How to make a complaint against a Uni?

[Emerald92]

Hi - I'm in my final year of my degree in a small class of students (20ish) and without notice our amazing course leader who is also a module tutor and our personal tutor was made redundant. No one is happy. The lady taking over as leader is awful, she doesnt even know our names and the lady taking over the module has no idea what she's on about!

I've just found out that another great tutor is being made redundant. It hasn't been announced yet but we've managed to find out. She's my dissertation tutor and she's been fantastic so far. I'm devastated.

We've voiced our concerns about what's happened but they've been brushed to one side. What can we do? We feel totally let down and unsupported in our final most crucial year.

I’ve done an AS and your previous posts have said you’re a teacher (www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3105427-Cheeky-Swiper) so I’m assuming you have a BEd or PGCE already and so this is actually an MEd or MA spread over three years?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3105427-Cheeky-Swiper As previous link didn’t work

The OP does have specific issues - lack of communication and lack of continuity

Lack of continuity? It's quite normal at university to have a tutor for one module in one semester and then never study under them again. It's not school, you don't have the same tutors for the entire time you are there. I took a module this semester which covered a subject I won't be studying further, so I won't have any more classes with that tutor. Which is a shame, because he was lovely.

I’m a lecturer, and at my place a member of staff delivering a module for the first time would have 100% double mark on the student work, even if they had been teaching for years. I tend to teach the same subjects, and a sample of my student work is double marked, but not necessarily the whole class’s. We also have external examiners. I would be really concerned if double marking was not being done...

I had a few tutors who were given leave from teaching to focus on their research, so we often had different tutors for the same module.

I thought semester is American, don't we have terms here?

Some British universities have semesters, my first had terms, but my current one has semesters.

It's Sheffield, in case anyone wants to check.

Sorry op, that’s life, in business people come and people go, it’s all about making money. Once you leave uni and are out in the world you will realise it’s not all about you.

We have semesters - I’m in Scotland.

This stuff about good researcher/bad teacher is a lot of crap! some lecturers are poor teachers, sure, but it has very little correlation with being a good researcher

universities put pressure on their staff to be excellent researchers AND good teachers, too (well, popular teachers, which is not always the same thing!)

Believe me, you want a good researcher teaching you, this is not high school, a person who does no research, or very little, is unlikely to be up to date with the latest literature and research methods (especially if they are made to teach huge number of hours with very little time for scholarship!)

the pressure on academics to publish, teach ever growing numbers of students and bring in grant money is huge, no wonder it is one of the sectors with worse mental health records for staff!

the system does indeed need change, but not by forcing scholars to abandon research and just teach, this will mean a) a dumbing down of courses and b) a lack of cutting edge research

if we don't start investing in our universities again we will be outclassed in no time (watch the Asian Universities rising in international ranks!)

missperegrinespeculiar

I agree! I'm studying and also work at a university (not teaching), I see it from both sides. The tutors work incredibly long hours, and yes, they do go off on research leave, but that is work too. And it's work that benefits both the university and the students. University lecturers are not remotely similar to teachers, they are, or should be, experts in their field, and need to keep up with the latest developments in that field. At the same time, students should not expect to be spoon fed information, they have to able to study independently.

One more thing, I see so many students who talk about getting their money's worth, as if it's a case of paying the tuition fees and being handed a degree. I suppose this is one of the downsides of making higher education a commodity.

Sounds like your lecturer was spoon feeding you a little, given you’re all third year students and are floundering now she’s gone.

Degrees are supposed to be standardised as far as possible so it should never be a case of you knowing what she wants.

Study the marking criteria and make a start on your assignment. Any bits you feel haven’t been covered, contact the new lecturer and ask them if they will cover it in the next lecture or meet with you to discuss specific points you aren’t sure of. Don’t expect them to teach you though. Your other option is go to the library and ask a subject librarian to point you in the direction of relevant material if you can’t find it yourself.

I don’t know if I’m being thick but I don’t understand why you need an extension if it’s not due until January? Have I missed something?

I can see you’re worried and feeling abandoned but one thing is for sure, you won’t pass your course by sitting around and complaining how unfair it all is. Any complaint won’t result in them saying sorry, we messed up, have the degree on us even if you’ve not done the work.

Don’t panic, take responsibility for your own learning, get proactive with your assignment and you’ll get through this!

Marking isn't subjective at uni. There will be guidelines and a sample will be second marked to ensure grading is consistent. Your complaint if you have one will be more about disruption and lack of continuity.

This means that the good teachers who care more and put the time in have less research output. The ones who prioritise research and don't care about the students are rewarded for this.

There is no necessary correlation where good research = bad teaching. You can be an excellent researcher and an excellent teacher. I work with a lot of people like this.

It’s a myth that excellent researchers are necessarily bad teachers.

As others have said, think about what you want to get out of the complaint.

University or Hallam?

Making a complaint is extremely time consuming and mentally hard work, as well as all the faff of getting all the info in some sort of paper order.
I should know. I made a humongous one once. Got me nowhere. Most leave you unsatisfied.

Maybe make a very quick phone call and email and then let that go for the moment?

redirect your attention to the job in hand - the essay for your topic, plus your dissertation. I did both, with minimal intervention and help from any tutors, anyway. So I'm sure you can. Get it done. Then worry about the marking of it later.

I have a lot of students in 3rd year, and while the coursework questions go to an external and are also internally reviewed, I'm not aware of any second marking at all. It is entirely realistic that a change of lecturer at this late point in term could affect grades.
Have you contacted the new lecturer to discuss what you all think needs to be covered? It is very hard to jump into any class, especially a new one. She likely does not know that you are finding lectures irrelevant and need information about any changes to assessment. We don't lecture to hear the sound of our voices (most of us!), and she is probably trying to meet your needs. It's hard to know how students are feeling unless they tell us...

Quite a few universities have been offering voluntary redundancy in the last couple of years - could it be this? It may be that your lecturers have seen this as an opportunity to move on to newer/better things.

It's a bit much that 20 students who are all paying £9000 each for tuition get a tutor whom they all consider essential to their success taken away from them. As a class you are paying the university £180,000 and I hope you can bloody well complain!

I am frankly astonished that anyone in their third year of university feels up shit creek because their last 3 lectures have been delivered by a new tutor.

Where the hell is the independent learning. Look up the areas of work that you need to cover in your module handbook , read the assessment criteria, ask questions,attend the seminars. Do some independent thinking and work on any assignments, revise for the exams. Put your time into this. By all means make a quick complaint but focus on the job in hand. The university will not rehire the staff in time to help you. That I guarantee.

The problem is that often (not always of course), "lovely tutor" equates to someone who spoon-feeds the students too much so they are not able to work in their own at all, which in the third year of a degree should be seen as a failure in itself.

I am in no way saying that the redundancies are OK but that is a different issue to whether you will do OK

BalloonSlayer and others highlight a major problem. Students are paying too much, but universities aren't seeing more money, we are seeing less money. It's just that now it's coming from individuals who are expected to take on the debt burden. It's a failure of the government (and some voters) not to recognise that when someone gets an education, others benefit too - not just the educated individual. And not just in obvious places like doctors, nurses, but across the board. So the risk and cost should be more shared.

Students also aren't paying 9k for this particular module. Some of that 9k goes to the infrastructure, administrative staff, highly-paid VCs and upper level folks, marketing, web development, course planning, accreditation, staffing for the REF and TEF, UG support roles, MSc program directors, even childcare provision, etc etc -- not necessarily all good value for money, but the 'you're paying 9k for this and so individual lecturers should have the time, funding, and ability to do XYZ for you' isn't as straightforward as it sounds!

It's quite normal at university to have a tutor for one module in one semester and then never study under them again

Yes, but OP isn't talking about temping lecturers is she Saskia. It's the course leader who is also a module tutor and her personal tutor who has left. That's rather different and potentially very unsettling, even if it's just psycologically. Uni is horribly stressful as it is for many students and I think it's wrong for unis to make changes like this at this time. Why the hell didn't the uni wait until the end of the academic year before making redundencies?!

To me it seems there are two possibilities here:

EITHER the OP has a genuine cause for complaint against the university because:

there are no clearly published marking criteria

there is no clear course outline & guide to resources which would enable students

the university have deliberately made a lecturer redundant mid-semester instead of waiting for the end of the module

OR:

there are guidelines for marking but the OP hasn't bothered to look them up

there is a module handbook but the OP hasn't bothered to read it

the lecturer has chosen to leave mid-term (for whatever reason) and the university (for whatever reason) are not responsible

(as to the latter of those three I would say likely scenario= lecturer is made redundant to save money, gets other job & has to leave in time to start other job)

I do not agree that one should meekly accept that lectures are a waste of time. Have just read the student evaluations for a colleague's course and the students are unanimous in their praise of the clarity and enthusiasm of her lectures. Quite right too.

But cordelia is right in her expose of what university money goes on. We are also constantly told that the first impression is vital on Visiting Day- which basically means new colour-coordinated carpets get priority above. Because if students (or their parents) choose somewhere else that looked "nicer", then we can't do the job at all.

As for the highly paid VCs, we haven't asked for those: they are wished on us by a Council which is not made up of lecturers but of other senior management and outside business leaders: this is all part of the government-imposed idea that universities should be run like businesses. The only bit that is clearly un-businesslike is the fact that VCs surprisingly often sit on their own remuneration committees. I can assure you that I take absolutely no pleasure in the thought that my VC earns 23 times as much as I do.

I still try to deliver the very best and most engaging lectures I can. But I also try to remind students that their experience does depend on them making the most of the resources provided- and that involves reading the Student Handbook and the Module Handbook, for every new module.

So OP, I'm not sure what you ought to do about complaining- because I haven't seen the resources available. But what you absolutely need to do now, for your own sake, to get your money's worth, is to try to see it as a challenge and do your utmost to revise effectively over the Christmas period. Ultimately, it's your future and you can't risk that over some less-than-perfect lecturer who may well be dead before you reach retirement. After Christmas you will have a clearer idea of whether the job was doable with the resources available or not.