Dissertation tutor woes

[Eve]

My DS's dissertation tutor has gone AWOL - and not been contactable since New Year.

DS has been escalating to student services, his department etc for a few weeks but they were slow to react and another tutor has tired to help today but doesnt know the topic, the department has said leave it to them to sort but but he's now weeks behind where he should be and very stressed.

An extension wont help much as it will then crash into exams and revision period and impact those.

Has anyone experienced the same and what resolutions were offered?

Obviously mitigating circumstances will go in but any suggestions / solutions he could go the the Uni with.

Hi, OP -

This sounds very frustrating. However I think what your DS can expect or suggest depends a lot on the academic timetable and the particular university’s culture. Here are some relevant questions.

During which term or terms is the dissertation being worked on for academic credit?

What was the period of Christmas vacation? Was some of the time your DS couldn’t reach his dissertation tutor over Christmas vacation?

At my university the culture is that academics are not accountable to students until shortly before the January exams. I do read email and I always respond substantively to my personal tutees. I respond to other students except during the period from Christmas Eve or so to about Jan 3, but I wouldn’t be giving substantive help until about Jan 12-15. That’s considered early at my place.

When is or was exam period? Has the new term begun? Is the tutor in still in residence?

Going awol as in radio silence is bad, if that is what you mean. If the tutor simply wasn’t offering substantive help between terms, it is a question of local culture. At some unis this would be absolutely unacceptable. In my School it would be a question of degree, but frankly not much would be required. In some Schools students are on their own at such times.

If term has begun and the tutor has eg gone on sabbatical without telling DS of course that is awful. The School owes him a solution - a better one than a new supervisor who doesn’t know the topic. If this is indeed what’s happened, please come back here.

PS Happy to help if something else has happened, also. But chances are the situation is then more nuanced

thank you Poetry for the reply - they were back early in January and final years had no exams as the time was allocated for dissertation work. Dissertations were allocated September and sadly DS got about 10 choice and was bottom of the list in being allocated.

I think its quite unacceptable in this Uni, DS says another student had the same issue a few weeks ago and it was fixed very quickly. ( DS is also course rep)

The faculty have been aware for a few weeks of his tutors non responses to requests for meetings and his tutor has not been in every time he has tried his office. His meeting today was with Vice Dean of teaching who is looking into it and tried to help him today and will give him an update on Tuesday.

No solutions from the Uni yet but student union support are escalating for DS as well.

Poor DS is very stressed.

So the timetable is quite different from my place. Also it sounds like everyone is taking this seriously, which is a good sign.

Is DS positive that the tutor is (supposed to be) in residence this term, rather than on sabbatical? Also is there any chance the tutor is on some kind of personal leave? Possibly an emergency? The School would give students minimal information about that.

Emergencies happen and when they do the School has a duty to minimise the impact on students. Otherwise I am very glad DS has engaged the higher ups and I hope they will have some good ideas for him very soon. This engagement may reflect a sense that the uni has messed up. But not necessarily. It would depend a lot on the rhythm of the work during first term, at least at my place.

Best wishes to DS

Tutor or no tutor, student needs to get on with the dissertation. It's not the role of a dissertation tutor to teach the student the topic from scratch. The tutor is there to bounce ideas and keep them on track by helping set interim deadlines, but it's a self-directed study. Student needs to get in the library, learn the topic, find the academic research on the issue and form the basis of their paper.

If there's been delay in reallocating, by the time it's sorted out he will be in a far better position if he has fully read around the topic and is in able to present a reading/citation list of what has considered so far (and what has identified but not yet read), a full draft plan and draft chapters for as much of that as possible, so that they can actually discuss ideas and the new tutor can give feedback. The tutor is not going to teach him the subject or come up with the ideas for him, may simply direct about strengths/weaknesses/factors or key reading or ideas that may have missed or which may extend arguments.

It's no use blaming the lack of tutor for having not done the work, and the university is unlikely to look upon any extension or discretionary marking request favourably if he has not put in the reading and thinking over this time. If he is able to show has been doing everything he can to meet the deadline but has not had the guidance he needs, he has a far more valid argument.

I had a parent who was an academic, and at least once a year they ended up leaving an undergraduate student in their office with a cuppa and a large bar of chocolate for a couple of hours and telling them to get on with it with no distractions because the student couldn't get themselves started. Student shouldn't need a tutor to do that.

What catopia said.

What's the subject?
I am happy to share the things I tend to tell all of my students if it's relevant.

bit of an assumption to make that he hasn’t done any work,

He has done the work, in fact he’s done hours and hours of work for weeks with no input or guidance or a tutor to talk to.

the situation is now with the Dean of the school, the vice dean of teaching is trying to help but doesn’t know the subject area.

he sees his classmates having regular sessions with tutors and his has left him high & dry. His classmates have all had an interim marking for Lit reviews, he’s had no reply.

a formal complaint has been made and a mitigating circumstances which lists every email & knock on door in an attempt to communicate & contact the tutor.

I was staying away from the question of whether DS had done his work as we had no information on that point. It would be bound to come into play during any application for Mit Circs. This is what I was referring to when I said the disposition would depend on the rhythm of the work during the first term.

OP, if DS worked during first term as you imply there should be an email trail to prove it. What he is going through now is frustrating and I agree his project tutor should have enough expertise to be of some use to him.

Given the Vice Dean of Teaching, who is generally quite busy, is attempting to help, I infer that the School is concerned that mistakes have been made. But this is not really a good solution.

However I would think there ought to be someone else in the School who can supervise. With respect, this is a UG project. It does not require a world leader in the field to provide good advice.

Eve · Today 17:43

bit of an assumption to make that he hasn’t done any work

@Eve,you yourself stated that 'he's now weeks behind where he should be and very stressed.'

I'm not saying that the dissertation tutor should go AWOL but your DS should not be that far behind.

As @Catopia has stated, it is not the role of a dissertation tutor to teach the student the topic from scratch. The tutor is there to bounce ideas and keep them on track by helping set interim deadlines, but it's a self-directed study. Your DS should have been able to work with the replacement tutor.

You said he's weeks behind where he should be - on a self-study module - there was no assumption. You cannot get weeks behind if you are putting the hours in in a concentrated way. I know it's a hard truth but the most contentious students will be taking their 35-40 hour work week and dividing it between their subjects for the term. So if there are 2 taught modules plus dissertation, that is 12 hours on each per week, or one taught plus dissertation is 17-20 hours on each per week. The most hardworking students will be putting in more like 25+ hours per week on the dissertation now to get a full draft done so that from Easter they can concentrate on revision whilst they edit and finalise.

Does his uni offer one to one sessions to teach study skills? Mine did and they were staffed by PhD students. I got more help from those PhD students than from my dissertation supervisor. I would never got a first otherwise

The term format seems similar to my ds university which does not use the semester system and has all exams in the summer term. He was back Jan 4.

When is your ds deadline for submission , ds has a v early deadline of mid March but I think most depts are after Easter. His is an arts subject but for context had a first meeting last July and agreed final format of the question in November. He had a review late January and has another in a week or so. Which is not the best timing but he has been lucky and likes his supervisor who has been very encouraging so has no complaints. He finished writing a couple of weeks ago and is editing.

Its easy for people on here to imply it’s because he’s at fault but as someone who was very conscientious myself but had ( it turned out for good reasons ) an absent supervisor myself I understand that it’s very hard and actually scary . I had not done a similar piece of work before and it counted for two modules etc etc .

I have been impressed by ds supervisor who, from what ds has said, has been at the same time both reassuring but hands off whilst giving useful feedback on areas to explore . I understand how frustrating it must be for your ds to not be receiving the same support as his peers but it does sound as if the authorities are taking it seriously. Obviously it helps if the supervisor knows the topic but a lot of the review will be about structure etc and that is pretty generic. My MA tutor knew very little about my topic but was a fabulous supervisor .

Is this undergrad? If so I’d think it highly unlikely that only this particular tutor can help supervise / advise and respond to his lit review or written drafts. If your son has been reading widely he should have at least a good command of both his area and topic, and so any good tutor should be able to support him. He needs immediate and proper support from any experienced tutor, the actual subject shouldn’t be the biggest stumbling block.
How do you think external examiners who won’t have specialist knowledge assess the overall work done by students in a department?

My son was in same position in that his disappeared off to another country for his own research project. He got allocated someone else quite late on (mid Feb) and although they have managed to meet twice since he says he is probably now getting a better service than some of his friends who have had little to no input from their supervisor they got from the outset.

DD has a diss tutor, but not one who knows anything about her diss topic. She changed her topic completely after the tutors were allocated so this was unavoidable. He's been supportive inasmuch as he can act as a soundboard for actions, and checks in her progress, but cannot support the topic content. She has therefore gone to see relevant tutors in office hours for more subject related support. Can your son do similar??