The Romantic Relationship Between Peter Martin And Sarah Stern

In the case study, the romantic relationship between the personal instructor (PI) in the laboratory, Peter Martin, and his graduate student, Sarah Stern, is the main conflict of Bailey's problem, for Bailey believes that Martin has given Stern special treatment due to their relationship. This has brought the attention to whether it is good for the student and their supervisor to be involved romantically. From the point of view of faculty members, the pros of having official university policies against romantic relationship between supervisor and supervisee are that it would help to avoid conflicts between the students in the laboratory, for the policies ensure that every graduate student in the laboratory is treated equally. In addition, the
policies would prevent the supervisor and his laboratory as well as the university from losing their reputation and integrity if the romantic relationship is exposed. The supervisor also can focus his or her attention in training the students to do good science fairly, and at the same time can maintain a good mentor-mentee relationship in the laboratory.
From the students' point of view, having policies against romantic relationship in the laboratory would ensure the students that there is no biased treatment among the students, and the relationship between the students would be maintained. In addition, the policies would help steer clear of the conflicts between the student and the PI that would have arisen if their relationship goes sour; for example, if the relationship between Martin and Stern ends while Stern still works for Martin, Stern's future career can be jeopardized or she can even be fired from the lab, for Martin holds a lot of power to change things in the
lab. The cons of having the policies from the faculty members' point of view would be that the policies would somewhat create a virtual wall between the PI and the students, for they will try to maintain distance to not violate the official policies. Since the mentor-mentee relationship is almost like parent-child teaching, creating a virtual wall will restrain the teaching and training of the students to do good science. Furthermore, the supervisor that is assigned to the student in a graduate laboratory may not care about the student's interest. Though this is not fair to the other students in the laboratory, but the student involved in the relationship would lose honest and best advice, insights, and knowledge obtained from experience from the supervisor, with the official policies employed. In addition, it would make the training becomes more difficult for the students, for students learn mainly by observing their mentor in the laboratory, and they would be confused if they do not know what to look at to be able to learn from their mentor. Also, both the student and the supervisor could feel trapped from the policies and ended up breaking the rules. In order to ensure that all the students in the laboratory are treated fairly regardless of the official university policies, the personal instructor should lay down some ground rules about romantic relationships, along with other disciplinary ground rules, that both the supervisor and the graduate students have to follow.
In addition, there should be procedures of whom the students can approach should there be any biased treatment happens in the laboratory. In the case that there is no ground rules created, the PI should execute fairness in making all kind of decisions that involved the students in the laboratory and should not give any special treatment to the student he or she is involved with romantically. Also, the students should be assured that if things go to the extreme and the PI does not follow the ground rules or has seen to be unfair, the students are allowed to discuss the issue with the PI, and are allowed to even go to a higher up person if the issue is not solved with the PI in the
laboratory. I think it is very important that the official policies are there to ensure that every student gets the training he or she deserves. Every students that invest themselves into graduate program wants to be a good scientists, and the scientific community also wants their scientists to do good science, so the policies should make certain that the students earn what they invest in because of their hard-work and intellectual knowledge, and not because of some biased decision happens in the laboratory due to any special relationship. Having official policies would not only to make sure that the students are treated fairly based on their potential and are getting the training they need to become a successful scientist, but also to prevent the university from getting bad reputation and losing their future graduate students that want to come to the university to pursue their career goals.