the description whether they were.

@PLL Exactly! I don't think we can infer intention here, at least not without knowing how the question was worded. Many people occasionally have suicidal thoughts, but have no suicidal intentions. That is, they might wish they weren't alive for a few hours on a bad day, but never go beyond that to even think about making a plan. People like that may benefit from counseling, but an overly dramatic reaction could make things worse by making them feel labeled as "crazy". So I do think it best to ask the ethics people how to proceed.


text:
How common are self-funded PhDs in the STEM fields in U.S. universities?
I met a PhD student that is completely self-funded at our engineering college .  Our university is notorious for being one of the most expensive schools to attend; I can't imagine someone funding his own graduate studies for five/six years, right after paying for an undergrad education.
He did land an important internship at a large hedge fund, though, so I'm guessing in the long run, if he lands in finance, it could be all worth it.
My question is: are self-funded PhDs in the STEM fields at U.S. universities pretty common?

There's a strong norm against it; "you should not be paying for your own PhD tuition, you should be earning a stipend" is stock advice for undergraduates in the USA contemplating graduate school.  The situation might be different for people returning to academia after some time in industry, though.

From the Survey of Earned Doctorates, a large-scale survey of students who earn doctoral degrees from U.S. institutions,

In the life sciences, 9% report "own resources" as primary source of support.
In the physical sciences, 3.8% report "own resources" as primary source of support.
In the social sciences, 25.3% report "own resources" as primary source of support.
In engineering, 3.8% report "own resources" as primary source of support.

See TABLE 35. Doctorate recipients' primary source of financial support, by broad field of study, sex, citizenship status, ethnicity, and race: 2014.

There may be some bias because self-funded students are unusual. For several years, I was both self-funded and the only over-50 female computer science graduate student on a campus. I did not complete surveys that asked for any confidential information unless they indicated a minimum group size for statistics.

@PatriciaShanahan In the SED, data is not disclosed for subgroups of small size. These are listed as "D = suppressed to avoid disclosure of confidential information" in the table. A discussion of the specific data suppression policy is available in Protecting and Accessing Data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (free to read online with no login required)

That is what I like to see in a survey, so I would have answered that one.


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What are the perks of being a tenured professor at U.S. universities, besides having academic freedom?
For instance, one of my professors went to Princeton (for his undergrad math degree) for free, because his parents are tenured faculty at Princeton.  Is such a benefit available to tenured faculty at most U.S. universities?  This is assuming that a tenured professor's children are qualified to be admitted to the school.
Besides having academic freedom, what are some other, lesser-known, considerable perks of being in academia as a tenured professor as opposed to being tenure track?
(Main motivation for the question is to follow up on a previous question in which the OP asked about the stresses of academic life, specifically, in mathematics research.)

Flexibility in terms of setting your own work hours is another major factor I would reckon.

Are you asking about perks for tenured, TT/tenured faculty, or all employees of a university

@StrongBad, I've edited the question to ask only about tenured faculty, since I don't believe tenure-track faculty (and lower-ranked faculty such as adjuncts) would have acquired any substantial benefits before achieving tenure, but feel free to correct me, if I am wrong.  Thanks,

@user58865: In my experience, the only benefit that's exclusive to tenured faculty is tenure itself (and some more money).  Other benefits (tuition waivers for children, faculty parking lot, medical insurance, retirement plan, etc) are nearly always available to all faculty regardless of tenure status, and often to administrative staff employees as well.

Possible duplicate of What is the real benefit of tenured positions for universities?

@madjack - yes, the comments and answers have cleared it up for me, thanks,

@blueraja-DannyPflughoeft - not a duplicate, that question's answers all list academic freedom as the benefit; I was asking to learn of other benefits (if any).

@NateEldredge what about corner offices, no classes on fridays, and a vote on future tenure cases?

Job security of course.

@StrongBad: There are lots of benefits related to seniority but not directly tied to tenure.  Voting on tenure cases is a good point, but not universal: at my institution, pre-tenure faculty have the right to vote on tenure cases (though they usually don't exercise it).

@curiousdannii - no kidding, I thought tenure made a professor practically impossible to fire - is this true?

I thought tenure made a professor practically impossible to fire - is this true? — Nope. At my institution (and I know of other places, too), we have a post-tenure review process, which opens the doors to getting rid of unproductive / ineffective / etc. faculty. @davidbak

Universities offer all sort of "benefits" to its employees. Some of these "benefits" do  not have a monetary value (e.g., flexible work schedule). The benefits available to faculty are often different from the cleaning staff. Further there are differences in benefits between tenured/tenure track and adjunct faculty. I can only think of three benefits, that have a monetary value, for which there are differences between tenure track and tenured faculty
Sabbatical: Some universities do not permit pretenure sabbaticals. It is often hard to differentiate if sabbatical eligibility is tied to tenure or time in service. Brown University provides different sabbatical benefits pre and post tenure.
Housing Assistance: Some universities provide housing assistance (discounted homes, mortgage assistance, loans, etc). Portions of the housing assistance program at Columbia requires tenure.
Parking: Some universities provide parking passes. Carroll College provides reserved spaces for tenured faculty while other faculty and staff simply get a parking pass.
In terms of perks that do not have a monetary value, this varies widely by department. Tenured faculty often get to be chair of the department (which may or may not be a perk). Departments may also give tenured faculty priority in terms of teaching schedule, departmental and university service requirements, office space, and lab space. The sabbatical system, internal funding, and administrative support may be skewed in their favor also.

Thanks so much @StrongBad for pointing out the typical differences in benefits between tenured faculty and everyone else at a university - I've changed my accepted answer to yours, because of this.

Yes, I agree this is clearly the most responsive answer to the question.

Regarding sabbaticals, a counterpoint: some universities offer a special form of sabbatical for pre-tenure faculty on the tenure track (at my university it is called "Junior Faculty Leave") which is more attractive than usual sabbatical in certain ways.

While some universities offer tuition waivers, that is not universal, even in the United States -- and where it is available, it is usually a perk offered to all full time staff and faculty, not just tenured faculty.
For example, I have been employed at three public, research-intensive universities in Michigan:

At Oakland University, children of all full-time staff or faculty get full tuition if they are admitted to, and enrolled full-time in, any degree-granting program.
At Michigan State University, children of all full-time staff or faculty get a 50% tuition courtesy if they are admitted to, and enrolled full-time, a first undergraduate program.  (In other words they cannot use this to get a discount on a second Bachelors degree or a graduate degree.)
At the University of Michigan, there is no tuition benefit at all.

Other perks that full-time staff and instructional faculty may get (depending on the university and department) include a computer, office space, retirement (often including a 2-to-1 match in a tax-deferred 403(b) retirement fund up to some maximum), and a generous health care package.  But again, these same perks are (often) not restricted to tenured faculty.

Do you mean that office space is considered a perk? Are there universities that do not give offices to their faculties?

@MassimoOrtolano I think this discussion mainly shows that it's not easy to decide what is a "perk" and what is just an expected benefit of the job. For instance, I would not consider academic freedom a "perk" per se either. It's part of the job, and I would not consider a position without academic freedom a professorship in the usual sense.

@MassimoOrtolano At many universities there are certainly adjunct faculty who do not have offices, so in that sense one of the perks of being a full-time regular faculty member (as opposed to an adjunct) is that one has an office.

@mweiss I have never heard of adjunct not having office space. They might not have their own personal office but they will definitely have a space for office hours with a desk, or they might have a space but never use it.

@user4050 See http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/teaching-careers/adjunct-professor/ and http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/the-cost-of-an-adjunct/394091/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/adjunct-faculty_n_4255139.html. Search each page for the word "office".

My father is a retired college professor, and these were some of his "perks."
1) Tuition reimbursement for all his children, up to that of the university[s own fees. In the case of the Princeton professor, that meant his children's tuition at Princeton was paid for.
2) Chances of earning additional money, under the auspices of the University, for government or other consulting projects.
3) A very generous retirement package, similar to that of the military or government employees. The "salaries" aren't so great, but the retirement benefits are.
Note that this refers to what has been in the past,for people who are now closer to retirement than to receiving tenure, and may or may not be true going forward. But the question was cast as 'up to now."

None of these are unique to tenured faculty, or even faculty in general.

Retirement plans today may be quite different from a few years ago.

Does the full tuition reimbursement also guaranty admission?

@user8001: In theory, no. But the "dirty secret" (so I have been told) is that all other things being equal, you have a better chance of getting in because you are in effect a "legacy" candidate through your parent.

@DanielR.Collins: Most tenured professors are middle-aged or older people who have retirement plans that were locked in years ago. It's true that a "starting" academic such as an assistant ;professor might face a lesser retirement plan but s/he might not (yet) be tenured, and the question was about tenured professors.

In case a reader was going to take this as prospective job advice, then it should be put in context that the retirement package of current-about-to-retire faculty may not be available at present or in the future.

To further clarify: At my institution, there are faculty who received tenure in the last few years who definitely do not have defined-benefit retirement plans.

@Daniel R.Collins: Added a new last paragraph as a qualfier.

At the community college where I teach, there are two huge benefits of being tenured (or tenure-track) which other answers have not touched on:

You get representation by a labor union that effectively advocates for you on issues of pay and working conditions.
You get effective representation in the faculty senate, which has a lot of influence over academic and professional matters.

(This is very different from the situation experienced by adjunct faculty. Part-timers have a different union, which is basically powerless, and although they have representation on the faculty senate, they have very little influence there.)
A great number of other benefits flow from these. Here are a couple of random examples.
My school claims in its catalog that it is a smoke-free campus, but in fact when they wrote up the rules, they decided that it wasn't practical to make that policy apply to union members. I have a tenured colleague who has a nicotine addiction, and for harm reduction she gets her nicotine fix by vaping in her office. For comparison, I had a nicotine-addicted student last year who couldn't make it through a three-hour physics lab without a fix. He had to leave lab and walk off campus to get his nicotine, because the campus police would hassle him if he vaped outside.
A decade ago, I was attacked by a student who threw me over a bench and into some bushes and threatened to kill me. An inaccurate version of the story got written up in the police report, apparently making me look bad. Once I realized that I might be in trouble, maybe even in danger of getting fired, I asked to see the police report so that I could understand what they thought I had done, but my management supervisor said that I couldn't see it because that would violate the student's privacy. I got nowhere on this until I got the union involved, after which the whole problem evaporated.

The question is specifically asking about benefits specific to tenured positions. In other words what benefits do you get from going from TT to tenured.

As others have noted, not all universities give their faculty tuition waivers for their kids (not at mine, for example), and parking is not always free (not at mine, for example, and football season ticket holders usurp my contract space on "football Saturdays"), and the office space is not necessarily climate-controlled (I once had a thermostat in my office, which, it turned out, controlled all the offices on my side of the hallway... but they took it away. Now the temperature and ventilation is pretty random.), and so on.
Nevertheless, apart from thinking about these myriad petty annoyances, I almost entirely determine what it is that I think about on a day-to-day basis. Having weaned myself from external grant money, etc., I am not obliged to please federal agencies, either! That was what I hoped for, and on good days that is what I appreciate. :)


text:
Who is supposed to repeat experiments?
A follow up to this question.
There is an issue in science with experiments not being repeated. I asked if PhDs can be done on repeating experiments and the answer is kind of mixed. Most PhDs aren't that. I don't suspect that professors repeat experiments often.
So, who is supposed to repeat experiments in academia?

Journal of Irreproducible Results

"I asked if PhDs can be done on repeating experiments and the answer is kind of mixed" - Well, no, that's actually not quite what you asked.  You asked if a PhD can be done solely on replicating the results of others.  That's a subtly different question.  Even if solely replicating the results of others wasn't enough for a PhD, that doesn't mean that PhD students won't/don't/shouldn't try to replicate the experiments of others. This question seems to be based on a faulty premise.

You are. And you, who is reading this comment, too. Ideally, reviewers would be able to replicate experiments, but the usually have neither the data, nor the time, to do so.

I replicated the results of a paper for my undergraduate final project. We all got different papers and had to reproduce the results.

This is a great question! I usually have to rely at least on a single group being able to reproduce their results in several papers, then I would try to use the same method. It usually works. But in my topic it's hard to even reproduce my own results with sufficient accuracy. I would strongly ecourage this, in fact it would make sense for student profects to be based mostly on reproducing and checking the results of others (preferably new works). That way the students have the degree of certainty that their experiment should work, and the researchers can focus on obtaining new results mostly

In my field (biological) the good papers already contain multiple biological and technical replicates to make sure that what you're seeing is not caused by artefacts or sampling. I'm not sure what third party repeats would add in this case other than catching frauds.

The gold standard is blind, independent replication. However, this almost never happens because it costs a similar amount (of materials and time) and there is less benefit to the researcher who repeats the experiments, so there is little incentive. Next down would be independent replication by another group, then replication within the same group. The bare minimum is that the experiment be described in sufficient detail to be reproduced. For example, the 'Instructions to Authors' in the Journal of Infection and Immunity (which is fairly typical) states:

the Materials and Methods section should include sufficient technical
  information to allow the experiments to be repeated.

Reproducibility is one of the most important issues when describing or reviewing a scientific paper (ref). Knowing that a result is less likely to be attributable to a chance combination of uncontrolled parameters, or a mistake on behalf of the scientist conducting the experiment or recording the experimental conditions, increases confidence that the result seen is a 'genuine' phenomenon. As Karl Popper, the founder of the scientific method, put it:

Non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.

(Popper 1959, The logic of scientific discovery. Hutchinson, London, United Kingdom.)
Unfortunately, most journals place a high premium on novelty and therefore it is more difficult to publish reproductions of previous studies, and when these are published they are often in less important journals. Funders, similarly, direct reviewers to score grant applications based, amongst other things, on novelty. This greatly reduces the incentive to replicate published studies - if you can't get funding to do something and you wouldn't be able to publish it anyway, it won't get done. Two other major and common obstacles to independent validation are:

that it requires the involvement of another lab with the same resources and skills, which might be very rare;
For experiments involving animals specifically, there is an ethical requirement to minimise the use of experimental animals.

The lack of reproducibility of experiments is a problem in most areas of science and awareness of this is growing. In 2012 this prompted the Reproducibility Initiative, where researchers can pay a fee for blind, independent replication prior to publication.

This sounded like a step in the right direction at the time but as far as I know awareness of the initiative remains fairly low, uptake has not been great and 'proper' reproduction remains very rare indeed.

"has less benefit" - this is the crux here. It does not have less benefit for the body of scientific knowledge as a whole. But the system is set up in a way in which it has less benefit for the scientist doing it. There is a known human bias towards novelty, and instead of trying to work around it (the way statistics are required to work around base rate fallacy and others), it works with it, e.g. by reviewers being required to grade submissions for novelty.

@rumtscho exactly. I will probably tinker with the text in the answer to make it clearer, but I absolutely mean the personal benefit to the scientist rather than the benefit to science as a whole. And publishing failed replication attempts is arguably more important, but even more rare; preregistration of experiments could go a long way to fixing this. It's required now for certain types of medical trials and Otteline Leyser proposed rolling it out to other areas during a debate on Radio 4 a few months ago, but it would be very unpopular and would have to be pushed by funders or publishers.

I'm not sure anyone is supposed to repeat experiments, in any formalized way. In engineering, and I suppose physics, you end up repeating experiments because you are looking to use a method to solve a problem. So if someone has published a method to solve a particular problem, researchers will often try it in order to see how well it works for their system. Some methods work better than others, and I guess the best performing methods will be cited and used and become well known. Methods that don't work, or method with flaws and errors will tend to be forgotten over time.

That's how experiments (methods) are repeated in chemistry as well.

I often run into a problem at work, think "I'm sure someone has written a paper on this" and head to google scholar to see what the current research suggests.

Those whose research benefits from it
While it would be nice to repeat experiments, in practice we as a society don't really want1 scientists to repeat them just because, we want them to create new knowledge instead.
So experiments usually are repeated in three cases:

When a researcher doubts the original experiment - if they distrust the outcome or the procedure, then replicating the experiment (possibly with modifications!) is useful science, since it creates new knowledge in addition to the initial result, no matter if the replication yields similar or different results. A negative result would definitely be publishable, and a positive result would be publishable iff the wider community also consider the first experiment as shaky and needing confirmation.
When a researcher proposes an improved method or theory, they will often reproduce the previous experiment to make a proper comparison instead of just comparing reported numbers.
Some experiments are replicated during teaching process, either to illustrate a concept to students, or to teach grad students state-of-art techniques before setting them on new experiments.

However, for experiments that are both hard to perform and seem trustworthy, there is no incentive to repeat them, it would not be particularly useful for the required effort. If you're really sure about the results that you'll get, then you don't gain any information by doing it, and that's not research anymore.
1Ignoring empty words, this is clearly illustrated by actions of funding bodies and university leadership who are setting the direction where scientists are applied.

As far as computer science is concerned, there are some journals that require experiments to be perfectly repeatable. In such cases they even require randomizer seeds to be explicitly stated during the review stage. However, not all journals have this sort of constraint, it differs from one reviewer to another.
Coming back to PhDs, in the end, it is nearly always up to the scholar to repeat the results to verify and refine them as needed. If you are working in a research team, you could use the published results produced or repeated by your peers.

Researchers don't start their work from scratch. New methods and objects appear to improve and extend previous research. If I read an article applying method X to object A and intend to apply method X to object B, I will:

replicate the experiment with method X and object A in order to check that my understanding of method X is correct
perform a new experiment with method X and object B
likely send a friendly notice to the authors of the original paper to tell them I've replicated their experiment.

Many results in particle physics are reproduced.
The detector systems in the large collider experiments are enormously flexible devices, and each new generation can (and does) reproduce and refine the work of the previous generation of machines as part of it's commissions and general data analysis. For instance, some of the earliest interesting results from ATLAS and CMS at the LHC were improved measurements of top-quark properties (which had previously only been measured by D0 and CDF at the Tevatron).
Something similar goes on with neutrino research, and low energy facilities also do a lot of that. My advisor was a nuclear physicist by original training who moved up the energy scale as time went by, and he once joked that nuclear physicists "do what particle physicist did twenty years ago, but ten to one hundred times as precisely" (which is too broad a claim in general, but has enough truth in the non-perturbative regime to make it good snark).
So, in fundamental physics the answer is "the people who work at the next generation facility".

In my field (sub-engineering), doing an experiment can be very costly and time consuming (to be honest, I haven't really heard of anyone repeating a full experiment!). So, it is very common for a PhD student to test 1-3 full scale specimens. For each experiment we do, we often develop a very detailed (3D, nonlinear, etc.) finite element model (that is validated against our experimental data). This model is also used to conduct a parametric study. In many occasions, this model is repeated by other researchers to study other parameters/case scenarios. So, in a way (and indirectly), the experiment is repeated!

I worked for some years in discrete optimization and must say that most computational experiments are not repeated in any rigorous way. From the scientific papers, it is usually not possible to reconstruct the method in detail because source code is not published.
In a very weak sense you could say that methods are repeated because people read about published methods and reimplement similar methods for their own optimization problems. So methods that appear in literature very often seem to be good.
On the other hand, you cannot really trust any "numerical experiments" that are published because usually nobody (not even reviewers) checked the implementations for bugs and logical errors.
I personally think that the requirement to always publish something "new" leads to a lot "inventions" of algorithms (that hide that fact that they are reformulated old algorithms), but prevents people from thoroughly analyzing the work of others.


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Will I look bad if I'm never in my office as a graduate student?
I just checked out my office. It looks like a dungeon. There are no windows. It is kind of cramped. Everything looks kind of industrial. I don't think I would like to study/work there. There are other places in the math building that look like much less depressing places to work such as the math library. Also coffee shops, at home, etc.
I have to have some number of office hours which I will gladly have. But for studying for my classes, working on research, etc. I would much prefer other places. There is no formal rules on where you have to be. I don't have an adviser yet and when I do, he won't be watching over me just looking for results. So there is no formal reason why I have to be in my office other than office hours.
If I simply don't use my office will I look bad to other grad students or professors? Will I maybe miss out on productive discussions? I can see if my office mates are in the same classes; we can work on the problem sets together.
What are the potential pitfalls of not being in my office other than for office hours?

This is really going to depend on your country and the expectations of your advisor, instructors, and peers. (whether it should look bad is a completely different question).

I almost never used my office, either.  But that's because my officemates tended to be jerks.  At one point a couple of them were literally living in it.  Other times someone would decide to keep their bicycle in the office so it wouldn't get stolen, and concluded that putting it on top of my desk was a considerate thing to do; or to bury my desk in the pile of exams or homework they were grading; etc.  My name was literally written on the desk, and it didn't help.  So, yeah, I spent most of my time in other areas of the department or in my home/apartment.

he won't be watching over me just looking for results — I'm curious to find out how you know what your advisor is going to be like, if you don't even know who it will be yet.

@MadJack It's a relatively safe bet with mathematicians.  Math departments are not set up so that advisors can easily physically surveil their students, and I've never heard of one going out of their way to do it.  Much more often, students have trouble getting any attention form their advisors, rather than too much.  Advisors will expect results, but generally would not think to even pay attention to where their students are doing it.

That sounds like an awful office - it can't hurt to ask for a different one. Not having any windows is a good enough reason to ask for that, in my view.

In my country, an office must have a window.

@reinierpost but is there anything to prevent it looking out onto a wall a metre or so away, never letting any natural light in except a shaft of sunlight that hits your screen for a few days every year?

@Chris H Apparently, I was misinformed. The requirement of daylight was scrapped per Jan 1, 2007. Now it just says that "enough daylight should be present, if possible". Employers can be sanctioned if they don't meet this requirement.

Never is an absolute. Having said that, you have outlined reasons why you should use your office (office hours, spending time between department events and classes etc.).
Unless your adviser makes it mandatory (highly unusual), I don't see why you shouldn't work wherever you feel most comfortable in. I was very fortunate, in graduate school, to have a spacious, very well lit and clean office. In spite of these structural advantages, I chose to work from coffee shops most of the time. I had no issues with the administration, faculty or my peers.
To summarize, there are some (usually official) reasons why you would need to go to your office but there is usually no compulsion to have to continue using the office at all other times.

This depends a lot on your environment. In my graduate work, this would have really been a bad idea because I was part of a team - being physically away from that team continuously would have looked really, really bad. It wasn't mandatory, but it would have been incredibly detrimental to my graduate work if I had done this.

Though, depending on your situation, some tool like IRC, gitter, slack, or other chat tool could obviate the need for physical presence.

Look bad, not necessarily. Will it be good for you? Maybe not.
Assuming that you don't have a really significant reason not to be on the lab, you should be. Stuff only happens with people that show up. If you are not in the lab, you won't talk to people as much. I literally can't count how many good ideas (and papers) came out of random coffee talk, that wouldn't happen on an otherwise "official" meeting.
full disclosure: That's something I didn't do during my phd and I regret it. I had my reasons, probably not really good enough, but I was almost never at my office and that hindered my development. I could have done more if I was there.

Even though this answer is clearly written by someone who is not in mathematics, in my experience it applies in mathematics as well. The company of your peers is an incredibly valuable resource (it's why students come to top grad schools!) and you should be careful not to miss out on that.

@TomChurch Why is that so clear? And I only ask because, yes, I'm not a mathematician, but my thesis and the group's research were heavily mathematical, therefore so were the discussions/ideas. (LIGM/esiee paris). Indeed, what I said applies to my current/last group as well, where half of the people, including the supervisior, are mathematicians. (A little OT, sorry about that).

Maybe because you said "lab"? Do mathematicians have labs?

+1000. Research is not something you do alone. Interaction with others, random encounters and talks and so on are extremely important. As is networking.

@Pekka웃 this might be a language issue, in France 'laboratoire'  is commonly used for mathematical research units, too.

i had a terrible office for the first 3 years of my phd. I spent some time there initially. I eventually decided it was much smarter to use it to dump my stuff and then worked in the departmental reading room which was next to the common room. I always went to afternoon tea and ate my lunch in the common room.
I therefore had plenty of social contact and mathematical interaction with my peers when I wanted it.
Work time in maths is about solo concentration and is best done in a quiet, airy space with natural light and minimal distractions. This tends to mean a library unless you are a professor.
I now have phd students. Some of the best ones only come in when they need to. That is fine by me.

I feel like none of the existing answers are doing a good job answering this question.

If I simply don't use my office will I look bad to other grad students or professors? Will I maybe miss out on productive discussions? I can see if my office mates are in the same classes; we can work on the problem sets together.

Assuming that:

Your advisor is not co-located with you
You are working 100% by yourself, without engaging other graduate students

You can work wherever you want with no likely no problems.
However, consider that a majority of graduate work involves other people - whether a research group, collaborating on papers, or simply sharing knowledge and brainstorming ideas (do NOT underestimate how useful it is to discuss research proposals or topics with peers/faculty). In these cases, you run into two problems.
First, how it looks to others, which is the first of your questions.  It is easy to say, "people are only evaluated based on their results - you can get results regardless of whether you are in the office or not!" Unfortunately people aren't this rational and objective, and particularly in research (where it is harder to have "clear results") you will suffer from perception problems.
This is unrelated to whether it's true or not. The unfortunate situation is that an overwhelming majority of people correlate butt-in-seat time with productivity.  Fair? True? Absolutely not. But just because something isn't fair doesn't mean you won't be perceived this way.
In particular, other graduate students will see you not at your desk. They won't have insight into your time at a coffee shop, working from home, or whatever. This means their impressions of you will be fairly negative. Unless you are producing crazy high quality work (which as a new grad student is unlikely), you're going to be starting from a negative place in gaining peer-status with your fellow grad students.
It will be harder to take spontaneous breaks with peers. This might be coffee, meals, games, or other silly things. While initially unrelated to research, those activities significantly contribute to how we form relationships. Working remote from peers makes it much harder to form these relationships.
This leads you to be detached from your peers (and potentially even your advisor). People quip, "out of sight, out of mind" but there's a reason it's a quip. Many advisors are really busy and their ability to drop by and talk may require you to have more flexibility. Basically, the busier your advisor is, the more important your availability becomes - if you are consistently working in a desk near your advisor's office, this helps.

What are the potential pitfalls of not being in my office other than for office hours?

All of the above plays into the second problem, which is your overall, long term efficiency and "status" as a graduate student. If your goal is future research, whether as a professor, post-doc, industry, or a PhD (in the case of you being a masters student), developing and fostering relationships with your colleagues is quite important. These colleagues are those you will want to gain the following from:

Collaboration/assistance with research
Networking for collaboration, guidance, and/or project collaboration
Finding future jobs

People often forget how important their peer relationships are. But consider that if you are pursuing a PhD, it is likely in 5-10 years some of your current peers will have positions where they can dramatically influence your career. This might be because they have a large grant they need more researchers on, because they are on a hiring board at a university, or know of a position that comes up. Ultimately, these relationships are invaluable to an academic. Realistically this applies to everyone, but if you are pursuing a PhD it is likely the number of stakeholders worldwide in your field is small enough that you could over the course of a career meet most of them (between conferences, collaboration, etc).
If your goal long term is research, you want to know, foster, and develop relationships. Alienating yourself from the first group of people who make this the easiest (peers and other faculty at your institution) is not a good move longterm.
Now... if none of the above applies to you for some reason, then it won't really matter. But I suspect a ridiculously small percentage of graduate students can realistically claim none of the above applies to them.
Graduate school efficiency
Ignoring the above problems entirely, another consideration is the fact that when you enter graduate school you often have no clue how graduate school works. The best way to learn is interactions and informal conversations with your peers, particularly the senior students.
Spontaneous conversation is nearly impossible if you are working remote the entire time. The lack of relationship with peers means suddenly you will be in your last few years with no working peer relationships.
If you ultimately do decide to avoid your desk, I would recommend you consider ways to avoid the above problems entirely. This will depend on your specific circumstances, so I can't really give good guidance, but it would be good to consider the entirety of this post as you begin your graduate career.

My advisor would come by his lab (with our workstation computers and desks) a couple times a week to see who was around. I don't think he took literal, on-paper notes, but he would give grief to those who he didn't think he was seeing enough. It never made a huge difference, but it did mean that our lab was a more collegial environment to get work done in. People could collaboratively solve problems, etc. The department had other rooms for TAs to hold office hours, etc. in.
Given this, it could get you scolded by your advisor if he expects you to get work done in your provided workspace. Probably best to discuss expectations with your advisor.

I don't have an advisor and won't for a couple years. Thanks for the answer though.

I don't have an advisor and won't for a couple years. — That is irrelevant.

No, it's not irrelevant. In the first few years of a math PhD program there is often (including in the OP's case) NO FACULTY MEMBER who could or would check up on whether students are in their office. It is IMPOSSIBLE for the OP to be scolded by their advisor, or discuss expectations with their advisor, because their advisor does not exist. How could that be irrelevant? (Two years from now, when they do have an advisor, they'll also likely have a different office.)

How could that be irrelevant? — OP's question really only makes sense in the context of having an advisor: compared to what an advisor thinks about an advisee being in the office, what your peers think about it is essentially meaningless, hence irrelevant.

@MadJack No, you're wrong.  Students who don't have advisors aren't ignored by their program.  The professors running the graduate program especially will pay attention, as will those teaching their classes.  I don't think it's a big concern in this particular case, but wondering whether a particular course of action will give you a bad reputation amongst the professors and students in the program is a valid question.

In my experience, the reputation of a graduate student rises (or falls) primarily based on their ability to get things done – that is, to make progress on their research.
If your advisor is unhappy with how things are plodding along, then the fact that you are rarely in your office might make you look bad. (It's not hard to imagine someone thinking, "Where is (s)he? No wonder no work is getting done.")
On the other hand, if you're progressing along rather well, I think there's a good chance your long absences will likely go unnoticed.
That said, I echo what the other folks have said about spending time with your fellow students. From what you've said, though, it sounds like your office isn't a good place to do that. So long as you find other places to network and collaborate on campus, I see no reason why your dungeon can't be a little-used place to store books and such.


text:
(How) can I evaluate, whether a field has a future or not?
I'm new here, so I hope my question fits in:
I am trying to decide where I should do my master thesis, and since I am considering an academic career, this could be a fist step towards the field I will finally end up working.
With my education up to now, there are two fields, where I would fit in, and that's where my problem begins:
The one field I find far more interesting seems to be kind of "Out of fashion" (or at a dead end?) with lots of publications from the 80ies and 90ies, and nothing that looks to me like a big advance  since then. But of course that's just my un-informed impression, and I don't know how far I can trust that... I tried to ask a professor working in the field, whether he thinks, there will be advances in the future, but I formulated my question very carefully, since I didn't want it to sound like "is your area of research dead?", so I am not sure, if he did understand, what I want to ask and shrugged it off, if he was personally offended, or if he didn't understand the question at all.*
Dear people with experience in the academic world, how could I find out, whether a field has a future or not?
Is it presumptious to make these considerations as a student?
If my University largely reduces the funding of research projects on that field, is it a sign that I should forget about it?
If you were a professor/postdoc etc. in a field that has already seen its best days, would you tell a prospective student?
Does it even happen, that a field "runs down" ? And if, why? What does it look like for the people still working there?
How was it for you, how did you weigh the interestingness of the field against future job prospects, when deciding for a specialization?
If that makes a difference: Both fields I could choose are in the area of Biomedical Engineering/ Biochemistry - I do not want to name the field, because I don't want to be "the idiot that said xy was dead", and I don't want to offend anyone working on it. Also answers to my questions would be more helpful for me than opinions on the specific field.
Thanks a lot & sorry for the long wall-of-text-ish question !
- NewBie
*You get an idea how good I am with that kind of thing. Please help me.

For the record, many people's Master's thesis topic is very different than their PhD dissertation topic which is also very different than the topics they study later in their career.

Specifying the field would help.  Don't worry about offending people.  If there is someone who is in a 'dying' field, this won't be the first time they have to defend it.  Also, they might provide a new perspective.

Nobody can tell you the future. You need to be adaptable. Work adaptability into your equation. This might also help you: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/

It is regrettable that we are producing young scientists who want to ride a wave of success, rather than create waves for themselves.

@WetlabWalter To me, creating waves for yourself is the polar opposite of working in a (sub)field that has been done to death. Very often, fields become dead for good reasons.

You have started well by looking for recently published papers. If there are none, it could mean your field is very small and you will find it hard to get future jobs and funding or that you are not searching in the best places. Maybe you could ask the professor if he can recommend any more recent papers for you to read to "understand the current progress and see if it matches what you want to do" or something like that. If he says nothing has been published more recently you can ask why.
You could also ask about or search for conferences or meetings. It may be a field that does not produce lots of papers but still has a large community of active researchers, so would not seem "dead".
If your University has cut funding in that area it will definitely be harder to get a PhD there after your Masters in the same topic.
But it is an important point that the topic of your Masters doesn't have to relate directly to your PhD or future career. It's a good chance to try out an area you might be interested and see if it suits you, and in any topic you will learn research skills that can be put to good use in a PhD. I know many people who started PhDs in subjects they had never studied before, but you must show that you can learn new things quickly and have all the other "soft skills" of research: writing and presenting, finding and citing good sources, data analysis, critical thinking, using any relevant software or machinery... these will depend on your subject area.
You would probably produce much better work in your Masters project by taking the option you are most interested in. You can then have time to get familiar with the academic community, let your supervisor know you are thinking about the future and want to find out what it is like, and if it is a dead end you can take a different subject for your PhD so long as you are not missing any core skills.
Good luck!


text:
Do professors in the STEM fields at U.S. universities get summers off?
A question asked on this site discusses how professors earn their summer salary:
How do professors choose their summer salary?
My question is: are professors whose research is supported by external grants, e.g., the NSF grants, obligated to work during the summer, when they collect their summer salary?  Or is the summer salary essentially free money, and professors resume their funded research in the fall semester?
What about during the month-long winter break that occurs between the fall and spring semesters?

There is a difference between "ethically obligated" and "forced by a big goon with a shotgun".

While no one is technically forcing you to do work over the summer, you'd be foolish to take extended breaks.
One of the benefits of a tenured faculty position at a research university is that you get great flexibility in your schedule. Today, I left work early (e.g., 4pm) to pick up my kids at summer camp and go to the park. I have no (or almost no) formal obligations over the summer.
That said, this evening, I was doing data processing and reading through papers. It's now 1 AM.
My long answer to your question is that it's certainly possible for a research active faculty member to take a whole summer off, collect summer salary, and pick up in the fall with research and teaching.
This sounds like a very bad idea.
Right now, funding levels are so competitive, that everyone I know with research funding is trying to be as productive as possible throughout the year. The summer might be a bit more laid-back, and I bet most research faculty spend less time in the office or lab. Most will probably travel to at least one conference or workshop, and I bet most also take a week or two of "real vacation" with family or friends.
But, if you're not working on papers or grants year-round, you're probably falling behind and will likely have difficulty getting that grant (and summer salary) renewed.
This summer, I helped submit a major center grant, I'm drafting another grant for my group's research, and I'm trying to finish up ~3 papers. Add in some papers and grant proposals to review as service. I'm not trying to boast - I suspect this isn't an unusual summer work load for research-active faculty.

Maybe your grants are different, but in my field if you apply for grant that requests summer salary, typically the budget justification includes a line about you focusing on research in the summer.  Hence if you take that summer salary, you have an obligation to spend that time doing research.

We don't include a comment like that because accounting rules now force us to do effort reporting across the year. The $$ comes in the summer, but there's an accounting trail that 80-90% during June is on grant X, and 3-4% of your time in Sept, Oct, etc is spent on research. In other words, research happens most during the summer, but it also happens year round.

That's the main reason you personally may choose to work in the summer, but I am saying that in the situations I'm familiar with you do have an obligation to the funding agency to do research in the summer if that's what they're giving you money for.  Whether they check up on you or not has nothing to do with your obligations.  We're not 3rd graders anymore.

@Kimball - Sure, I agree. I expected multiple responses to the question. Sounds like you should post your comment too.

As a tenured professor - what happens if you miss out on 20% of the grants you would have otherwise got?

@Chris at institutions I have worked for, professors pay for office space with grant money.  maybe these grant missing professors will be asked to move to smaller offices in less convenient locations.  grad students like advisors who can provide financial support.  lots of bad things will happen that will make Professor Unsupported want to quit.  Among other things, if you are not getting regular raises, you are falling behind.