Lecturer's child at open day for second time

[Igloo71]

I went with DS to our local uni's open day over the summer. The head of department had their child there (with, I assumed, dad helping out in the background - the little girl was running back and forth to a man who seemed to be a parent). She was interrupting throughout the event, but no issues at all, I assumed it was an emergency childcare situation. DS and I laughed about it afterwards and we both had completely forgotten about it until this morning.

He's now at the offer holder event and the child is there again. He's texting me to say it's completely embarrassing as she is talking to them about her department and the child is interrupting constantly, every 5 minutes at least. She is stopping her talk to speak with the child and my DS is just embarrassed on her behalf.

DS is adamant he will never go to this uni now when it had once been his top choice. I'm left wondering if this is the norm at uni's? I've got no idea if DS should be more flexible with his outlook, he's no idea what it's like being a working mum. But equally, she's got possible childcare on site from the uni students.

This isn't a Russell Group uni, but definitely a highly regarded uni and his offer is relatively high (ABB). What do we think?

@RonCarlos

Working as an academic is extremely un-family friendly, with many events and work taking place outside standard childcare hours. I think your son's reaction was a bit extreme TBH.

This.

Evenings, weekends - impossible to get childcare for many.

Note your son is criticising what is likely a desperate mother who has no other choice but to work these hours when asked, but no where to reliably send her child.

Nice.

I'm sure the child doesn't go to classes on school days.

@grapewines

at 18 how is he supposed to know this won’t happen during his lectures?

Honestly? By engaging his brain cells and some common sense.

Well then I mustn’t have any - because I probably would have thought exactly the same despite going to uni twice and being a working mum.

All of the posters saying that’s not how Universities are funded are missing the point. That is literally not the students problem. Despite falling budgets we still have to provide adequate education for children in schools. I would be thinking that this lecturer’s sales pitch was perhaps showing that they aren’t the best place at managing the difficulties that modern education is facing and I would be looking at institutions who are managing better.

My husband is a lecturerand would never do that, but knows a work colleague who would definitely do it. In fact, the work colleague used to bring his DD into the dept and sit her ag a spare desk in the scho summer holidays. The university staff work all year round and someone would always get left to look after her when he had lectures. Very annoying but the colleague never saw the problem even when it was spelled out to him!

I am guessing we all look at this in different ways. 3 years ago my dd and I went to an Open Day at Bath. The lecturer/professor proceeded to give the whole presentation with babe in arms.

I found it quite inspiring and i know lots of other parents and attendees did too... So much so he got a round of applause.

It was probably the best presentation we attended..
completely packed lecture hall and he was more than welcome to answer any questions..

@Igloo71

To clarify, he's nervous about getting this right. Is that not allowed? Can those of you who have overtly expressed how terrible he is, not see that? He's 17, he's had probably more life experience than others, but not that much! But no, he's clearly a woman hating mysogynist.

Ignore them OP he is absolutely allowed to be nervous and careful with his education choices and money. I wish I had been at his age!

@Igloo71

To clarify, he's nervous about getting this right. Is that not allowed? Can those of you who have overtly expressed how terrible he is, not see that? He's 17, he's had probably more life experience than others, but not that much! But no, he's clearly a woman hating mysogynist.

I completely understand this and can understand why a 17 year old won't have thought about the complications of working and juggling childcare. Hopefully he'll reflect on this and he'll be more considerate ..., which is more than many fully grown men are capable of!! This is a good lesson to learn at a young age.

@Mellowyellow222

This thread has gotten off base a little.

Teenage boy goes to talk to lecturer at an open day. Lecturer is distracted by their child. Teenage boy believes this is what all lectures will be like at that university therefore decides he isn’t going.

Teenage boy is a bit immature. Yes he won’t always be the centre of attention, but he needs to learn how to express his concerns. Hard at that age and that is where a parent or teacher steps in the advise him.

What is the concern - children will always be in lectures and therefore lecturers won’t give students sufficient attention. Seems unlikely - but this boy’s mum seems to think that too. So no wise counsel at home.

So talk to a teacher or someone at the uni. Was the child present brocade it was a Saturday, or will this be a regular occurrence? That question out to the uni - answer will likely be this was because it was a weekend event - it won’t happen on weekday lectures.

A further concern is son had questions he didn’t get answered because the child was interrupting. Email the lecturer, explain it was a busy day with lots of distractions and ask true questions.

He is still young, he still believe the work revolves around him, but this is a very easy situation to calmly deal with

It's hard to disagree with this. I asked here to get that counsel - I don't know how uni's work, I said that in my first post. I thought I'd get helpful comments. I've had some. But I've also been told what a terrible parent I am and that my child is terrible. by people who work in universities. Scary.

@Daisysway

I am guessing we all look at this in different ways. 3 years ago my dd and I went to an Open Day at Bath. The lecturer/professor proceeded to give the whole presentation with babe in arms.

I found it quite inspiring and i know lots of other parents and attendees did too... So much so he got a round of applause.

It was probably the best presentation we attended..
completely packed lecture hall and he was more than welcome to answer any questions..

Do you know, I so WISH that this was what he experienced today. It really wasn't the case from what he's shared.

Can those of you who have overtly expressed how terrible he is, not see that? He's 17, he's had probably more life experience than others, but not that much! But no, he's clearly a woman hating mysogynist
He may not be a misogynist but he mustn’t be that bright if his first reaction is to be adamant he doesn’t want to go there anymore without questioning what’s actually going on, especially if it had been his first choice.

I know for a fact that students do paid jobs for lecturers at this uni, eg dog walking.

My university's professional code of conduct forbids us to employ students in a personal capacity. And just as well - it would be crossing professional boundaries.

This thread has gone typically Mumsnet bizarre @Igloo71 .

I would take it as a sign that the department is disorganised and avoid.

I started a distance learning PGCE a few years ago. The whole course came in for our first on-site lectures and nobody was expecting us. They were rushing round trying to find someone to do something with us. It never improved.

I had a job which involved occasional evenings and weekends. I knew that when I took the job. Presumably the lecturers knew this too.

Turning up with a child in tow would have been an absolute no-no.

@JenniferBarkley

why shouldn’t he at least want the appearance of a lecturer who is going to be focused on her students.

A woman who clearly has other commitments and a senior job turning up on a Saturday to talk to students who haven't even enrolled yet doesn't give the appearance of someone who isn't focussed on her students to me at all.

This. And this is the SECOND time she has had to do this, that we know of.

@ReflectiveJournal

Your son's reaction is ridiculous. It is a weekend. The child will not be there for classes. If that is enough to put him off his top choice he needs to think about why he is going to university. Absolutely nothing about the course content or delivery has changed. Perhaps he feels only childless women should be allowed to work?

That part right there…

@Wheyprotcookie

"That's not students' businesses though is it? They're paying 30K, and several other costs, to attend. That makes him a customer. If the uni doesn't make enough etc not his problem!"

No paying does not make him a customer because the university is not a business. He is paying the costs incurred to a university so that entity can give him an opportunity to learn. and believe me, that entity is trying to make its best to give him that opportunity.

The point of this explanation is that the university is not even able to cover its costs for the privilege of these entitled students and their parents pretending they are customers - yet it is the lecturers who are trying to give their free time on the weekend, and are applying to grants so they can make up the fall for the costs. It is the "customers" who should be thanking for these opportunities and hard work. And rather than doing that they behave in this way. The UK university system is on the downfall as many lecturers are leaving as a result.

1. Student is paying 30K a year to receive an education. It doesn't matter whether the uni is a profit-making entity, charity, or whatever. They are paying lots of money, it's not arrogant to expect professionalism.

2. Universities' dreadful treatment of staff etc (as stated by your) is not the students' problem. In fact universities need the students - why else are they having open days?

3. University isn't an 'opportunity' anymore. It's a racket. Propped up mainly by international students. My fees alone were 15K+ per YEAR, and increased by at least 2%, without fail.
   British education has such a strong brand name that people from less developed countries pay thousands of pounds to attend. Even if it's from a 'lesser known' uni many other countries don't have proper universities anyway so not much competition.

Teaching, academic curiosity - sadly that's not what university's about anymore.

There’s no kudos to RG universities. It’s marketing, plain and simple.

@Igloo71

Alright *@DrMarple* calm down. How would we know? This was exactly why I posted. I'm shocked actually that lecturers attend out of good will and it's not in their contract. Seems unfair and a nightmare waiting to happen if none turn up! Your WTF comment seems OTT to me. I know for a fact that students do paid jobs for lecturers at this uni, eg dog walking. Not the same I know, but equally holding a position of trust.

Unfortunately most institutions, except the most wealthy, run on the goodwill of academic staff. There might be time allocated to research, it won't be enough, all academic staff I know do scholarly activity in their own time. It is a sad state of affairs

And my experience is within my own job where I'd be forced to take time off rather than take my child to work.

Ha ha ha ha! You are literally describing the opposite of the situation all the academics on this thread are telling you about: we are required to work on days when we don't have childcare, nor are we paid or given time off in lieu.

I would be really disappointed if my son decided he no longer wanted to attend his previous first choice university because a woman didn't have childcare on a Saturday.

If he's really worried he could email admissions and check that the child won't be there during teaching, but realistically she's not going to be and it just makes him look fairly precious.

@Justalittlebitfurther the reality you need to accept it that it "literally" becomes the students problem. Because there is only so much the university can do. They can't subsidise childcare on open days, they can't hire more staff, hence they have to accept the staff brings the child. The staff I am sure would have loved to have childcare or not having to spend her Saturday there looking at OP and his son eye rolling either.

Just to also note, no-one views you or your child as a customer at a university. So there is some mismatched expectation there. So if you would like better conditions you should pressure government for providing better conditions for the staff. Mostly, or salaries are lower than Europe and USA and workloads higher. It is frankly unbelievable that people still manage to do some research in this country.

Open Days are not contracted. People do them out of the goodwill. Most departments often have to beg people to do it.

While the last part of your statement is certainly true, I would question the rest.

When I signed my contract (nearly 20 years ago) I had to agree to cover open & offer-holder days as part of my job, and I believe this is still standard in the university. Because I'm the admissions tutor I do all of them, but I'd expect colleagues to do at least one each per year, not least because their continued employment depends on our recruiting enough students. Every job description I see for every post we advertise includes covering these events as a requirement.

We get paid by the year, not by the hour, so it doesn't make any sense to describe the time spent at open days as "unpaid".

Issues do frequently arise because some academics refuse to cover open days. The goodwill of the ones who do them quickly runs out: there is a difference between taking your turn to cover one or two events a year and finding yourself doing five or six because nobody else is agreeing to do them.

None of this alters the fact that this individual head of department might have had difficulty getting childcare, though. My first thought would be that she's probably covering the open day at short notice because someone else has dropped out.

@Igloo71

To clarify, he's nervous about getting this right. Is that not allowed? Can those of you who have overtly expressed how terrible he is, not see that? He's 17, he's had probably more life experience than others, but not that much! But no, he's clearly a woman hating mysogynist.

It's that nervousness that would make me question whether he's having second thoughts about this particular university, or even university in general, as I suggested up thread.

I have one DS in university and another doing A levels this year. There is so much pressure on them to know what they want to do, when due to Covid this cohort has had even less opportunity than most to have the experiences to help work that out.

My eldest DS knew what course he wanted to do and where, but actually changed the language he was studying the subject in during the first couple of weeks of term. My younger DS is currently at the point of changing his mind almost daily as to which offer he wants to firm. It's a confusing time for them.

I do wonder whether he's using this relatively small incident as a way to start the conversation on what he actually wants to do.

@Igloo71

To clarify, he's nervous about getting this right. Is that not allowed? Can those of you who have overtly expressed how terrible he is, not see that? He's 17, he's had probably more life experience than others, but not that much! But no, he's clearly a woman hating mysogynist.

Does he use The Student Room. It is online and my kids used it alot to get information before choosing their course/uni. There is likely to be a thread about the university, maybe even the course, he will be able to talk about it with students at the university now and he may be reassured or he may not but it will be useful information.

He is right to be thinking carefully about his choice, it is a big decision and I hope he gets it right.

I don't blame your DS for being put off at all. I'd be thinking: we have been here twice, both days the University is trying its utmost to make a good impression and both days there has been a small child running around interrupting everything. What on earth will it be like when they aren't trying to make a good impression?