Uni threat to terminate student's studies

[Allshallbewell2021]

My ds has just succeeded in his appeal against a termination of studies based on non attendance. He had no idea that lectures were mandatory. His attendance is lower than the bar they expect but the dept dealing with him have not been explicit about either of these figures.
His work is up to date.
He did not know lectures were mandatory -lecturers said they were 'important'.
He has had a large number of challenges which have effected his attendance.
I can't the brutality of the process. The stasi like language.
The lack of seeing young people (particularly the Covid uni cohort) as uniquely unlucky in uni terms.
The lack of support for someone struggling
The treatment of a student in a way which seems like they've committed real crimes not just misunderstood the rules.
When did the unis become such vicious places? I was so naive. I am horrified by their attitude. It seems like how you'd treat someone guilty of a serious crime.

I’ve never heard of registers being taken at lectures.

I don’t understand any of your indignation about this. If he was a student at university during lockdown he is surely in his twenties. Therefore old enough to take on full responsibility for his own actions.

we were all “covid years” in some way or another. Covid nursery, covid primary school, covid secondary school etc etc. we can’t keep using this as a reason for being a bit slack.

lack of in-person lectures during covid surely means that attending them now is a great idea! Students deciding that they don’t need to is likely why the university is pushing this. paying for university is surely a reason to actually attend and engage?

he has won the appeal therefore that’s it all done. The university are probably struggling with low attendance and therefore low attainment and completion rates. Every student citing covid and paying £9 won’t make it easy to push back so they will need to draw some lines. They will fire some shots across bows to make a point

Lectures were optional when I was at uni. Tutorials were compulsory but you could miss a third.

I handed in all my essays and passed all my exams.

Can't imagine he had no warning that his attendance was expected, emails from his personal tutor perhaps? Has he attended tutorials and seminars, to know what work to submit and when?

Are his issues resolved, has he now accessed whatever support he needs. How much longer does he have to finish?

He needs to attend his lectures. It’s not for him to decide which are “useful”. He’s not in any way qualified to determine what parts of an academic curriculum are relevant to the program. What a waste of money.

When I was at uni 2002-2005 there were registers/sign in sheets for both lectures and seminars.

Sorry I missed out the No in my sentence.
I'd never heard of registers at lectures either

Why on earth would you pay £9,000 plus a year and not take advantage of all the 'services' on offer, lectures included? How did he think he was going to gain all the knowledge without going to the lectures. Why is he at university?

OP.

Your son is lazy. You aren't willing to accept this.

You want to blame others.

Yes, they are a thing, including online. In my uni there's a card tap device on the wall of lecture rooms that you can check yourself in.

some students give their cards to others to tap them in and then their name is called out to answer a question and it all falls apart

I can't talk about his personal struggles here but they have not been insignificant and they have reduced his attendance. He has supporting evidence which is why they have most generously agreed to allow him to continue his studies which he has paid for.

Most of you sound as clinical as the letters he's received which is interesting.

I think he should have engaged with real people and maybe he replied to emails which may have not been from people but generated ones. Maybe he was intimidated.

I still feel it's hardly a criminal act. Also the young do make mistakes & can hardly learn with a zero tolerance approach.

Writing assignments is not the only sign of engagement and not the only learning.

Obviously it depends on the course but there's a huge amount of learning and development that happens in lectures and seminars beyond learning enough to write the assignment,

So he only went to the lectures he thought would be useful to him 😬. I can see why that attitude would annoy the uni. For the professors whose lectures he is not attending, he is pretty much sending the message that they (people who will have studied for years and be an expert in their field) aren't worth his time.

What happens if questions come up in his exams on topics that he thought weren't useful?

He has been struggling.
I thought unis would try to support students who struggle.
Has he told them he was struggling?
I believe that that is part of the point of going to University - to move on from school spoon-feeding you; to becoming proactive in asking for and finding help and not running home to Mum crying "it's not fair".

University is not just about the academics, it's also the transferable skills.

“thought unis would try to support students who struggle.
But I guess not.”

As PP said - did he say he was struggling to anyone before it reached this point?!

He is not being treated as a criminal, please don't exaggerate so much.

You don't seem to know what has or hasn't happened so that might be the first step to making sure this doesn't happen again.

If he's struggling that much then maybe he needs more input from uni support services and his parents.

“His cohort had no in person lectures for over a year and very little concern for how much they lost in that respect.”

I can’t speak for his uni, but every uni worker I know was very concerned. Lecturers largely hated remote teaching as much as the students, but they did their best, within the Covid rules.

depends on the university, depends on the course, but non of my lectures were optional, and if I had missed any I would have been at a disadvantage - sounds like he hasnt been taking the course seriously, and not appreciating that being accepted onto the course is just the first step in gaining the qualification, you actually have to meet the minimum requirements too. Students know this! Anyone at university knows this, surely. - or they should not be there.

Sorry, OP, but your son is responsible for making sure he understands the minimum requirements to pass his course, and he obviously hasnt attempted to do this

Sorry, posted too soon. I do have sympathy with him as you mentioned that he has struggles. Has he sought help from uni or let them know?

Am I right in thinking that he has been attending the ones he thought would be useful? From an outside perspective, the Uni may be wondering why he can attend certain topics (especially if these are the more interesting ones) but can't attend the more mundane ones.

I am sorry he has had a hard time and you are correct that zero tolerance isn’t likely to be helpful. But you have no evidence that it was zero-tolerance. You talk about his receiving letters - so they did try to engage with him on this.

as an adult he has a responsibility to step up and engage in this himself - which it sounds like he has done given that he won the appeal. He could be in the world of work which is often considerably less forgiving so look on the bright side

I think he should have engaged with real people and maybe he replied to emails which may have not been from people but generated ones

Right, so you acknowledge there HAVE been multiple emails then?

My DS has additional needs for sitting exams and gets special arrangements with a separate room and laptop. He also had significant mental health issues last year because of online teaching. There is LOADS AND LOADS of support out there through student unions, disability and wellbeing services, counselling, student support. It is all there for students to take advantage of, it's free, it's accessible to them. Every email DS gets from the uni about anything has the contact of the student advice service on the bottom of it.

But disability and wellbeing staff are not psychic and if your DS has been ignoring emails and refusing to engage, I am not quite sure what you think they should have been doing. There are "rules" to every game. Your DS has not been playing by the rules and keeping up his end of the bargain.

"Brutality" and "Stasi like language" and "lectures optional"? This is Reality calling. Please pick up the phone.

Universities are businesses. They do everything to keep hold of their customers so this isn’t a case of him not turning up once or twice and then booting him out, there will have been a whole process. The fact that he has put in a success appeal indicates there was good reason for him not to have attended and they have accepted that. What I would suggest is that if he is in the same position again and he doesn’t engage with the uni and let them know he is struggling or needs support, he won’t get another chance.

So you say his work is up to date and he is struggling - that's a contradiction in itself.

I think he might well try and pull a fast one on you & the university.
He probably has done his work - but is there a difference between the standard of his work and the standard required to pass his course?
Attending lectures is important even if he thinks he knows it all. Because he will eventually miss the boat when the subject moves on and becomes more complex.

At your son's age, I'd expect him to read up about course expectations and to understand them. You sound far too accepting of his excuses, but haven't provided any info as to why, apart from his struggles which you haven't explained. When I was at uni I had nine hours of lectures a week and shed loads of reading which meant we spent a lot of time in the library. In contrast I had friends on other courses who had full timetables every day including lab time.