Personal Tutors - what to expect?

[stitchinthyme]

DC started at uni 4 weeks ago and received emails telling him about the importance of his personal tutor for all things academic, and for future references etc. All the other tutors in his department invited their tutees to a pizza and beer social, but his arranged a 10 minute meetup in his office at the same time as the social, in the same building. He introduced himself, and said they could email him, but he might take a while to respond. Other tutors in the department are arranging meetings every 2 weeks.

It's early days, and might work itself out, but my question is, what should he expect of his tutor? And if his tutor seems disinterested, would it be reasonable to ask for a different tutor?

I don't mean to disbelieve your son, but I've worked in many universities and have never heard of personal tutors having beer and pizza with their tutees, or seeing them every 2 weeks. Is your son sure that is what's happening? I'd expect to see them once per term, to give a reference at the end of the course, and to signpost to other people / teams if your son needs help with anything

I'm a personal tutor, and know many others. Never heard of anyone hosting social events for their students. Alcohol would be frowned on. I cannot imagine in what world an academic has time to see their personal students every two weeks, and am fairly certain the students would be horrified too. Pretty standard is a group tutorial/check in each semester, with additional one to ones as necessary for pastoral comcerns. The best advice I can give your son is to flag to the tutor if there is anything he needs additional al support with from a pastoral sense and he will be able to guide/signpost. It is not usual for personal tutors to be actively seeking updates from students, the expectation is that students reach out for support if it's needed. Rest assured, academic support will come from the relevant module leaders. From what you've said, noting for your son to worry about at this point

Agree with this. A meeting is likely to be offered 1-2x a term though a student can request more on an ad hoc basis.

My DD met with her tutor every week in a small group. That was the same for all tutors in her first year in her faculty. It was part of the timetable. During her her final year, DD's tutor took the group out for a walk and coffee. But not everyone's tutor did this. She had a different tutor each year. She orchestrated having the good one in her final year.

DD2 is 2 weeks in to her new university and has no idea who her tutor is yet. Your ds will have to see how things go but hopefully it is possible for him to request a change if he thinks he is disadvantaged compared to the other students.

My DC met them once a year.

they did have office hours.

Twice a semester. No alcohol ever. Sometimes groups, sometimes one to one.

The info will be in their course handbook if they have one or published on the website.

I always tell mine not to wait to be invited if there are any issues. It can take me all term to get through my list.

DD met her first personal tutor just the once. He never turned up for the next meeting and never made any effort to contact her again.

When I reminded her that she would need a tutor for a reference she asked to change hers as she just felt he was a waste of space. The next one was better, but as this was happening through covid, she never met her second tutor at all and had just one Teams meeting with her.

When she needed a reference for her post grad application, her personal tutor didn't know who she was.

It is going to be a moveable feast, surely. My supervisor had all of her students to her house and made us lunch (beetroot soup if I remember correctly). But only the once - then it was a case of in office meetings as and when needed.

My DS started this year and has yet to hear from his tutor / supervisor.

My DD had a group meeting with hers, with about 12 other students.

Take what you can get I say, unless there's some kind of gross misconduct going on or long-term illness you can't really find a good reason to swap your tutor. "They're not inviting me to pizza parties" isn't really going to swing it.

My DS2 and I went to the same uni. I met my personal tutor once a term for 10-15 minutes each year (he was sat next to me at a final year dinner and didn't recognise me). I remember being envious of fellow students whose personal tutors arranged events (lunch, drinks) with their tutees and found them work/research experience. Thirty odd years later my DS2s experience was very similar to mine, maybe even worse as his tutor ignored requests for a basic reference pissing off HR of DS2's grad scheme.

There will be a university policy on this.
At my university a student can expect 5 touch points with their PAT over the academic year. This is typically 1:1 (perhaps 15mins) but I know some of my staff also offer group sessions. These are timetabled and definitely don’t include beer!

Which uni? At Oxbridge, tutors have much more interaction and closer relationships with students.

Southampton

Thanks. We'll try to look this up.

DD at Soton and has met her Personal Tutor once for 20 mins mid afternoon at the faculty building. She could choose to meet in person or on Zoom and preferred face-to-face.

I work at a university, and if a student asks me for a reference, I don't necessarily know the student well, but I can write the reference because I have access to that student's academic record so I can see all the grades, and I can also easily find out who has been teaching that student so I can ask them if they have any relevant supporting info. Often the reference requests come in a couple of years after graduation, so we don't necessarily remember the student well, we just look up the information. I would always ask a student for a copy of their CV and covering letter, and some bullet points of what sorts of things they'd like me to cover.

It would be surprising if personal tutees wanted or needed to meet up several times a semester. At my institution, this wouldn't be encouraged because academics are qualified to help with academic stuff (and in most cases we're trying to encourage independence) and there are extensive student support services with people qualified to provide other types of support.

Oxbridge is an outlier here. Tutees rarely see their personal tutors at non Oxbridge universities. The set up is completely different.

Thanks all. This has been helpful. Hopefully my DC's first impressions will prove to be wrong and he'll get more contact but at least we know that it won't be unusual if he doesn't. When I was at Liverpool Uni back in the nineties I did meet my tutor regularly, and he gave us work to do or discussed how we were getting on.

DC's uni tell them to go to their personal tutor about everything. The personal tutor says not my problem, piss off. The uni prides itself on pastoral support and was why DC picked it (they have quite a serious disability which isn't being supported, to the point of discrimination ). We've been quite shocked tbh.
Other child's experience was totally different, at a far larger uni too.

At my place, the pizza and beer thing would be very unusual. We don't have budgets for that at an individual level, and certainly not for serving students alcohol! We just do not have the money. Are you suggesting that academic staff (already underpaid) should spend upwards of £50 to entertain personal tutees?

We do a pizza lunch for our graduating finalists on their last day of teaching - that's for the whole graduating cohort.

We are not their friend. There should be appropriate professional boundaries. We are trying to catch issues before they become problems, or just generally a professionally friendly check in about their educational experience.

Standard personal tutoring is much more like the pattern your DS's tutor has outlined. We invite our students to an initial meeting, either one to one, or as a group. And then, after that, we aim to see them twice a term.

We invite them by email, with 15 minute appointment slots they can book. We specify that it's a check in, that we can discuss with them in general terns how they're doing. If there are ongoing issues beyond that, we give them information about whom to see next - we help them navigate the university's system & help them find support if they need it.

When they get work we offer a chance to go over their feedback with them. Their module convenors also offer this opportunity.

Very few students turn up to any of these opportunities. We've increasingly invited them as small groups, because they seem shy about one to ones.

I suspect the "pizza and beer" invitation was a bribe. Also not great practice, frankly. We're trying to take alcohol out of the equation as much as possible.

Your DC should be talking to the experts: the student disability or well-being service. Academics are there to teach, not offer counselling or therapy.

If your DC hasn't gone through the appropriate channels, that is not the fault of academics. They are not the people who can advise on disability allowances or reasonable accommodations for study. They can signpost your DC to the correct service. But academics are there to teach and research.

You shouldn't be doing this. Your DC should. Why are you so overinvolved?

Thank you for the snarky italics 🙄

The disability support team haven't provided agreed support and have been very unhelpful . Months to get an appointment with wellbeing. DC has been to the correct support, but has been sent back to the personal tutor, DC's previous personal tutor did help, but he was made redundant.
There is also one academic issue, DC has been given the info from the right service to help, but the lecturers aren't accepting the answer nor offering their own solution (the personal tutor is one of those lecturers).
The uni's policy is quite clear that personal tutors should provide pastoral support and have pastoral responsibility for their students.

And to answer your question to another parent, why is a parent getting involved? Because the disability team are refusing to listen, but an appointment turned up for a parent. Unfortunately they just went back on their assurances as soon as DC chased them up. DC is utterly exhausted, her medication and disability cause tiredness, she's so run down with chasing all this. So yes, sometimes a parent needs to step in.
DC's medical team are trying their best to help.

Pizza and beer, really? As a PP said there’s no money for any of that and alcohol would not be seen as inclusive. I meet supervisees for 15m once a month but we have an unusual setup that allows for more contact time. I’m there to listen, provide encouragement and signpost to other services if problems arise. I don’t really have power eg if disability services are not working there’s not much I can do. Better to make a complaint to them.

The role of a personal academic tutor has changed - they don’t set work for students and their primary job is to check they’re engaged, attending classes and to signpost to specialist help if needed.

We don’t have any budget so wouldn’t be providing food and drinks and certainly wouldn’t buy alcohol.

Times have definitely changed. I meet my personal tutees 3x a year and am available as a point of contact at other times but that would really just involve sign posting.

when I was a student we used to be invited back to my personal tutors house as a small group and smoke pot together 🙈🤣