What would you do if a university student wanted to bring her newborn to class?

[camaleon]

That is really. I have to make a decision regarding this. I need advice. I want to accommodate this student as much as possible but I am very aware of disrupting other students' learning experience.
What would you do?

From what I read, people who have experienced the situation don't report that 20 students more wanted to bring their babies.

Bonsoir, I cannot imagine a single situation where it would not be massively inappropriate that the mother of a University student called the VC as a first reaction to a Univeristy issue. Even more so (much more indeed) if she knew him (I presume it is a he) personally.

It would be much more entertainment than the baby (and much more likely to disctract your son from his studies).

Procrastreation you seem fixated on this- are you the mother?!

I've never heard a piercing clink

The issue is that babies are not always quiet! Mine had the uncanny ability to make a noise precisely at the wrong times. It is completely contradictory to say that attendance is compulsory and that you can leave part-way through.

This is not a distance-learning course. There is a presentation within a team of students working together. I don't want to give more details since I don't want to out her and myself.
There are benefits from going to class and this is why not everybody enrolls on learning-distance courses. I am going to try to give this woman the opportunity to attend the important sessions she wants to attend.
Obviously, if the baby is disruptive or if her mobile phone goes off every 2 minutes she will be asked to leave.

I don't see any harm in distance learning for a couple months. Millions of people do entire courses online.

As I said, she may prefer that option anyway.

But this is not a distance learning course, and it is not designed as such. If this does not work I will try to find alternative solutions for her.

if the university has a nursery why doesnt she use it? why is she not providing childcare instead of taking the child to class? it is impossible to listen and give a lecture your full attention and look after a baby at the same time.

Isn't her funding contract linked to her attendance. I think if you allow the baby in lectures and seminars then she has to attend them all if she is not ill. You can't give her the option to pick and choose, as well as bending the rules to allow her to attend. If she is unable to attend then she will have to consider part time or postponing her studies, IMO.

Buffy - and you could work every other weekend ;)

The baby is a very small baby, a newborn. The nursery does not take them that small
This may not work. I am not sure I understand those who insists on not giving her the opportunity just based on the presumption that it will not work a priori.
I appreciate all the views and I am ready for changing my mind. However, I think that trying it is the right thing to do and this is what I have already communicated to the student.
I will be as flexible as I can.

Well, it's also not a nursery, and not designed as such.

A technological solution is a good one because it offers the best chance for everyone to learn, not just your one student.

I would like to see us supporting new mothers more by not making it compulsory from them to go everywhere in person, not when so much can be done online these days.

There is not a massive difference between attending a lecture in person and over skype, she could even ask questions and participate in discussion. It's actually even more likely she can sit through the entire presentation because she won't have to leave the room if the baby cries, she can just turn off her microphone.

I just can't understand the scenario, as I've said before. If these are regular lectures, where it's not the end of the world to duck out, there's no problem. But you have indicated that these are compulsory/ vitally important- what does this student have to lose before you decide it's not working?

No - but I've come out of the other side of strapping my babies onto my chest & getting on with it.

The subtext here is that the student has made a drastic personal mistake in getting pregnant. Given that university studies can stretch to up to 8-9 years for some career paths, and given that they overlap with prime fertility age of women, I think that the attitudes to mothers in education contribute a lot to opportunities for women in general.

Like I said, I've come out of the other side of this. Keeping a baby super quiet for a 90minute lecture before going home for quiet study is a doddle compared to juggling a baby and a graduate work program - which often include travel away, and would be hard to start part time. A typical family would have two or maybe even more kids - which quickly builds into an insurmountable career break.

Supporting this student does send a message to her classmates that you are supportive of motherhood. However - I don't think the response will be a flood of guerilla babywearers taking the piss. I think it may, however, make someone else more confident about attempting the balance.

I see overtones of social engineering in making it highly penal for educated women to have children at biologically optimal times. For my daughter - if she had the opportunty and was ambitious - I'd advise her to give birth in her early twenties, and then to lean on me, her father and her spouse in order to balance building a career and a family. The model of career building first, and then slotting in babies can be very hard.

Buffy - they are supposed to work that way. The university is supposed to communicate with the student finance company, but they don't (for obvious reasons). Normally, universities have an attendance policy of 75-80 %, and any absence being proved as genuine.

Yes Eleanor,
I don't understand why this is so important to you Eleanor. The question remains whether or not facilitating attendance of a mother and a newborn.
However, here it goes: The module requires to present 2 papers to pass it. Those are papers resulting from team work, but assessed based on individual presentations.

if she cannot make it I would have to follow other procedures to change the form of assessment. Something that is not normally possible at all since it would introduce a real difference in methods of assessments for different studies. If she cannot attend and present I will speak with my head of department, Director of Programmes and External examiners to 'bend the rules'. However, it would be almost impossible for her particular case to change the assessment mode and she will have to defer (most likely)

...difference in methods of assessments for different students...
Apologies for my badly written messages. I am typing fast and trying to do something else... a bad combination.

I don't see that subtext at all, Pro, at least not on this thread.

I think the distinction is between people focusing on what's best for this one student vs what's best for the class as a whole. And between people who have never met a noisy newborn in their lives vs people who do see babies as potentially very distracting.

I had a baby midway through my phd so I am well aware of the challenges of motherhood and academia. But I don't think the answer is to bring babies into the classroom. It's not really a zero-sum problem --surely we can think of much more creative approaches.

it is impossible to listen and give a lecture your full attention and look after a baby at the same time

I have given talks, attended meetings, volunteered at events, even chatted to a potential employer, all with a young baby in tow. Would have done more if I felt more places were willing to accommodate.

Sure, the baby doesn't always comply, and you need contingency plans, but it's not normally distracting :) most people will coo before/after and not during, then they're perfectly capable of paying attention to the matter in hand.

Supporting this student does send a message to her classmates that you are supportive of motherhood

I think it's more of a question of how to support this student. Is it fair to her to say you can come, but you will have to leave (and therefore miss out) when the baby cries? Is it not fairer to look into recording things and using technology so she can do things at her own pace?

Are these her own presentations then, camaleon?

x-post

So she would have to actually present while caring for her newborn?

How is leaving if baby cries a realistic plan if she's presenting?

Could she do the presentation for you personally, not in front of the whole class? Then you have more flexibility.

Dreaming...
The subtext is very much here.
The balance between individual and collective interest is something every lecturer with some experience is used to. All of us have a student or two per group trying to monopolise the class with endles (and sometimes irrelevant) questions or comments; students who arrive late disrupting the session; mobile phones; students who eat in class; even those who start kissing... We deal with it making sure everybody gets a fair chance at learning and finishing their course.

if you have a child and you are a woman you have to interrupt your studies is very much implied here.

At no point has anybody suggested that other students should cope with a baby crying or in any other way noisy.