DD angry at mature student for inappropriate email

[KeepCalmPlease]

NC just in case.
Daughter is angry this eve as a mature student on her course has mistakenly replied all to the class, instead of just her lecturer. In the email, apparently they brag about finishing their assigned work early, and then flirt about a shared hobby with lecturer. Daughter wants to bring this up formally with the institution along with other friends of hers. I haven't seen the email so I'm not sure what "flirting" is but I suspect the mature student, being older, just shares a hobby with lecturer (and likes being teachers pet).
My advice to her is just ignore the mistake, keep your head down and make sure your own work is done. AIBU?

I'm not sure why DD is so exasperated by this. I'm sure many emails fly about all day in academia.

If my DDs did this I’d be worried that they were becoming mean spirited and intolerant. ‘Reporting’ people for objectively minor transgressions of rules (or even just social norms) is such a current reaction that seems to be popular among those who aren’t ready for adulthood (whatever their age). I’d say “get a life” to my kids if they acted this way.

Why would most lecturers be embarrassed or have any reason distance themselves or have been acting anything less than professionally anyway? What makes you think an errant email has kept them in line? Obv I don't know the particular lecturer but you really think most are so unprofessional as to be swayed by a reference to sailing or whatever?

This!

Anonymised marking, sample second marking, review by an external examiner, and consideration of cohort grading and individual grading during the assessment boards all make it hard for unfair practice to occurr.

Tell your DD to get her head down and put her outrage energy into studying.

OP I'm sorry I can't advise probably your daughter is not completely unreasonable but I don't think such a thing can be formally reported.

I'm interested, what exactly is unreasonable about a student emailing their lecturer in an informal way?

It's perfectly normal.

I often see my students at professional conferences and have often exchanged emails about whether we enjoyed the conference dinner or whether we're going to the informal drinks etc.

This is what i get from the OP too

You laugh/bitch about it with your mates at 18yo and move on. End of. It's a non issue.

Does your daughter have a little crush on the lecturer and it’s hit a nerve maybe? She definitely needs to leave this alone.

The 'poor girl' and her frothing co students are quite happy to be bitching in writing about a fellow student and a lecturer, calling into question professionalism of both and wanting to make formal complaints that will affect degree and job. They sound pathetic and immature, and like pp have said too caught up in the Gen Z shit that nothing and no-one matters more than them.

Unless there was a back and forth string of emails from both the mature student and the lecturer that were flirtatious and inappropriate then I think your daughter is hugely overreacting!
I hope 'she's slept on it' and realises it's none of her business and concentrates on what she should be doing and not what other people who are more organised than her are doing.

'Sleeping on it' like she's the boss 😂

@DoreenonTill8 🥇👏

A mature student of my acquaintance is currently coming to the end of a art foundation course and, having been told time and time again that 'you can't say that, you can't do that, you're not supposed to think that' by both fellow students and staff, decided to make her final project about the censorship of older women — and has been told she can't do that, by her 20-something course tutor, because it would cause too much trouble for everyone and upset her fellow students.

This is chilling and why I would never return to university teaching.

As for 'poor girl.' They have to grow up sometime.

Without sight of the email you can't judge. Read it and then see for yourself.

@Catlord are you hard of reading? I don't say the lecturer had done anything wrong, merely that they would probably be very cautious about perceived bias.

I can actually see where your DD is coming from.

My DC has a place on a really niche Uni course and there are only a handful of students. 2 of them are mature students (40's) and I know this already as my DC knows them from other courses and they are on a WhatsApp group. They have both been bragging that they got onto this course on the group whereas my DC has not said anything. I have already spoken to my DC about them both, and warned them to make sure that they don't monopolise the best opportunities on this course (lots of projects) via schmoozing up to the teachers and bringing out sharp elbows. I saw them both on the open day and they monopolised questions and the main teachers time at the expense of others. It was so bad that I stepped in to have my DC's and others questions answered in the forum. Someone 18 wasn't going to pull them up on it.

At work, I see it as well. Older people who like a bit of politics, making best mates with the boss, and all of a sudden they are given a leg up, more money, better projects etc. whilst the younger ones, who are often more competent, don't have the personal skills yet to pull a sly one.

Mature students are just that. They have the experience of how the world works, and how to play the game and SOME, not all of course, but some take advantage of this in a selfish way to get what they want at the expense of the "kids" around them.

Well just to say that at the two higher education institutions where I’m employed, our GDPR training explicitly uses examples like this as a breach. I never send emails to student groups unless they are BC’d, this is what we are instructed to do.

As a young adult, your DD is probably just very inexperienced here. This is something that she may look back on in years to come and wonder why on earth she thought it was such a big deal.

After all, the mature student must have already realised (or soon will anyway) that they erroneously sent this out on the group email and embarrassed themselves that way. That could be mortifying. The lecturer will have seen it too.

You are right to advise her to ignore it, but it sounds as though she and her friends are all egging each other on in the WhatsApp group. You can't put an older head on young shoulders. They will do what they will do in the end, and hopefully learn from it when/if it bites them on their arses.

Sometimes, experience really is the best/only teacher.

If everyone else has read it why is she taking upon herself to contact whoever? Surely several people are going to be talking (gossiping) about it any way. I honestly don’t understand her gripe.

People have different relationship and level of communication with their parents while at uni. There are people who dont share much and people who talk to their parents every day.

She's going to "sleep on it"?!?! FFS 😂My 12 year old DSD and her friends wouldn't be this bothered. She needs to grow up. Although it is a good job that she doesn't have bigger things in her life to worry about!

We have these types of examples also - but if the email was only going to people in the same organisation and no personal info was disclosed that everyone who received it didn't already know (like, presumably they all know each other's uni email addresses), it's not a breach.

Yes. ‘Poor girl’ my arse. Unless there’s something extremely unsavoury going on in this email she sounds like the sort of terminally offended, uptight young people you read about in the papers.

If the email was a bit of a brag but otherwise just chatty we would have had a laugh at it, teased them and gone on with our own life.

As the OP hasn't seen it, I suspect the "showing off" is something Ike. "I've actually managed to finish the latest assignment a whole 24 hours early. Amazing!" So a jokey comment, not meant as a showing off at all.
And the flirting may well be cut down to something like "Great to see you at the tiddlywinks club last night. I didn't know you were so good. Hope to see you next time."

Simply a casual email that she's reading that way because of her feelings, not as it was intended.

In you DD shoes, I'd just send a short reply saying "was this meant for me?".

The sender will be mortified, which is about as much "punishment" as she deserves. It doesn't sound like the tutor has done anything wrong so I don't see what there is to make a formal complaint about.

Massive overreaction. Is she sensitive/worried about her own academic performance?
As others have said, work is usually marked by more than one tutor, at least one with no particular connection to the student/anonymous, and moderated by someone external and even more unconnected.

Edited to change 'marking is usually marked' to 'work is usually marked'.