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.

Note on the different versions: We offer two distinct versions of this scene. 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 new or less experienced participants, 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.

CW // reference to critically ill family member; depiction of veiled threat and possible psychological abuse, racism

Characters:

• Ingrid – graduate student
• Judith – Ingrid’s supervisor

Potential themes for discussion:

• International graduate student or faculty experience
• Work/life balance
• Isolation
• Possible staff role
• Possible recourse to threats or psychological abuse
• Institutional factors contributing to or alleviating these issues
• Abuse of letters of recommendation
• Personal disclosure
• Cultural conflict