Hi All,

Well Dave, you have certainly hit on one of my pet hates- I find this new development in students since the introduction of fees extremely annoying as many feel they have a 'right' to simply 'get' a 2.1 since they are 'buying' their degree! Moreover, we get repeated emails or face to face complaints from students complaining if they do not get in the first seminar class (so they may have to wait an hour or two between lecture and seminars) with cries of 'but what I am meant to do for two hours' and 'I pay 9000 in fees, I want in the earliest seminar' to even 'I want to leave Uni before 4pm to miss the rush hour as I have to work and what do you expect me to tell my boss if I can't start my shift at 5pm...I pay fees you know'! I've even had a student complain to me about how rubbish the buses are up top of his fee complaint when told I couldn't move him to an earlier class! Despite explaining SEVERAL times to the student why we cannot just move students into the earlier seminar (we are capped at 25 students per seminar, and EVERYONE wants to move into the first class as they don't want to wait an hour or two), this often leads to even more rude and inappropriate emails from them, demanding a move as they are 'consumers'.

Needless to say, this immediately upsets and annoys lecturers, and we feel that addressing us in such a way is rather inappropriate ( I would NEVER have dreamed of talking such a way to my lecturers, who I respected and was pretty much in awe of....). IN order to deal with this, I email the students on behalf of our ELC department (as it seems to get my goat the most!) and politely remind them:

1) that timetabling is beyond individual lecturer control and that we are not permitted to move students apart from a timetable clash etc etc ; and 'since they pay fees' they should make use of all the Uni sources as much as possible to get their money's worth: i.e. go to the library during their 1 -2 hour wait between classes;

and then most importantly

2) I remind them of the student code of conduct (attach to email) and state that although they have perhaps not meant it to be, (play devil's advocate) that their email came across as rude and disrespectful, and that this is no way to approach or talk to a lecturer. 

I remind them that we always show the greatest respect to our students, and do everything we can to ensure they have a great experience at Uni etc, but that this respect must be reciprocal - that students must return the same level of respect to staff that they receive from staff, as this is what makes our student-staff relationship so great (which is very true, especially in our ELc department).

 Generally the response is an apology from the student who hopefully learns that this is not how to interact with people in the real world. For example they cannot demand that their future boss lets them go home earlier as they hate rush hour, or speak inappropriately to their superiors (or colleagues!) in the workplace, and if anything they should see Uni as a practice run for their future work-life.

Anyway, sorry to go on, as you can tell it is one of my major gripes and to be honest I am always still quite shocked at some of the nasty emails we receive, and wonder how students think its acceptable to talk in such ways to the lecturer (swearing, backtalk etc) all in the names of consumerism and 'I pay blah blah in fees' attitude....

Hope this helps! And a great topic Dave, thanks for bringing it up as I too love to hear other's ideas on how to handle this ever-growing issue,

Jo


Dr Joanne McDowell
Senior Lecturer in English Language and Communication
Associate Programme Tutor for Humanities
School of Humanities
Room R320
De Havilland Campus



Postal address
University of Hertfordshire
College Lane
Hatfield
Hertfordshire
AL10 9AB


Tel.    +1707 285551

________________________________________
From: Teaching Linguistics <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Dave Sayers <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 17 February 2016 12:47
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: students as consumers

Hi folks,

In the context of student tuition fees, a recent article...

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2015.1127908

...uses survey evidence from UK higher education students to show that "a higher
consumer orientation was associated with lower academic performance".

This is an interesting and novel argument to use in the face of complaints from
students about this and that "when I pay so much in fees"! But I wonder how it might
pan out in practice.

I also got to wondering how other TeachLingers handle consumerist attitudes from
students. Any thoughts? Naturally I imagine this doesn't just come up in the UK!

I had an interesting run-in myself recently. In an exchange with a student over
classroom disruption, which happened to have involved a quip about fees, I quoted
that remark back to the student in question in an email, explaining that this concern
goes both ways, and that all the other students have paid the same and don't deserve
for the value of their fees to be diluted by disruption. On the same basis I advanced
a gentle but clear warning of exclusion from the classroom if the disruption
continued. Never let it be said I'm a soft touch! But I thought it was handy to
consider the 'fees' argument in that wider context. (I hasten to add this was a very
unusual incident and my students are mostly studious angels.)

I'd love to hear from others about their experiences encountering these sorts of
attitudes, and possible ways to address them.

Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University | www.shu.ac.uk
Honorary Research Fellow, Cardiff University & WISERD | www.wiserd.ac.uk
[log in to unmask] | http://shu.academia.edu/DaveSayers

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