Devastated DD - awful reference

[AnonymousStudentParent]

My undergraduate DD recently asked her Personal Tutor, by email, whether he could be her referee for a summer school (prestigious, with a generous scholarship scheme). She attached a link to the website of the summer school and underscored the information relating to the reference. She didn't hear back from her Personal Tutor immediately but after about 3 weeks he emailed briefly saying he'd already submitted the reference (she had anticipated him getting back to her for clarification on a couple of things she had done that she had mentioned in the email that he didn't know about). Yesterday she had a quick beginning of term meeting with him when he outlined to her the devastating terms of the reference, basically saying she was too young and under qualified for the summer school but a nice hardworking person if they wanted to take a chance on her.

My DD is neither too young nor under qualified for the summer school - quite the contrary, she's very amply qualified (though mostly outside the scope of her degree). It's in an area she is extremely knowledgeable about and she has properly researched the summer school. She spent several days in the Christmas holidays writing the extensive application.

She was too flabbergasted to react (and her time with the PT was up) on the spot. Needless to say, this isn't good for her self-confidence. Any advice to how she goes back to the PT and asks him whether he can spend a few minutes looking at the website and her application and rethink his hasty judgement? The deadline for submission of the application isn't for another couple of weeks.

The whole thread is a million miles away from the original post now and has a very nasty feeling to it @ClaraMumsnet @HopeMumsnet @LilyMumsnet

I retired a few months ago. I'm still research active and serve on assessment panels, organise conferences, give talks and publish. That's pretty normal for academics. I even still have a university email address. Retired pharmacists go on locums. My mother in law was one. She was a locum for 10 years until she was 75, and then she decided she didn't want to go back to school for another licensure. I'm not even 60, so there is a ways yet to go. But I don't get paid for any of this work (she did), so there is no monetary vested interest from me whatsever.

My whole field is about people having different opinions about given circumstances, and you go through them, look at the evidence, and make your own argument and support it with data. Then your expert peers in the field judge you anonymously and determine if your argument, whether in the form of a book or paper, is worth publication. For books, your proposal is also judged by expert peers to see if you get a contract. And after all that your work is reviewed again in a book review, or someone else will quote you and agree or disagree with you and offer their evidence.

Ok, if you are unhappy, then no one is coercing you to post. You keep asking me questions, and I'm doing my level best to answer them.

Sure, they have rights. But they also have responsibilities.

And was the original PT’s reference peer-reviewed? It wasn’t. It was just dashed off by the sound of it.

Not generally, as they are not published and are confidential. References protected by GDPR are not published unless the personal information is redacted for an article about techiques in writing references. Generally, students also have the right to waive to see the reference (thus seen as more objective), but they don't have to do that.

In fact having all these pesky consumers, the students, mostly funded by parents, has created a lot more academic posts in a far wider range of subjects. Many of today’s academics would not have had academic employment before universities expanded. So be thankful for the people who are providing you with employment.

Do you see students as pesky consumers? I don't. I just think reducing them to that cheapens what education is really all about.

We are in an era of mass redundancies at universities and there has been academic job precarity for a very long time. One of the UCU white papers noted that here are 66,115 academic staff employed on 'atypical' contracts. They don't have employment rights.

If you look at this article by LSE:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2023/06/20/its-the-precarity-stupid/

According to the University and College Union (UCU), more than two-thirds of researchers and almost half of teaching-only staff in the university sector are on fixed-term contracts. Recent research compiled by the LSE branch of the UCU has illustrated that many universities have been moving further towards casualisation in recent times. For example, 66% of Oxford staff, 59% of LSE staff, 57% of KCL staff, 50% of Edinburgh staff, and 40% of Cambridge staff are on fixed-term contracts.

There’s a little book called Mein Kampf you may have heard of that denigrated a race of people with devastating effects.

I refer us all to Godwin's Law.

Seriously, to compare Kate Fox's work to Mein Kampf would be hilarious, if it weren't so silly.

So which is it?

Several of us have said that this is a false dichotomy. At my RG university the 10 minute termly check-ins discussed by OP are the minimum. Students are expected to contact PTs for an appoint if they want to discuss anything further. PTs are expected to make that appointment reasonably promptly. When on sabbatical our tutoring duties are formally handed to a colleague but many of us will continue to write letters for final year tutees, because we know them best. (Everyone writes for their Ph D students whilst on sabbatical.)

This seems to me to be a matter of common sense and we are told to discuss it during our first group meeting with our Y1tutees. Student Services tell them the same thing.

Nope, you're mixing me up with someone else. I never said I was getting off this thread.

The big issue I have had on this thread is academics not having the imagination to get their head around the fact that the bureaucracy/procedures/policies/admin/organisation structures (whatever you like to call them) are not similar from one university to the next. Parents on this thread have been much more aware, from their own experience of having several children at different universities simultaneously, that the amount of PT input and the degree of formalisation of procedures vary WILDLY from one university to another.

My DD and I conclude from this experience that her PT (who, I repeat, she likes and was fully confident in before this unfortunate episode) really has very little time to devote to his role as PT. So be it and she is forewarned and just perhaps that will enable her to find creative solutions in future.

All the best to you and your DD @AnonymousStudentParent

What @poetryandwine says.

(And at my place, we're expected still to supervise our PhD students throughout our research leaves/sabbaticals, as well as write in their support).

No one thought Mein Kampf would be a success… but hey, we have a felon running the USA starting tomorrow so things can turn rapidly as I’m sure you are aware. Things that might be a joke today can kill tomorrow.

It’s not likely the British people will turn on themselves but to base you’re entire view of a people and call them all passive aggressive in a post is racist.

If I were to say all black people or all Jewish people are passive aggressive those posts would be taken down.

But British people are fair game?

Why do we have one rule for some and another for others?

OP -

I am curious whether his contract may be temporary? The statistics a PP gave a little while back show the answer can hardly be outing.

I think it is unfair to everyone when those on temporary contracts, especially if their work is research focussed, become PTs. Academics on temporary contracts are too stressed to be good PTs.

If the PT has a permanent contract he ought to find a better solution than what you have described. Actually your description of his availability has been rather minimal, but the impression has bern that the wait for the next 10 minute slot could be long.

You are correct that I cannot imagine a UK university where you are forbidden to seek out your PT (by appointment) on short notice if your mum finally succumbs to her cancer, you are assaulted or your friend is murdered. Then it becomes a question of degree, not kind.

I'm disappointed that you've said this @AnonymousStudentParent because it's really not the case. Various differences have been pointed out but there are also core things in common. And it's simply not the case that parents of students will be familiar with more than one university, whereas academics won't. Many of us have moved from one institution to other. Many of us act as external examiners at other universities, so have to work with our own procedures and also those of that institution simultaneously. Many of us have friends working at other universities to make comparisons with. Some of us even have our own children at other universities!

It's a shame that you've found some of this unhelpful - though others may differ - but what's also important to me here is that the university sector, in which I work and which I value, isn't misrepresented in a way that might mislead people. And this idea of a 10 minute maximum limit on time you can spend with your personal tutor is not at all a standard thing. It's the maximum limit that is odd, not the many variants of time students actually spend with their personal tutor, and I have not seen this reflected in policy. I would be surprised if I did.

Quite a few of us have also stated that the personal tutor could in fact have done a better job in this instance and encouraged you or your daughter to follow that up. For whatever reason, though, you are now adamant it's all fine (though early on said he never remembered anything about her) and it's just that he's short of time. I'm fairly puzzled by this but it really is up to you. But I'd rather you didn't patronise the good faith replies you have had.

No, absolutely not temporary. But quite young, with young children of his own.

I'm not patronising anyone and it is sad that academics take all this so very personally. I and other parent posters have been pretty consistent in not finger pointing at individuals and discussing system failures whereas academics have indulged in personal attacks and got highly emotional. This is disappointing.

Yes the academics have come across as extremely high-handed.

Well we're both disappointed then. I have not posted any personal attacks. I can't speak for everyone on the thread, of course. I disagree with your characterisation of how people have responded. I would encourage any student to seek out their personal tutor if they're having difficulties regardless of time already spent with them. And if an inaccurate reference is written for you I'd encourage you to ask for it to be corrected or replaced with a different reference. Yours and your daughter's decisions are up to you.

Oh, Ok. I think that @poetryandwine addressed your question though

I'm disappointed too. I think this advice has been offered repeatedly. It just depends if people want to hear it. Maybe they don't, and that is up to them.

You could have provided that no doubt, but as I said your posts lack the objectivity and balance one would expect from a professional view.

Please define 'subjective'. Evidence your argument. If you don't want to provide evidence or define subjectivity, then you don't have an argument.