"Nice" end of year email from lecturer (not)

[Badbadbunny]

DS has just forwarded me an email from one of his lecturers. When he saw the sender/subject he thought it was going to be "happy holidays" kind of email as they officially finish the year this week end and are all packing to go home.

What a shock when he opened it as it's a real old rant.

"Us lecturers have been working flat out all year....."

"I've started marking the end of year exams and am appalled at the standard of answers....."

"We've already lengthened the exam times to allow for technical problems...."

"We've already reduced the pass marks required...."

"You're all going to have to pull your socks up next year if you hope to get a degree....."

This is on the back of none of his lecturers actually being on campus all year, he's had no face to face teaching, seminars, etc all year. Many of the "live" lectures were actually recordings of the previous year with just a "live" introduction for a few minutes at the start from the lecturer. A few pieces of work he submitted before Easter still havn't been marked. Even work that this lecturer has marked hasn't included any feedback, just a "raw" mark with no comments, no suggestions, etc.

He's absolutely gobsmacked that a lecturer has sent that email and him, and lots of others in the groupchats have already complained to the Uni. It's not just this email they're complaining about, it's sparked them to complain about the other aspects too.

What a lovely ending to a truly miserable year for them!

@GlencoraP Yes and the reality is that it was the same for the lecturers. This is why you are right that this shouldn't descend into us versus them. I also hated all the tech, online teaching, lack of interaction etc. But these threads often deteriorate into lecturer bashing while parents argue how much their kids have suffered. Seeing as most lecturers are parents - we know exactly how tough this year has been for our kids.

To be honest I think a lot students have disengaged from their degrees. This year has been so disruptive for them particularly first years who don’t know what normal is (except for their tiny glimpse from open days in 2019) .I know my DD has and most of her friends . Universities really need to step up to get back to normal next year or risk seeing a decline in numbers as students stop seeing a benefit in the whole university experience
It’s soul destroying to remember the vibrancy and excitement of those open days in 2019 compared with walking around an empty closed campus a year later. I can’t imagine how this years students envisage their potential university experience.

@user1497207191 The university where I work has informed all our prospective students, via our website that all lectures over 50 people will be online next year. They have also directly emailed all offer holders with this information.

The university has also informed them that small group teaching such as seminars will be face-to-face (subject to this being allowed by the government) and that on average students can expect that between 60% and 75% (dependent on their course) of their total contact hours will be face-to-face, as has been the case whenever we have been allowed to teach face-to-face throughout the pandemic.

They have also emailed all offer holders key findings from our student survey evaluating our performance in the first part of the pandemic and will do this again with the findings from our latest survey. The key findings of this evaluation are also available on our social media channels.

They have also surveyed our students (and staff) about moving lectures on-line and held various other consultation activities, including focus groups and department-level surveys and work with student reps and the SU. They have not committed to moving lectures online forever, but have made it clear that they will be online in the coming academic year.

Through the summer, individual departments will communicate with offer holders about how online lectures will be run for their course, including information about whether they will be synchronous or asynchronous. We will do this as soon as we can, but we don't know some of this information ourselves yet.

Despite all of this they mostly remain positive and optimistically. Emails like this don’t help the overall situation, they really don’t.

They don't help but they are not in any way typical.

Somebody has snapped.

@fhbn2025 I think that is part of the problem, the lectures who post on here are a self selecting bunch who largely are parents and do understand and are engaged with students etc. Equally the most vociferous parents who post are those whose dc have had a bad experience .

However whilst not all students have had a bad experience equally not all lecturers have been as conscientious as you. Anecdotally I was speaking to an acquaintance recently ( we are co trustees on a non education based charity) who told me that the best part of this year was that he hadn’t had to deal with ‘spotty students’ I laughed but he wasn’t joking. He quite seriously went on to say that he had managed to reduce his teaching time to an all time low and that he hadn’t given a lecture online or otherwise all year. This is at a pretty highly thought of institution

That doesn't sound to me like a lecturer who's snapped. It sounds like a lecturer of the type @GlencoraP is talking about, who sees teaching as an annoying distraction from his 'real' work.

@dreamingbohemian nope, it's someone junior who snapped. The lecturer or most likely a prof that @GlencoraP is talking about knows better than to send such emails. Most senior academic staff i.e. success stories get there by minimizing their teaching commitments and maximizing their research outputs. But they also know what would get them told off by senior management.

I also think it sounds like someone who is struggling , hopefully this will be a red flag to make sure he gets some support .

@GlencoraP sadly they are unlikely to get any support. Thats actually what has been the most annoying thing about this year. We got no support whatsoever. None. Not once did my manager ask me how I was doing - not once. We've had surveys sure but there hasnt been a single senior manager who has actually bothered to engage with how the staff was feeling. And I work in a top uni.

So to some extent - while the students were allocated personal tutors, additional resources etc - the staff got nothing. I didnt even expect them to really care but beyond deptartment wide emails - we got zilch and thats been really shit.

Well ok, I can only think of a couple people in my department who would send an email like that, senior staff who don't care enough about their students to be constructive. They prefer the old school hectoring tone.

It sounds like someone who believes, rightly or wrongly, that they have have done a lot for the students and offered them every possible mitigation, but they think, again rightly or wrongly, that the students have not made a similar effort.

We have no idea whether they are correct in their belief, but it's not an uncommon frustration. I don't think sounds like someone very senior. It sounds like someone who is worried that now, on top of everything else, they are going to have to deal with the fallout of their students getting low marks and how that will reflect badly on them, despite the efforts they feel they have put in.

Except given that they haven’t marked work or provided feedback they clearly are not entirely blameless in this scenario

[quote Phphion]@user1497207191 The university where I work has informed all our prospective students, via our website that all lectures over 50 people will be online next year. They have also directly emailed all offer holders with this information.

The university has also informed them that small group teaching such as seminars will be face-to-face (subject to this being allowed by the government) and that on average students can expect that between 60% and 75% (dependent on their course) of their total contact hours will be face-to-face, as has been the case whenever we have been allowed to teach face-to-face throughout the pandemic.

They have also emailed all offer holders key findings from our student survey evaluating our performance in the first part of the pandemic and will do this again with the findings from our latest survey. The key findings of this evaluation are also available on our social media channels.

They have also surveyed our students (and staff) about moving lectures on-line and held various other consultation activities, including focus groups and department-level surveys and work with student reps and the SU. They have not committed to moving lectures online forever, but have made it clear that they will be online in the coming academic year.

Through the summer, individual departments will communicate with offer holders about how online lectures will be run for their course, including information about whether they will be synchronous or asynchronous. We will do this as soon as we can, but we don't know some of this information ourselves yet.[/quote]
Sounds like your Uni are doing the right thing. Shame that others aren't. My son will be going into year 2 and there's no indication at all, either from the website or internally as to what "blended learning" will mean. But this is a Uni that were still saying "blended learning" last Summer after they'd told their staff not to return to campus (hence no F2F), so they're not good at information/honesty.

The university where I work has informed all our prospective students, via our website that all lectures over 50 people will be online next year.

The one where I work has done the same.

By a strange coincidence.

@Etulosba

The university where I work has informed all our prospective students, via our website that all lectures over 50 people will be online next year.

The one where I work has done the same.

By a strange coincidence.

Perhaps we are at the same place! Although, actually I can think of a few universities that have already informed students that lectures will be online next year and I imagine a lot more will be announcing over the coming weeks.

I think our one sent out some student coms this morning. My impression is that most unis are adopting the same policy in a timed and coordinated fashion

Ph my sons have no idea if they will be 100% on line (postgrad law) this year as they were this just ended academic year or not. As it is part of your contract I think universities should commit to this or a least come clean. For these law courses students are renting £8k a year London flats now if not earlier for the September course. If the course is 100% on line they stay at home saving that money. if they are not told what are they supposed to do?

On this poor boy - what is the point of that email? It has been a dreadful year for students. I feel one of mine should have had a bit more leeway in one subject given the dreadful year, never meeting another student, never a single in person lesson.

We are sending details to our students this week so I guess we're all on the same sort of timeline

For us personally it seems our student numbers are the same or higher than last year so hopefully that means we're doing something right

@Etulosba

I know. It's the same in DCs unis. They want online lectures. But they don;t know what they are missing.

My students have experienced traditional lectures. They know what they are not missing.

Then there is something wrong with the quality of the lectures!

I'm dead peed off we missed loads of really interesting visiting lecturers we usually get in on our course - things like the pathologist and AAC specialists were just recordings or flipping Zoom.

We've been told absolutely nothing official about arrangements or even about plans, aspirations and totally oblivious optimism for next year yet - I could really use starting to reorganise childcare too!

I also think it sounds like someone who is struggling , hopefully this will be a red flag to make sure he gets some support .

Exactly what I thought.
I have felt like sending something similar to my students this week - relating to a different issue (there are a number of my students who have very unrealistic expectations about the level and volume of support they should be getting from me.)

However, I haven't sent anything because I recognise that part of the reason I feel like this is because I'm burnt out and exhausted.

It’s soul destroying to remember the vibrancy and excitement of those open days in 2019 compared with walking around an empty closed campus a year later.

But @Birthdaysybother - we've been in a global pandemic! Sitting in small (often crowded rooms) speaking was one of the prime ways for this nasty (sometimes fatal) disease to spread.

Whenever parents come in here to complain about "universities" just who do you think you're criticising? Do you not think? We've all been hit by this - and in the UK, universities have been pretty much bottom of the list in terms of government thinking - viz. the 4-5 days' notice we had of the January 2021 lockdown. My department was prepared to go back to in-person teaching from 11th January, but we couldn't. It was against the law.

So, you know, what did you expect individual teaching staff to do? Risk our lives to teach your kids?

Wow @shortbacknsides so aggressive!. Funnily enough I was aware we have been through a global pandemic but thanks for stating the obvious. If you read my post again carefully this time you will see that I not once suggested that you should have been teaching this year so not sure why the rant . I do think that universities should be pushing for normality this academic year though as do you by the sound of it so we are actually in agreement as it looks like it will not be against the law!!!!. But feel free to run with that chip on the shoulder.

@ShortBacknSides I've been doing just that. 30+ kids in small rooms with no windows. For months. Way before I was vaccinated. Because it was deemed essential for learning.
And from September why can Uni staff not do it too ? The past is done. But next year can be better. US Unis planning on being back to normal.

Not aggressive - just totally frustrated at posts which say things like "It’s soul destroying to remember the vibrancy and excitement of those open days in 2019 compared with walking around an empty closed campus a year later." in conjunction with the statement that Universities really need to step up to get back to normal next year (aggressive, much?)

Just what would you have done, running the equivalent of a small town, with the health and safety (I mean, really whether people live/die) of over 20,000 people? Undertaking one of the activities which is hazardous in the spread of a nasty disease? Of course, campuses are quiet ... we don't want people to become ill.

You're right, we are all hoping we're back in person in September. But I already have a couple of students who (for various reasons, not entirely sound, but not entirely spurious either) are wanting to complete their degrees online.

And I'm betting that if the main lecture for the core module I'm teaching in is scheduled at 8:30am, there'll very quickly be student agitation for an online version.

I'm in a department where pre-COVID we had a policy that we didn't record lectures precisely because we value the live experience, and our lectures are rarely just a one-way stream of information - they are interactive and require students to do work (writing, partner work, etc) in them.