Diary of a Wimpy Academic: A Supervisor’s Office, and the Many Things We Leave Behind
I met John Pallister in 2001. I had taken the train from Coventry University (where i was doing my masters) to Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd, full of hope and nerves, to meet the person I had applied to work with for my PhD.
We instantly clicked ... he was warm, cheeky, infectiously curious ... and soon I found myself under his mentorship, beginning what would become one of the most defining journeys of my life.
John wasn’t the hand-holding kind of supervisor ... and I wasn’t the hand-holding kind of student. What I needed was direction, and what he offered was trust. From my first year, I dove straight in: full of ideas, ready to build my thesis, eager to write, reflect, rewrite. Every visit to his paper-filled office (so full we had to occasionally organise clean-up days!) felt like a new spark. We built my conceptual model by December. By the following year, we were publishing in Technovation and Psychology & Marketing, two ABS 3-star journals ... both before I had finished my PhD.
and when it was time for me to collect data, he drove me from Cardiff to Halifax, a full day’s journey, just so I could meet someone at Halifax Bank of Scotland and distribute my questionnaire. Who does that? John did. With his usual grin and easy humour.
Later, in 2005, I got my first job at Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd. I was planning to join World Bank, and it was John who encouraged me to apply for academic position instead. He backed me every step of the way. And for all that, I am grateful.
But like many long stories, ours wasn’t all golden. We fell out. We drifted. We said polite hellos in the corridors. And when I brought him back as an internal examiner for one of my PhD students years later, things didn’t go well. The student suffered, I carried that guilt, and John... well, by then he wasn’t the same cheerful mentor I had known. He seemed... tired. Bitter. I’ve seen it before. I think academia does that to people, wears them down with its politics, hierarchies, egos, its endless race to publish or be forgotten.
John left academia early. He passed away shortly after... a cardiac arrest.
Recently, I came across a photo of my graduation, me, John, and my 2nd supervisor Gordon Foxall. I stopped and stared. The man who once made me believe in the best of academia. The man who helped launch my career. The man whose office we cleaned together, whose advice I soaked up like rain on thirsty soil.
And I thought ... what is it we leave behind?
If we are lucky, we leave behind students. Not just citations. Not just papers. But people who remember us. Even with the complexity. Even with the fallouts. Even when the story is imperfect.
So here’s to John Pallister...
To cheeky grins. Piles of paper. Clean-up days. Road trips to Halifax. And the very real, very flawed, very human bond between a supervisor and their student.