DD angry at mature student for inappropriate email

This sounds like a great opportunity for her to learn how to mind her own business.

Blimey, there are bigger things to get ones knickers in a twist about

Why do you know about this? To me a more obvious question is why a mum knows that level of info re a uni age child's life?

Listen, nod and smile. Advise her to stay out of it and he will.be feeling mortified enough.

If she is insistent and not just letting off steam, suggest she looks through the university handbook and points out what policy is being breached. There won't be any. A professor might be on thin ice the other way round if it was actually flirtatious (not harassing) but there is unlikely to be a rule against students being chatty to lecturers, it's for the staff to manage if they don't want to welcome it.

Also written work is blind marked and moderated so should be hard to flirt your way to better grades across the course.

I'm a university lecturer. All our marking is anonymous so it can't possibly favour anyone.

Your DD is making a fuss about nothing and if she complains, nothing will happen.

Sounds like a drama about nothing, I know mature students can sometimes be seen as “annoying” by some students that really need to grow up, could that be the case here?
but it’s really got nothing to do with her, if they were flirting the tutor will address this or go through whatever is needed to be done about that. If they’re bragging about being done early… so what? They’re telling the tutor they’re doing good and ahead of their work. That’s not a bad thing.

she will look like she has a weird vendetta putting a complaint in especially with a group of them doing so.

What on earth is her issue? She sounds like a little drama queen trying to make something all about her.

I can't see what grounds there are for complaint?

This is a situation where my response would be the occasional “oh dear” and “uh huh” whilst pretty much ignoring her.

Your DD is in danger of making a tit of herself. She sounds young for her age s give her some guidance

If it were the other way around (the email FROM the lecturer TO the student) and it crossed a line into sexual harassment or seemed to propose some kind of sexual/romantic involvement, then I could see the point in reporting it as inappropriate given the lecturer's job responsibilities and the power imbalance. However, the opposite doesn't really apply unless the email crossed over into the student harassing the lecturer, and even then I'd probably leave it for the lecturer to handle. Does she trust the lecturer/think that the lecturer is competent apart from this incident?

None of her business, it will do her more harm to be involved in reporting it as it looks ridiculous tbh what is she reporting anyway?!

If it was the other way around she may have a point, but it’s hardly the lecturer’s fault if the other student is trying to curry favour! I’m sure they’re neither the first nor the last to try it.

I see where she’s coming from, I probably would have jumped to the same conclusion. I don’t think your DD and her friends will have a leg to stand on if they bring it up formally.

There really wouldn’t be much to say except for ‘Jane replied to all of us in an email and you can see that they were speaking about a shared hobby. That somehow means that they’re being given additional marks.’ It sounds very 2+2 = 5 if you get what I mean!

Just keep encouraging DD to make sure her own work is done like you’ve said, not much more that you can do really. How embarrassing for the other student though yikes

That still doesn't make it any of her business.

What's her problem? Surely she's told you?

I’m a lecturer and an ex mature student I taught is now one of my closest friends - gay man so absolutely nothing flirtatious - but that friendship didn’t develop until after he had completed his course. It would have been wildly unprofessional otherwise.

It’s most likely work is blind marked (with student numbers rather than names, and no-one has time to be cross referencing those) and then double marked by a second staff member, so favouritism in giving grades is not at all likely. Students often complain about marking taking longer than they would like but it is in their absolute best interests!

Does she have form for meddling and being petty?

and likes being teachers pet

Goodness, did they not graduate from Primary School?!

Your daughter needs to grow up and stop being such a drama queen. She’s not at school any more.

It would be unusual for assessed work at a university not to be marked anonymously. There are exceptions such as dissertations but there would be a rigorous moderation process anyway. Favouritism is very difficult to act upon and informality between students and lecturers is not forbidden. Your daughter seems to have quite an immature attitude and understanding of higher education processes - has she been there long?

I could see my own dd being upset by something like this. I can see my 18yo self being upset by something like this.

I also know that by the end of university I had developed a friendly relationship with several of my professors. It was still professional, but if you spend enough time with a person, you inevitably get to know them.

By graduate school it was much less formal.

so with a little bit of maturity I would have been able to see that it is likely not a big deal, but 18yo me sure would have been upset.

Jesus. Tell her to grow up. Non of her business