To expect that would-be final year degree students ought to be able to communicate?

[drcrab]

I get a call this morning from someone who purports to be a student going into her final year. She didn't ask for me, didn't tell me who she was, didn't tell me what year/programme of study she was on.... And proceeded to ask me these garbled questions. I didn't know in what context she was phoning about.

I had to interrupt her a couple of times to ask who she was, why she was ringing etc. When she finally told me who she was, I said 'oh I remember you... I approved your change of programme etcetera' to which her reply was 'oh uh yah'. No thank you.

WTF? Do these same 'students' expect to graduate with a 2:1 or higher and earn pots of money immediately? And this from a university that's rather highly ranked.

Bonsoir

adela - the British university system is on its knees, having been milked to the bone.

What an amazing mixed metaphor :o

LRD - I did not contact the HOD first because, as I wrote in my earlier post, I had a very long standing personal connection to the person I did contact and whose own research field the proposal concerned.

Yes, I saw that. I don't really see why it's relevant. If I want to buy shares in Tesco, I don't ask the checkout lady then get cross when she ignores me.

I think it's good if students get communication, but not because they are paying.

I would add, though, that I'm not sure they always do. In Oxbridge I was supposed to read essays every week and then talk to their writers-only about 80% usually turned up, and probably one in eight of them hadn't actually written the essay. Outside of Oxbridge I'd put sign up sheets on the door, have four hours set aside for contact, and got either (a) pastoral problems or (b) people wanting to know their marks for stuff but no real feedback. The only ones who wanted meaningful communication were those who were bright and engaged and would have done fine anyway, but developed further as a result.

But what students did want was simplistic advice on how to write an essay, someone to e-mail with basic questions that were in lectures or reading, answers to questions beyond my competence, and they wanted them at all hours. And, frankly, I think it's fine to say you're not answering e-mails sent after 7pm until the next day except in exam term.

That's the problem with the 'paying', that it doesn't give the consumer in this case the right to get whatever they want, even if they think it does, not least because it is not in their interests to do their degree for them.

I think these complaints are a result of the dual roles academics (at good universities) are expected to perform. I am funded entirely by a grant I won from a research council and I am employed to do research and publish. I do teach and supervise because I enjoy it and I am employed by the university but it is not my main job. If I didn't publish but was a wonderful teacher I'd be out on my ear. However if, like this morning, a 23 year old student texts me at 9am to say she'll be two hours late for her project because her flatmate has used all the hot water [hmmm] I just don't have time for it! Same for extensive meetings and correcting emails etc and also replying quickly to communications from students

HOWEVER, I think the students have a point too, now they are paying. The situation above is fine is it's free but if they pay £9k a year they are consumers. They deserve more. I think it's time we split staff into teaching and research so we could do both jobs better.

LRD - you are making silly analogies. It was a matter of communication and I was right to go first through the channels I did and the academic who brushed me off was wrong to be dismissive. As her HOD discretely pointed out!

Yes, of course you were right. I'm sure the HOD wasn't humouring you at all. Universities love ignorant randomers who rock up with strange ideas and insist they research them on a shoestring.

Ah, let's split teaching off from research. Except, of course, that much of a job is always intrinsically both (even the monographs I wrote were teaching, in the sense they are now on reading lists, and their language was honed by lecturing).

Look, students do deserve more. They deserve reasonably quick responses, appropriate teaching and good support, and when you hear of coursework being parked for yonks or inaccessible tutors I too find it unreasonable. But, as ironically the OP said, they also need to think of what they are dealing with. If I get an e-mail asking for a reference (as I still do) to be filled in for the next day, I might not be able to do it. If I get an e-mail asking a basic factual question that even wiki could answer, I may send a one line reply telling them which book to read. And if I get asked to do something impossible-tell them exactly how to write a first class essay, say, they may just get a reply saying it's impossible.

Critically, what they don't deserve is for all their academic queries to be answered by some 'Godly' academic because (a) we are not Godly and (b) their 'job' is to learn to find out and answer such queries themselves.

And their subject tutor is not the person responsible for their future employment either, although we can help...

Just to add to that ... sometimes we can't answer. Mine did an essay over last Easter break and they were told tutors would not respond to them after a certain set date as it was to be independent work. Lots of mine emailed asking me to remind them of things or to send them another copy of an article I'd photocopied - they didn't realize that 'no communication' really means just that. They all got a standard 'LRD is out of office until [date]' reply. But I had to do that, it wouldn't have been fair otherwise.

Yes adela you're right, and I do enjoy teaching too. But at the moment it's just so tricky. Three or four lectures a term discussing my particular research and the work behind it would be fabulous. Or a secretary

I don't understand what Xenia did wrong?

Drcrab, I didn't prejudge. I judged on the basis of your posts.

Sorry, Bonsoir. I would have expected that if you approached someone to commission research, it would hardly be a stretch for the academic to forward the email to the HOD if a mistake in the "chain of command" had been made inadvertently.

Arf at Andrewofgg.

Xenia!! that remark about academics being badly dressed and not worthy of respect because they don't earn enough (typical Tory doublethink: does not earn enough cos pay has been flatlined for 10-20 years; therefore must be worthless) was truly shocking. And pretty inflammatory on a thread frequented by many (underpaid and no doubt rather stylish) MN academic types.

If that's your attitude to academics, I'm not surprised your pet one is not answering (although god knows if I were paid for anything, given my paltry salary and the amount that's expected of me out of it, I'd produce the material sharpish..even for a Tory no doubt....:D)

Btw, business my arse. I used to work in it for precisely 4 times the pay I now earn. They wanted to promote me, I left cos I was bored shitless and sick of the selfish cant of the business world (make rich richer and pretend it's clever to do so) and I've never looked back for a minute.

Seriously, universities ARE NOT BUSINESSES AND EDUCATION IS NOT A CONSUMER PRODUCT. EDUCATION IS FOR LEARNING NOT BUYING.

And ffs universities are not schools.

Your warning that 'with the new fees this will have to change' is interesting. I actually think that it will be that way for a few years. The higher-ranked universities will end up hiring disposable teaching-and-student-satisfying staff who will burn out in 2 or 3 years because underresourced human beings cannot provide a 24-7 'service', nor is it at all sensible assume that higher fees set by the Government include that. Other universities will go on much as before with a lot of complaints in the first few years until students get used to the new fee level and it is normalised.

Infantilising students by answering all their frequently bizarre and idiotic enquiries (such as 'whr r the questns wr suppsd 2 b answerin this wk' ; why student, in the seminar question booklet of course....) will do no one any good in the end. Least of all the economy Tories and business types supposedly care about.

I think a lot of right wing academic bashing is a weird form of baffled envy. Clever people who don't want to make millions from their cleverness can't actually be cleverer than us, surely? They don't care about money...it's like human feeling being incomprehensible to a sociopath.

I've never said I was clever and I don't think I've said what I earn. I certainly support academics and I've written more books in my area than most of them. In a sense I'm a kind of academic. I speak all over the world too so even the teaching bit I do.

I meant men really as I don't tend to date women. It's the compulsory beard, left wing politics and shabby clothes. I expect the women tend not to have th beards and probably dress better.
Also I've had 3 children through something like 14 years of higher education in the last few years so I certainly appreciate the efforts put in.

It is a bit like comparing chalk and cheese but the sorts of stuff my girls got at a privately run post grad type place was pretty impressive in terms of value for money, b ooks, DVDs, lots of tuition time. Those lecturers will not have to do an iota of research really except update their notes an d DVDs every day.

I'm not baffled by anyone who is clever and chooses not to make money. I'm not particularly materialistic. I like to walk and read and be with my children. Apart from having an island, a nice house and a lot of chidlren at private schools I can't really think of anything on which I spend much money.

I can't now even remember what the thread was about.

tend Xenia?

Tend is the wong word. I've never even had a lesbian fantasy. Never had a fantasy about a bearded impoverished badly dressed male academic either. I'm 100% straight.

Ok Xenia see your points sort of.

you are entirely wrong about SOME male academics. Our last head of school was a stunner and immaculately dressed, but sadly gay. I have some quite nice looking male colleagues but can't account for their sexuality. Many however do not have beards.

You own an ISLAND? good lord, sounds like far too much responsibility to me :D

As Universities are not schools and the whole point is to encourage INDEPENDENT LEARNING (sigh, how many times have I had to explain that to my students and they just don't get it...) i don't think that the private school analogy works.

I would however love to have less students and more time to properly educate them. And to do less dull administrative crap in order to be able to do that. A 'private' university might achieve that....BUT as we are educating young adults not children, far more likely to see themselves as customers, we might well be completely overwhelmed with ridiculous requests and expectations if fees are raised to US levels in some institutions.

The amount of emails I get every term asking in broken English how to achieve a first class degree (er, be very bright and work really hard?), or 'can you give me some exam tips' (?? yes! do the work and revise it...) astonishes me. In addition, a nasty tendency to view university as a paid-and-bought degree service is leading to frankly ludicrous behaviour on the part of some students. They all want a gold star for doing not much. Arguing pointlessly about marks has becoming a wearying termly duty. Personal abuse is dealt out by weak students too weak to see what they have done wrong and overambitious average students feeling cheated of the 'excellent' results they would clearly award themselves. And now they are paying more...that will get much worse, until something gives (I expect a slew of cases like the Notts student who just idiotically sued his university for giving him a 2:2, and failed).

One semester I put out an example of a first class essay for those who were asking me for examples- only to receive an angry email from a student claiming that her essay was definitely as good as that and demanding that I remark it accordingly......sigh.

this is not education, it is delusion.

I have never had a lesbian fantasy either. Not even a tiny one. Although I did have a very graphic lesbian dream once, and I woke up feeling quite cross and bewildered and like I wanted to protest strongly to someone or other about my mind being hijacked for inappropriate sexual purposes.

I am an academic and am quite nicely paid, run a consultancy and am actually rather glam

righto....how do I get to run a consultancy?? :D

You will need to speak to your hod about knowledge transfer.....and work PT for the UNI

interesting. That assumes I do in fact have anything to consult about. Family law is not big business really...I do however also do medical law and there may be more in that. Ah well...for later in career I think but it's a nice idea.