DD angry at mature student for inappropriate email

I think I speak for everyone when I ask what the shared hobby is.

Cycling or rowing?

Honestly OP, seeing as your daughter hasn’t shown you the email, I imagine that on some level she already knows that it isn’t particularly bad and doesn’t want your rational, level-headed response, and she’s enjoying the drama with her friends right now. But this is where she needs to be careful - I would perhaps ask her if there is anything in her own communication record (ie the group whatsapps) that might be considered a breach/bullying. Then say how easily this student made a mistake and shared an intended private communication with the world, and how easily that could happen to her (all it takes is someone screenshotting something she might have said and sharing with someone else).

I definitely think this is a case of emotions being stronger than logic, as you’d expect at that age, and hopefully sleeping on it overnight will have been enough for her to realise that this is a fruitless piece of gossip that doesn’t impact her at all. Even if there was something untoward in the student’s relationship with the lecturer, there’s not an unlimited amount of good grades available and if her work is good enough then she will get the grade she deserves.

I do think she might have a bit of a crush on the lecturer though, hence the spike in emotions.

@KeepCalmPlease For what it is worth I think you are taking the right stance as a parent. As others have said the chances of this making a material impact on results is neglible and they are all technically adults now. It happens. The mature student part is misleading and I would politely suggest a bit ageist. The mature student will have worked hard to get on the course and I would find it incredibly rude if I thought my counterparts were judging me on age. They will need to be careful they are not giving this student grounds for a formal complaint too.

I would try and use it as an opportunity to explain this is the real world now and they are no longer in school...

I would say though that my emails to professors were far more casual than any of the ones I saw my fellow students send (I was shown some by them as class rep)

Mine were obviously polite but after 25 years of working were more of fellow professionals working together on a project.

I feel quite sorry for that mature student. They'll feel awful about this.

She does sound jealous. Is she used to being the teacher's favourite, or is she trying to be? It's a ridiculous over-reaction. All the group WhatsApp messages make it sound as if she's in a nasty, gossipy group. I just can't imagine caring beyond cringing a bit for the person who sent it. Being a mature student, and in the minority, feeling older and often a bit out of things, combining studying with other responsibilities, is hard enough without feeling as if you're being judged.

She needs to stop fixating on other people and live her own life. She’s jealous.

What the hell has it got to do with her?

Unless the email was sharing some confidential information there's nothing to bring up.

She sounds jealous. What relevance is it even that the student is 'mature'?

Is she always so petty?

I strongly suspect the email is not as the OP's DD has described. Who brags about submitting an assignment early and why would mentioning submitting early be bragging? The "flirting" is probably nothing of the sort either. The DD's reaction is more about how she feels than what has actually happened - issues around completing and submitting work on time and she probably fancies or idolises the lecturer/wants to impress them herself.

Newsflash for your DD : She's in the adult world now and is responsible for herself and how she is perceived. People get on in life by forming good relationships, she should start doing that too. Oh, and nobody gives a shit if her feelz are a tiny bit hurt by the way someone else conducts themselves.

I think asking your daughter (non-confrontationally) what she hopes to achieve by a complaint might be quite helpful for her to think through her reasoning.

The University cannot ban students from contacting lecturers.

The University cannot control what students send to lecturers.

As long as marking is anonymous and moderated the process is in place to ensure this won't affect the mature student's mark, so that can't be the issue...

Does she want the reply all function turned off on the VLE so she doesn't get unwanted emails?

Does she want the mature student to be 'told off'? Is that an appropriate way to treat adults? Isn't the embarrassment of replying all enough?

It's probably anonymous marking so even if Ryan Gosling was my student he wouldn't get any extra marks!

I’d be asking:
what rule is being broken by this email?
what do you want to happen?
are you happy for your own WhatsApp messages to come to light in the investigation?

When I was a mature student (48) most of my essays I did my own topic at post grad which was always agreed by the lecturer.
So it would be obvious whose essay it was on marking.

A shared holiday sounds inappropriate though.

There are some pretty nasty assumptions by you and daughter.

Sounds to me like your daughter is jealous and aware that she’s shirking off.

As many have said, I will be astonished if the university moderation system does not involve blind marking of assignments, therefore offering no opportunity for ‘extra marks/ favouritism’. That’s how it has worked in every university I have ever attended including the current one where I am doing my MSc. Strongly recommended she checks this as she is going to look silly when this is the university response.

Again, as others have said, mature students regularly have a more ‘friendly’ relationship with tutors as they may be the same age, have a developed enthusiasm for the subject due to overcoming more barriers to be there, common reference points with the tutor, real life experience of the subject area etc.

would recommend that she winds her neck in really.

I’m a lecturer and sometimes get arse kissing emails from (usually) mature students trying to be overly matey. I see right through them and inwardly roll my eyes while remaining professional.

Just because the lecturer has received an email like that does not mean they have a special relationship and certainly doesn’t mean they’re getting better marks. For a start work will be internally and externally moderated.

so really there’s nothing to report. The lecturer has done nothing wrong. The student has made a tit of themselves but that’s not against the rules sadly.

I'd explain to her that

• people are allowed to make mistakes - she will in her time and how would she feel if someone made formal complaints for genuinely small and insignificant mistakes? No one is impacted by it.
• grad students have a very different relationship with tutors than undergrads - and they've earned it! They are older, they may well be heading into academia and teaching alongside their tutors. A chattier email reflects this.
• It's not the most desirable trait in a person to constantly look for reasons to complain, blame and accuse others and escalate miniscule issues. She is the only one who will come out badly from it, unless there was clear evidence of gross moral turpitude!
• people express themselves in different ways. What she sees as bragging may be just joy. E.g. If one of my grad students emailed me and said: 'Yippee I finished that extended essay with three days to spare so I'm off to see a play tonight, want to join me?' I'd see nothing wrong in it.

If they said: 'Get me - I am so much harder working and clever than your BA thickos so of course my essay is in early, let's dance all night at a rave, Prof,' I'd think that inappropriate. But apart from maybe a quiet word, I'd think having accidentally sent it to everyone was humiliation enough.

No, she shouldn’t as she will come across as vindictive and petty. The lecturer might be like me. I didn’t really know who my students were unless they were specialising in one particular course. I had chatty emails from students who I would struggle to put a face to. One of my colleagues had a formal complaint made against her. The whole thing was a fantasy made up by a student that she had taught a couple of times in a vast lecture hall. It took her ages to work out who the student was. Another colleague tried to avoid undergraduate students as much as possible because he thought they caused too much trouble. I don’t know if it is because students are used to school teachers knowing them very well, but a few students do struggle with the lack of personal attention at university. Your daughter should focus on her own life and her degree. Making other people’s lives worse will not improve her own.

This - I'd ave replied (to that one student) "Did you mean to "reply all?" ". And let that be the end of it

I remember when I was at uni (many years ago) another student being weirdly angry that I’d finished an assignment a couple of weeks before it needed to be handed in, that’s just the way I am, I don’t leave things to the last minute.

Your daughter needs to leave this alone, the mature student has already been humiliated by their mistake and now being discussed on WhatsApp, that’s punishment enough. What does she hope to gain from complaining, for the mature student to be told off for ‘flirting’ (which they will just deny anyway, whether it’s true or not).

This is a good lesson for your daughter that sometimes in the workplace it’s better to keep your head down than make a tit of yourself even if you think you’re right.

If it was my child I would tell her to keep her sticky beak out of it and concentrate on her own affairs and grow the hell up. Id be saying there will be lots of things that will happen in adult life that she won't like but it'll have absolutely nothing to do with her. I'd say a life hack is to mind your own business most of the time except in extraordinary events.

It sounds like she needs to be told this and also told that whinging that things aren't fair make her look ridiculous.

Without seeing the actual text it’s difficult to comment but either way she needs to let it go and concentrate on her study work.

I have 2 in uni and 2 whom have left within the last 6 years. Stuff like this I would have 100% been told about it would be "the gossip of the week." Week after it would be how annoying another lecture was and week after this how fab a third lecturer was.

Imo it shows op has a close and loving relationship with her dd. A good thing.

Op I think sleeping on it is a good idea. Hopefully, she has calmed Down this morning and realises taking it further won't aid her in anyway.

I’ve been a student at various ages. Most recently I was a friend of one of the lecturers before starting the course & we had worked together professionally & quite closely over several years.

The ‘brag’ of finishing early may have been a surprise at being organised (I never finished early, do if I did I might have commented in surprise at myself. It wouldn’t be a brag more a comment on how late I usually am ) & maybe the ‘flirting’ is just that they already knew each other.

Your daughter sounds really immature. Maybe tell her that is how any complaint (about what??) will come across.