Letters home to parents of Uni students?

[Butteredparsnip1ps]

Posting for traffic, and looking for perspective. AIBU is whether I have given DD the right advice.

DD1 is in first year of Uni and enjoying it. Likes the course, loved placement, works hard / plays hard. Today though, her group were subjected to an angry 20 minute rant about poor attendance and threatened with letters home to parents.

There are some ironies here. As DD said, what was the point of ranting at the people who had turned up, when those who were absent missed it? Also her group includes a number of mature students who have missed lectures due to childcare and family issues. Are they going to get letters sent home to their parents too?

Although DD is on top of her work, she was worried as she missed some sessions before Xmas and again at the end of January due to illness. She suspects she may have a letter sent home, and rang in a bit of a panic.

My slightly cynical opinion is that the course leaders have become aware of poor attendance overall and so the Tutors have had a verbal kicking that they have passed down to students.

FWIW DD is very driven and doesn't bunk off. If there were any issues as a result of her illness, it would be possible to ask the GP she saw to confirm it, and we would of course support her. My hunch actually is that the rant probably wasn't aimed people like her, but at habitual non-attendees.

But. She is an adult who is paying for her education, so frankly whether she turns up or not (and the consequences) are hers. Why on earth would a university send letters to parents? And what would happen to the mature students? Surely all students should be treated the same??

So AIBU, or just precious?

This is so depressing! So basically uni now is an extension of school?! How dull.
Also, we definitely wouldn't have had to 'catch up on missed work' if we missed a lecture. Lectures weren't like a teacher standing three telling you a list of facts. They were generally some eccentric mad academic chatting incoherently about the reading we were supposed to have done and their mad ideas. Essentially, uni was about self teaching - the lectures were just interesting supplementaries.

Blue I'd be completely sympathetic and look to see how I could support you in your studies. I'd totally understand why you couldn't always be there and I'd make sure a note was made on your file to that effect. However, I could only be sympathetic if I knew about it. Even though it's not a problem at the moment, please do tell your personal tutor what's going on, just to make them aware. Though everything's fine ATM, you never know when things can blow up and the more record we have and the more we know, the better we can help and the more we can do for you.

Itsjustaphase Yes, but lectures are now recorded. What one student sees as a fascinating mad rant, another student will see as an irrelevant and incoherent waste of time. If the latter student makes a complaint to this end, there is evidence of the content of the lecture which will be used at the inevitable meetings about performance.

It's not quite like school but it's certainly quite similar to college

Data protection stops unis contacting parents.

Data protection however does not stop a university sending a letter to a 'student's home address with 'URGENT"' or 'from the attendance office' must reply within 7 days.

Sodomeyes Not all universities record lectures - we don't.

BlueDaBaDee Do you have an emergency support fund? I'd encourage you to apply for it if so.

University isn't all about grades, I personally, would prefer it if you were in lectures and seminars interacting with other students, getting involved with discussions, challenging ideas etc. I totally understand your reasons why you can't be there though.

Yup there are loads of issues regarding the commercialisation and mass extension of higher education - the expectation of more support, and the related greater tracking of students. Essentially degrees are what a-levels used to be imo, they are not worth what they used to be in terms of demonstrating the capability to study independently.

Back when I were a lass (90s) it was entirely up to you what you did at University and degrees meant something. Nowadays you can be pretty much coached through it. Universities are under pressure to get results, both from the students who pay and the increased competition between institutions from funding. The value of a degree was always going to be an obvious casualty and that has never been addressed.

Student evaluation has obvious flaws - at best they do not have the life experience to be able to evaluate fully. At worst, I used to work in a university library and most of the young female staff had had sexist comments from, bluntly, cocky little shits.

It's amazing, and a testament to the honesty of the average Brit, that the system still works at all really!

Didn't realise that was an essay sorry!

justaphase Oxbridge isn't really a fair comparison (I was there at a similar time to you) as the main teaching medium is the tutorial / supervision, plus labs if you're a scientist, with lectures as a supplement. Most undergraduate courses are primarily delivered through lectures and seminars.

I was emailed on Boxing Day by a student wanting me to read a draft of her essay that she was told to get to me by the beginning of December

Been there, worn the T-Shirt on that sort of behaviour.

University tutors can't win, it seems.

Of course we don't write home to parents, - Data Protection forbids it, but I have seen long entitled threads in the Higher Ed forum posted by parents here complaining about that, and/or claiming that because they "pay" for their children's university education you don't the taxpayer still does in one way or another then they have the right to demand the attendance of senior academic staff at Open Days, or that academics should consider parents as customers paying for a service.

So which way do you want it?

Thinking about your DD's account, ButteredParsnips I could suggest that indeed, the threat was a letter to the student's home address asking them to explain lack of attendance. I hear people moan all the time about what they're "paying for" yet students are consistently absent from scheduled lectures, seminars, and tutorials.

Of course it's a bit tough on those who are there to get a telling off - but I KNOW that if I do that, the message gets through to those who are absent. Students have very fast rumour molls - usually, they're counter-productive spreading panic & misinformation, but once in a while, we might decide to use them to pass on messages about required, responsible, adult behaviour. I've done it, starting by trying to crack a vague unfunny joke about the way I'm talking to the wrong people, but if they could pass the message on ...

And, you know, if students behave like children, sometimes you have to treat them as such (as I had to ask a lecture group repeatedly in one lecture to stop the chit chat as people around them were trying to listen). I hate having to do that, but I also have to look after the students who are there to listen & interact with me, not gossip.

And as other academic posters have said, absences disrupt everyone's learning.

They also waste my (expensive & pressured) time - like the 4 students due to have one to one tutorials with me who didn't bother to turn up - no apology, no email to tell me they weren't able to see me - nothing. Very very bad manners, and completely unprofessional. I heard on the student grapevine the lovely tutee who did attend that they'd all gone out the night before and had a very late -morning night. It's just rubbish behaviour.

But I'm expected to put up with it, and read their essay drafts on my family's time over Easter.

So - some thoughts from the coalface about why your DD was subjected to a rant.

rumour mills is there an emoticon for a Freudian slip?

At worst, I used to work in a university library and most of the young female staff had had sexist comments from, bluntly, cocky little shits

There are many studies demonstrating that student evaluations of teaching are more accurate at demonstrating students' levels of sexist and racist biases, than an indication of the quality of academics' teaching.

I was team teaching a course with a male colleague. We chopped & changed lecture topics across the term, but when I delivered pretty much identical content to my male colleague, I was rated as "arrogant" because apparently "she keeps telling us about books we haven't read."

I'm a Humanities lecturer, that's sort of in my job description ...

YANBU. Massive data protection issue. It's no business of the parents if their adult child is skipping lectures. Many parents will indeed be heavily-subsidising their child, but equally many won't be.

15 years ago on a one-day-a-week accountancy course we were told that they used to write a progress update to students' employers because even if the employer wasn't paying, they were allowing their employee one day off per week to attend, but they had been forced to stop doing this because of the data protection issue.

If an adult chooses to mess up an expensive educational opportunity then that is their business and their business alone. The university informing parents without the student's consent would be like a doctor telling an adult patient's parents that their offspring had missed a few appointments at the STD clinic!

I just wish we followed through on our threat to tell SFE that students have evidently withdrawn from their studies when it's been several months since they were last seen - that way. at least, they'd get off our books and we could stop emailing them chasing them up on their lack of attendance. Instead, they stay on the books until the end of the year, and then end up as "fail and leave", damaging our statistics that contribute to the university rankings, and we get a bollocking from senior management to boot. Happy days.

Last year, we were told we needed to be more engaging (we "lost" 5 students out of a cohort of over 250; 2 turned up in the first week, but 3 never arrived) as then students wouldn't vanish on us.

And as for the distance learning students, who only come in on "(their) days" because they live hours away - please don't then choose a module that runs on a day that's not your day and expect lengthy emails from me covering all the material you've missed on a weekly basis, and in depth discussions over the same emails, because you only come in for 2 hours on "(your) day" and don't have time to meet with me in person (never mind attending my office hours - because those are on days you're not in).

I have every sympathy for students who struggle, and will bend over backwards to see that they are graduating with a degree that reflects their ability, rather than the one they manage to scrape whilst juggling unmitigated shit. I am flat out of sympathy of students who seem- erroneously- to believe that my job is to provide intensive one to one coaching at a time and in a place and manner of their choosing.

I teach 3 classes a week this academic year: I have been (obviously) at every single one - I don't have a single student (out of 186) who can say the same, and have over 30 I've never even seen in person. I'm also, apparently, simultaneously the most helpful and supportive lecturer on my programme, and the least. I presume that's because there are some days I don't get to all my emails (over 400 work-related a day, including weekends) because I'm teaching, in meetings or in training etc (obviously no research time in term, given that a 1/3 of my working week is delivering lectures) and so someone making a last minute bid for an extension doesn't always get a same day response. Not that it should matter - because if they ever attended, they'd know that they can ask for an extension up to a week after the submission date - but there you are.

And breathe I'm obviously a lot more pissed off about this academic year than I'd realised!

If an adult chooses to mess up an expensive educational opportunity then that is their business and their business alone

I agree, but the problem is ... that nowadays a small number of undergrads are not ready to take adult responsibility, and they can complain in such a way as to make life difficult, stressful, and sometimes job-threatening for academic staff.

And I suspect that somewhere in the background of this type of undergrad is a whining parent, who has indulged & pushed the young person in ways tat are not always productive. One only has to read MN to see this sort of attitude to school & teachers - I've lost count of the AIBU titles "Fuming with the school" "Complaining about this teacher" etc etc etc. Sometimes justified, sometimes not - and it's those sorts of attitudes say something about the family culture within which a student is raised.

Just wanted to say that I have found this to be an interesting discussion. And while I understand that as I suspected, the threat to write home was baloney; I have a better appreciation of why it might have been made.

DD is home at the weekend so I will talk to her about this thread. I think it would be good for her to read the academic's perspective. I suspect she will be less worried too, once she realises the threat really wasn't aimed at her - so long as she keeps working.

Re evaluation. I work in health and frequently teach adult learners. I also run workshop type events with multi-disciplinary teams. As such I too know the pain of irrelevant "feedback". What did you learn today? Nothing, it was too hot/cold in the room. Is there anything that could improve the day? Why was there only cold food at lunch? These often from the most qualified participants.

Reassure your DD that if she has been absent for a legitimate reason (ill-health) and has kept her tutor informed and communicated there isn't really a problem. That's al we ask: act responsibly and professionally, and realise we actually do have an interest in students learning, and enjoying learning.

Unless she's been so absent that she can't feasibly manage the assessments - but that doesn't sound like it's the case!

Ok I come from another country (France) but reading this thread it feels like I am from another planet.
My parents paid for my post grad studies (equivalent of Uni here), so did most of my friends parents. And parents received absence reports, grade reports etc. We were all between 18 and 25...
For me as long as a teenager is studying he is still his parents responsability in a way.
Might be cultural...
This thread is an eye opener!

I am not going to a university lecture on Thursday. Good luck to them sending a letter to my mummy and daddy, I'm 36 and both my parents are dead.

I don't believe they would contact parents because they can't. Is this really true? Which university is this? Please allow MN people with personal knowledge to comment.

I'm an academic also -- OP, I think your daughter misunderstood and thought a letter to home addresses was a letter to parents, when in fact as others have said, universities cannot do this. Our contract is with the student, and the student alone.

Having said, that I'd also echo others in saying I have parents try to contact me about their adult children on a regular basis, including, at my last institution, showing up on a day of post-exam results office hours in the summer, barging into my office and demanding aggrievedly to know how young X can possibly have failed when 'he put in so much effort'?

Young X, cowering behind his mother, had attended my year-long core module twice, not handed in any assignments, clearly hoping to scrape a pass by acing the exam. The first his mother knew of it (because all correspondence was either via email or by post to his termtime address) was when his exam results showed up in the post at his home address, showing that he had failed all four first year subjects.

I had an email from a student at 5.30 on Friday evening saying that another student in her group hadn't had time to get in touch with me via email before she went to work, and hadn't been able to find me in my office (at 5.30 on a Friday evening), so had put a note under my door -- this was after a day in which I had two hours of office hours in this very room, and should have seen this student for a two-hour class. Anyway, could the other student have an extension for the assignment that was due at midnight on Friday, because she had to go to work (an assignment whose dates and topics the entire module group has had since October)?

The thing is, Madwomans if we didn't actually care, we'd have no problem just ignoring that sort of childish and spoilt behaviour, leaving our offices at 5:30 and penalising them without further thought.

I try to remember some wisdom a mentor gave to me: "We shouldn't care more about a student's education than he or she does."

I try to remember some wisdom a mentor gave to me: "We shouldn't care more about a student's education than he or she does."
I think I may be your mentor . This is exactly what I say to anyone I mentor!

When I started sixth form (at the same school I'd been at since age 11) we were told we would no longer need notes from our parents if we were off sick. Instead we had to explain ourselves why we we had been off sick and, if necessary, get a Dr note ourselves. Our teachers considered this good preparation for being adults and the world of work.

In reality, they could still contact our parents if needs be and we still had things like Parent's Evening, but they encouraged us to be responsible for ourselves as much as possible.

I would never had dreamt of asking my parents to talk to my uni lecturers about an extension. If I needed one I asked myself.

@highinthesky Academics may be the brains but they are often left wanting in the common sense department

Thank you for that thought. So, it that all academics? What does the research say to support such a hypothesis?