Is this acceptable for a dissertation supervisor?

[catlovingdoctor]

Hello,

I'm not an academic but I wanted to see what the consensus from all of you is. I just finished a life sciences degree this year.

I was allocated early in the year to a dissertation supervisor. As a lecturer she sadly already had a reputation for being disorganised/a bit of a mess. She ran a module the year before which was appalling; never answered emails; uploaded resources late; etc. I was allocated to her for my topic and I was emailing her for advice. We had to do a systematic review which if you've not done one before was quite tricky and technical. She once took 8 days to reply to an email asking her for assistance. In the end progress was so slow I changed topic and supervisor but to be honest it set me back and stressed me out more than a bit. If I'm paying £9k for the year surely my supervisor should be more supportive and prioritise helping her students? She replied to an email saying she was "snowed under" but would respond properly the next day (surprise she didn't).

So I just wanted to hear if this is normal or acceptable in your departments from you all?

ch, customers don't usually expect to be selected in order to gain the chance to participate, do they?

Students compete for places at university, and part of the onus on them is that they should deserve the place. So, for example, a student who scores very low in exams may be required to leave. This is not like being a customer, and it is a recognition of the fact that there are demands on the student as well as the university.

Students are not 'paying for a service'. They are paying for the chance to earn a degree.

But even meeting the minimum requirements is meeting a requirement, right?

The point I'm making is - a student isn't 'in' once they meet the grades to be accepted. If they were, then perhaps we'd have something like a 'customer' model. But, with customers, you can't just decide they're not up to scratch halfway through the provision of what they've paid for, can you?

Whereas, if a student fails their exams, they can be kicked out mid-degree. Indeed, they might be kicked out before an exam, in extreme circumstances.

So it's not like a transaction. Students know, when they start their degrees, that they will have to keep earning their right to be there.

ch, I think I'm maybe just misunderstanding you here, but I don't see what's particularly incoherent?

It's not like a transaction, because students are required to keep on earning their right to be there. And they know that, so it shouldn't a great shock. Similarly, universities are required to deliver. Again, no great shock.

I agree that things don't always work perfectly (in what area of life do they?), but I don't think there's anything really complicated or difficult to describe?

The only issues that arise are when students think they're paying for a service, or universities think they've got a captive audience.

There are very few academics employed for teaching only - most do not even have employment but are defacto self-employed by financing theie own salaries through research grants etc.

Teaching is "paid" through small time allowances - for example I get paid small amounts for dissertation supervision

• 11 hours for bachelor
• 20 hours for master

That includes all contact - meetings, phone, email and includes reading drafts and texts etc. But it has to be fitted around fieldwork, conferences, other teaching work etc. Although I attempt to reply within 24-48 hours it is not always possible if I am not in the office

Currently doing my dissertation, like you said was allocated my tutor at the start of the year. The first time I met her she seemed really disorganised and wasn't even a lecturer from my department!! She didn't even know how many words my dissertation was supposed to be and any questions asked she wrote down and said she would find out.
I left the room an anxious mess, when I met with my course mates and asked them about their tutors they gushed about how their questions had been answered and their fears quelled.
I mentioned how worried I was to the dissertation unit leader and she said she would have a quiet word with her. The next meeting she seemed to be a lot better. Im still only in the early stages, about 2,500 words in to my 10,000 but there's not much I can do now. Just hoping for the best!

but I'm not sure what you actually mean by that?

it's fairly obvious isn't it? A degree is not "bought" as in the student customer simply hands over £27k and is given a BA or BSc. They are paying for a complex set of services, or rather a framework or structure within which they must take positive & productive action.

Unfortunately in academia, most people are not accountable to anyone, and some supervisors do get away with treating their students horribly.

This is not true these days. As I said above, most departments have rules about replying to emails and giving feedback. If you don't stick to these, you will be sanctioned. If the OP's lecturer is consistently not replying to emails and not uploading materials to VLE, she will be sanctioned and possibly lose her job (if on temporary contract).

Having worked in both academia and elsewhere, I wouldn't say that the proportion of academics not working properly is higher than elsewhere. (Lower in my experience.)

MissJ it's worth reflecting on who has caused your problems though. You say your supervisor is not even from your department, what are the chances she chose to supervise you and what are the chances she was told she had to supervise you because your department doesn't have enough supervisors? Also, your problem was addressed and she caught up, probably by doing loads of extra work to figure out how things work for your department.

I left academia after I was asked to look after UG tutees from another's department (it was the straw that broke the camel's back). I already looked after 40 PG tutees from my department but these apparently didn't count as the system only allocated UG tutees, so I was given 20 extra tutees from another department which I knew nothing about. I was told I would get training, none materialised, I was told being a personal tutor was a 'light touch' job and most students would never turn up and I raised a formal complaint about this. I got nowhere and I left.

Sadly most Uni senior managers, in my experience, do not care about either students or staff, all they care about is the bottom line but are, ironically, too useless to even manage that effectively.

She didn't even know how many words my dissertation was supposed to be and any questions asked she wrote down and said she would find out

Sounds like she did absolutely the right thing. You don't know why she was allocated to you - could be she is covering for an ill colleague - we often get no extra resource for that (no temp teachers covering us as in schools) - I've just spent a term covering like that - it doubled my teaching workload ...

And I am often amazed when students don't know the details of the task ahead, particularly a dissertation. Did you read the module documentation? Things like word length & due date should be very clear there - I convene a dissertation module & it's all there on the VLE etc by the start of the academic year.

She didn't even know how many words my dissertation...

You shouldn't have to ask this. You are expected to at least have the initiative to consult the mod handbook.

Beautiful - am taking 3-days off after 3 months of teaching / REF / Athena Swan hell. What's better than a good old MN cademic thread to remind me that it's the UG who have taken me to the brink of (in)sanity.

I have 5 lovely dissertation students this semester - 3 are a total waste of space (not aware of syllabus, deadlines, depth required, scope or attendance) - I need to "remediate" the situation in the name of retention. As a result, it's my better students who suffer, as I have less time for them, and they probably see me running around like a headless chicken, chasing the other 3, being "disorganised".

This said - there are some really shoddy examples of supervision all round. But a good student will usually be able to raise to the challenge with minimal supervisory input.

I'm getting emails from 3rd years about to embark on their research essays (only about 9,000 words) complaining because their tutor isn't a 'specialist' in the topic that they think they want to do but aren't yet sure of. This is Humanities, so the topics are very broad at this point:

"Dr Striped, I want to work on poems in French [not my discipline/field etc] but I'm not sure where to start or how to narrow it down. I don't yet know what my specific topic is, but I do know that But I need a specialist in the topic I will define, otherwise my brilliance won't finally be recognised. Because the only reason my brilliance hasn't yet been recognised and rewarded with Firsts all the time is because I've not been taught by specialists"

I maybe exaggerating, but only a bit.

How do I politely tell them that any of my colleagues & I are more than capable of supervising whatever topic an undergraduate is going to come up with for a 9,000 word research essay?

Well, the latest Oxford court case certainly teaches us that we are in deep shit if providing "terrible teaching" [or whatever the adjective was].

Time to become that specialist, deliver "amazing" teaching and entertain, people.... if the darlings do not get a first, it could ruin their career....

I think the word was "boring" - because if a student is bored, then the tutor is at fault, and the "boring" teaching is the reason that the student does't now earn £1 mill pa.

It's utterly ridiculous, but that guy is being given air time.

My grandmother (Oxford graduate, brilliant teacher) always used to say that saying one was "bored" was a reflection on one's lack of imagination, not the fault of other people.