5 Scene Summaries
The four scenes in Rock the Boat are designed to be screened independently of one another, or as a series. You will notice that some characters appear in more than one scene.
Zoom Fatigue
This scene addresses the challenges of communication between supervisors and graduate students. It also explores the wellbeing of women in academia, the challenges of working online and power dynamics between students and faculty members. There are four characters: Erika, a graduate student whose primary supervisor recently left to another institution; Markus, Erika’s colleague and reluctant confidant; Sandra, Erika’s new supervisor; Paul, Sandra’s husband and a staff member in the accessibility and diversity unit.
Contentious Authorship
This scene delves into graduate student expectations regarding the authorship of scientific papers, and the issue of competition between peers. It also explores the wellbeing of women of colour (WOC) in academic environments. Erika, a graduate student, argues with Markus, her senior colleague, about the significance of her contribution to a recent manuscript, and her desire to be recognized as a co-author. Sandra, their supervisor, intervenes to diffuse tension between the two graduate students.
We offer a choice between two alternate endings which present two different strategies taken by Sandra to manage the conflict. Depending on the goals and make-up of the group, you may wish to only share one ending or share both endings. Sharing one ending at a time with discussion in between can generate interesting discussion comparing and contrasting the two endings.
Contentious Authorship Script v1 & 2
No Other Choice
This scene highlights the challenges of balancing professional and personal responsibilities, and how that can influence wellbeing. It features an interaction between an international graduate student (Ingrid) and her supervisor (Judith) around the student’s request to take leave from her studies to attend to some urgent issues back home. The conversation doesn’t go as smoothly as Ingrid hoped. She feels threatened by Judith’s suggestion that a leave may shut down her lab projects and negatively impact her reference letters.
We offer two distinct versions of this scene as well. One version features a monologue by Ingrid at the end. The second version has exactly the same content, except that the scene concludes before Ingrid’s monologue. Ingrid’s monologue helps to make a number of subtle issues more explicit to the audience. We recommend using the version with the monologue in sessions with those who are new to graduate supervision, whereas the version without monologue may be used with more senior or experienced participants. Note that the monologue can be very powerful and elicit strong emotional responses in participants, so this should factor into the version choice as well.
Disclosures
This scene portrays an instance of inappropriate disclosure. A graduate supervisor (Terry) reveals the mental health condition of one student to another student (Daniel). Daniel is uncomfortable with the disclosure and wonders if Terry has told others about Daniel’s own PTSD. He turns to Paul, a staff member in their institution’s accessibility and diversity unit, to discuss how he feels about what happened and explore possible resolutions.
