Unreasonable requests from students: Sense check

[LaChanticleer]

Just a place to moan really - in the last week, I have received the following requests from students:

• that I come down (2 floors) from my office to the entrance of our security locked building to let them in for a tutorial they had booked with me because they couldn't find their id card (you know -slide the id card in the card reader to gain entry to an unportered building)
  
  
• after sending out an email to my students in a module with a link in the email to my tutorial booking website and put in bolded letters "KEEP THIS EMAIL" and also putting the link in my email signature, several emails from students asking me to send them the link.
  
  I politely responded NO to all of these requests, but what I really wanted to say was:
  
  grow up
  you're an adult
  I am not your secretary
  
  AIBU as an academic? (btw, I'm a senior professor). Do these students realise that they're behaving quite rudely & unprofessionally?
  
  But beyond my own frustration at them treating me as if I'm their servant, just how do we prepare them for a workplace, where behaviour/requests like this would really land them in the shit? if they asked a senior colleague or maybe their boss, or someone who was funding them, they'd be given short shrift, and probably have a bit of a black mark against them ...

[PegLegAntoine]

I don’t think you need to worry about them on such a personal level. You are teaching them the course, but you’re not directly responsible for helping them grow up.

Surely the natural consequences are what teaches them to take more responsibility anyway? If you don’t read a message asking (or indeed demanding) to be let in, because you’re busy working and don’t happen to check your messages, then they’ll miss or be late for the meeting and they’re more likely to be careful in future. If you get frustrated and send a snippy reply about them already having a link or something, they’ll be more likely to realise they could’ve found the information elsewhere. Pissing someone off is a good reinforcement for learning :o

I get why you’re worried about the trends you described but I think just continuing to do your job and letting the consequences happen when they make mistakes is all you need to do. If they still don’t learn from that, it’s really on them, not you.

[guardiansofthegalaxychocs]

I would do the first, because it’s how I’d treat anyone. I might be annoyed if it kept happening with the same student but anyone can forget a pass.

Second one is more annoying. It’s not a mistake, it’s not reading the information provided before asking for help.

[ehtelp]

[quote ineedsun]@titchy

I know at least one university where all lecturers have the title professor. There are specific grades but students won’t know that[/quote]
As a previous poster said, there are various UK institutions where the job titles are now Assistant Professor and Associate Profesor rather than Lecturer and Senior Lecturer/Reader. However I'm not aware of anywhere in the UK where Assistant and Associate Professors are referred to as Prof. rather than Dr.

The 'senior Professor' thing might seem petty, and there are plenty of people in academia with an over-inflated sense of importance. However the reality is that senior women (in particular in male dominated fields) have to juggle workloads which include multiple major responsibilites (with huge negative departmental/institutional consequences if things don't go well) and a small (but seemingly increasing...) fraction of students who act as if we're their mother/personal secretary.

[alwayslearning789]

OP....As an aside just to say from your subsequent post, hats off to you and other academics for juggling a demanding situation... I get your frustration. I work adjacent to your sector and on a daily basis I can see that it is not easy.

Your response shows that you care about your job. The sector just expects us, particularly women with our additional home responsibilities and mental load, to do the impossible and juggle it all without complaint.

Just wanted to say grateful and showing solidarity for what the university academics have to go through too, as well as the students in their formative years.

You have had a mix of responses so hoping you can positively take from it the useful bits, to make it easier to deal both sides of the equation. Best Wishes.

[MananaTomorrow]

Did you never ask for help like this at uni? When living away from home as an undergrad for the first time?

Lol no I didn’t.
I was expected to turn up with all the right gear for the lessons and get in with life.
And that’s in a situation where my parents were overseas so I had to move away from home, literally to the other side of the world with no family close by.

I would not expect university tutors/professors to hold my dcs hand like this no.
On the other side, I’ve tried my best to teach them to be independent and think so that living in their own comes as easily as possible.

[MarshmallowSwede]

I agree OP. I wouldn’t have dared ask my professor this and it was expected of us to act professionally at university as we are preparing for our careers.


All the people making excuses here are raising children who will be the exact ones who go into the workplace entitled and expecting people to hold their hand while they work.

University students are adults and they should be organized. And it looks bad to not read your professor’s email thoroughly.

This is a reflection of poor parenting OP and I do understand the frustration.

[guardiansofthegalaxychocs]

@MarshmallowSwede

I agree OP. I wouldn’t have dared ask my professor this and it was expected of us to act professionally at university as we are preparing for our careers.

All the people making excuses here are raising children who will be the exact ones who go into the workplace entitled and expecting people to hold their hand while they work.

University students are adults and they should be organized. And it looks bad to not read your professor’s email thoroughly.

This is a reflection of poor parenting OP and I do understand the frustration.

We have an electronic pass system in my work. I have frequently let other people in and have also forgotten one myself once or twice. It’s not a student thing, that’s all. It’s a human thing. Working with any kind of people can be a pain but I think the OP needs to separate the awful things like being sworn at or argue with horribly from the mundane ordinary stuff like letting people in when they forget a pass. The first type of thing is a appalling and s/he is of course very justified in making complaints about this, but the latter just sounds petty. Sometimes when we’re really angry and upset ‘ordinary’ stuff gets mixed up with the actually awful stuff and it sort of undermines and confuses the big stuff. It’s natural but if you want to go to your university and demand better treatment, just include the big stuff.

[MananaTomorrow]

No what happens in the real world is that it happens a few times and then you get a bollocking from your boss.
Plus would you really expect a colleague to stop a meeting to come and open the door for you?

The Op is very clear that ‘forgetting your card’ is so common that the admin staff are now clear that they WILL NOT OPEN THE DOOR. It’s not a one off from one student. It has become the norm.
It’s also not a student who makes a mistakes and apologises profusely. It’s one that just expects their tutor to jump at whatever request - no subject in the email, no apology and expecting her to stop a 1-1 (that they will have known about because that’s what they going in for) just for them….

[MrBlobbyLivesNextDoor]

University students are adults and they should be organized. And it looks bad to not read your professor’s email thoroughly.

This. And if they're not organised, sort it out quickly. They need to take responsibility. I can't imagine ever have needing hand holding when I first went to uni, miles away from home.

[Marasme]

who knew that an academic common room thread would attract 7 pages of comments!

If anything, it shows the staggering level of misunderstanding re. what fees actually pay for, and the myth that Profs have PAs.

@LaChanticleer - i m also concerned about my final year students occasional scattiness and need to be spoon fed, but they are reminded that reference letters also reflect professionalism and lateness, and on the whole, they are all very responsible (or use their class whatsapp for rescue).

The few who make the odds unexpected request (e.g. "can you walk me to my class") - I deal with by indicating that my colleague Prof OldManWithBeard is free and in the office available for assistance... this is usually enough.

now - i am sure some parents on here would have something to say about this- but I don't have a relationship with parents, only their adult children.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

It's people using Active, the App, mobile website etc.

Everything shows up at some point and in a Sunday even the quieter threads show up for quite a while.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

No word of a lie, but many years ago an academic colleague told me about meeting a Master's student to discuss dissertation project. The supervisor had carved out a suitable part of an ongoing research project for the student to work on and write up for the dissertation. Supervisor provided list of journal articles as introductory/background reading. At the next meeting, the student said 'I found those really hard. Could you please tell me what they were about?'

Sadly, it was no great surprise when that student was unable to cope with the course and had to be asked to leave.

[CovidCorvid]

I do think part of the issue is what the students perceive as lecturer “instant availability”. I’ve done two undergraduate degrees, both at a time when there were no email addresses for lecturers and we weren’t given their office phone number. If we had a query we had to go and find their office and hope they were in.

Certainly meant most of the time you didn’t bother. In my first degree I went to see one of my lecturers once and never in my second degree. I’d wait till a seminar if I had a question.

Now, no word of a lie I get at least 40 emails a day from students. I spend a couple of hours a day answering stuff. Far more time on this side of stuff than actually teaching or doing any prep.

The admin support side of things is woeful. For instance on Friday I had six emails from students complaining they have had an email about their attendance which they disagree with. The admin person won’t investigate this. So I will have to go on the attendance record for each student and see when they’ve been marked as absent. However I can’t change it, so I will have to email the admin person and ask her to change it. Obviously that’s an issue which does need sorting and I can understand the students emailing but other stuff not so much.

Last year some students complained they weren’t aware of the extenuating circumstances policy. They have an assessment handbook online clearly marked on their cohort site which explains it all which they had been told to read. Every module handbook mentions the EC policy and to refer to the assessment handbook. There does seem to be this expectation to be spoonfed. I can guarantee every assessment deadline I will have a number of students emailing me asking me where the extension form is. Again it’s in more than one handbook all available online and they have been told this.

[Soontobe60]

I think you’re a bit too full of your own self importance.
Maybe running down 2 flights of stairs will help with your fitness 🤣🤣🤣

[sweepthenmop]

Second one is easily fixed by putting the link on to your module page so it's there permanently. Students never read emails.

First one I'm not sure - I would expect them to ask other students or wait at the door until someone else came in. But at the moment we have students who hardly know anyone in their cohort because of Covid disruptions so they may genuinely not have had anyone else to ask. I would not have gone down and let them in unless it was a 1:1 tutorial because at least they were trying to get to you on time.

[etulosba]

The only person with a PA at my institution is the VC!

Profs have a PA at mine.

[lljkk]

For a job that doesn't exist, there seem to be a lot of adverts on Indeed.com to be PAs or "Executive Assistant" to senior academics.

But good to know that senior profs never misread an email or forget their building pass. All professors read all emails that they receive. It's a fact.

[SpinsForGin]

The only people who have PAs at my university are the VC, Deans and Directors.
It's the same at my DH's institution.

[Marasme]

same here. PAs only for the senior management.

@lljkk - what academics do or do not do is not relevant here. If you have a clump of 4 or 5 back to back 1-to-1, running to the door while you are with another student is not practical (or fair on the student who s sotting with you). It also would imply that academics are constantly monitoring emails to fire fight issues like this one.

[titchy]

@lljkk

For a job that doesn't exist, there seem to be a lot of adverts on Indeed.com to be PAs or "Executive Assistant" to senior academics.

But good to know that senior profs never misread an email or forget their building pass. All professors read all emails that they receive. It's a fact.

Quite a lot of those jobs are with health boards and trusts with 'university' in their name!

[lljkk]

ah, so the problem is that I over-estimated OP's importance.

[LaChanticleer]

Well ... I'm about to go back to being a Head of Department ... maybe not important in the universal scheme of things, but HoDs are lynch-pins in running universities. No PA - at my place that's only for Pro Vice Chancellors, and they share PAs. Admin support of that sort is cut to the bone - we're all expected to manage our own diaries - hence using online booking systems for student tutorials, particularly when I'm doing around 10 back to back.

Maybe 30 years ago, HoDs had secretaries, but not nowadays.

[acfree123]

The only people who have PAs at my university are the VC, Deans and Directors.

I am senior management and still don't have a full-time PA.

If you read the ads in the link above you can see that many of these positions aren't for direct personal support of a specific individual, but also for minuting committee meetings, supporting the administration of a department, supporting quality assurance that is part of the individual's remit etc. By the time they've done all the latter, they don't have much time to support the individual for whom they are supposedly an EA.

[BitterTits]

I think OP needs to get over herself, but it's not because I'm a snowflake parent. It's because as a professional I forget my ID card now and again.

[TooManyPJs]

They are away from home for the first time getting used to living by themselves and all that this entails. They are still finding their feet and will need weaning and some support into managing everything themselves.

To be fair though I meet plenty of fully fledged adults in the workplace who don't read emails properly. And lots of people forget ID cards etc occasionally. The things you are mentioning are not big deals in the whole scheme of things.

Some of these young adults might also be neurodiverse with executive functioning issues and that sort of stuff is incredibly difficult for them. I can say this with confidence as I have ADHD and that's the stuff I really really struggle with. Being organised in the way you describe is not a matter of just trying a bit harder for everyone. I try very hard and still turn up for meetings with my ID card (or equivalent!). If I've remembered that the meeting exists and turned up on time is a fucking big win in my world!