Over the last couple of months, I helped facilitate an investigation for The Student into the working conditions of tutors. Though the eventual article included responses to questions that we asked about pay, hours worked for preparation and general working conditions, I also asked tutors questions about the mental health of students; whether they were equipped with any training and whether they felt that ‘being there’ for their pupils was part of their role. Due to limited space I was sad not to be able to use these responses, yet after having a conversation with Sophia and Niamh about the moving of the student support offices in the School of Social and Political Science, and what the role of the student support officers (SSO) was in contrast to that of the tutor, despite the tutor having far more regular contact lead me to think more about the responses to the questions on mental health within my survey. With this in mind, I have decided to have a go at looking at the question of our horizontal structures and relationships between staff and pupils, whilst comparing the management of this course in relation to conventional courses. Finally, looking at how course fitted in with my larger university experience. 

As I attempted to get across in my last piece, being an undergrad is a deceptively tumultuous time, with looking after ourselves, extra-curriculars, social life and uni work, therefore community and the emotional ties and safety nets become an incredibly important aspect of life. With that belief as my starting point, I attempted to explore the dynamic of community that we had established. Believing that the wider community of the university was pretty much non-existent, I was pleased about the community we had created, even if we felt that at times our progress was slow. 

Yet at the same time, I argued that our community was not necessarily as inclusive as it could have been and was built on the foundations of the occupation, a fact that was potentially alienating to those not involved with the action. Furthermore, as we touched on in the past few weeks with the idea of participation not necessarily having to be in person on the Wednesday afternoons, the nature of the course favoured those who are good at/enjoy debate and public speaking. This semi-requirement to enjoy discussion is potentially alienating to those who feel unable yet want to take the course and enjoy working in smaller groups for instance.

Yet how did the horizontal relationships aid this, or did they have no effect at all. To answer this I will first look at the data collected in my survey before relating this to our course structure.

 Though it is unsurprising that just over three-quarters of our respondents said that they had had no mental health training, those who had done having received it elsewhere, what was perhaps more interesting were the rationale behind their beliefs. In response to why  “we absolutely should receive some kind of mental health training” to another respondent replying that “it is decidedly not the role of the tutor” illustrate the conflicting opinions of tutors as to what their role is. Many were adamant that the mental health aid should not be “expected” of tutors, going on to say that “only the student learning advisor or other suitably trained people should,” another saying that “in academia, we respect student’s privacy.” However, there were further respondents who despite agreeing that it was not the role of the tutor called it “inevitable that some issues may arise”  due to them being a “persistent point of contact.” Indeed this was echoed by a tutor who agreed that “It should not be down to me” but that “students are frequently frustrated with the level of communication from staff” it falling to tutors to “reassure.” With a further respondent stating that they believed that they had “a duty of care” and that they “see them more consistently than personal tutors” who many see as the first port of call. However, this belief comes with a caveat. They should be trained and it should be paid. With many stressing that it should be trained, one replying that without it they “wouldn’t feel properly equipped to support them without this” this raises questions about whether the training would be sufficient and whether anyone would have time to do it, tutors already being systematically overworked by the university. Not only that but would the training be sufficient?

Yet training wouldn’t need to be in depth necessarily, but with many saying that they receive students “in raw emotional states,” many of our respondents have stressed that they would like some guidance in how to help these students. Many argue that the training in how to spot students who might be having difficulties should be improved so that tutors are able to point the right services in the direction of the student or the student in the direction of the services. Yet to provide training on mental health for tutorial leaders would be problematic as this eradicates a role of the SSOs, and indeed one for which they are trained, despite similarly being underpaid (I am told). Similarly, though this course is irregular, students only have tutors for a period of eleven weeks so it would become ineffective for them to offer help as it would only lead to irregularity of help as students went to different tutorial groups.

Yet it would also seem that the SSOs are being sidelined slightly. Though this is not true of every school, the School of Social and Political Science are moving their SSOs from their current space to the ground floor so as to make them more visible and thus accessible, the argument goes. Yet this ignores that actually in moving them downstairs, not only would students have to go and ask at reception to go and see the SSOs, but that having the team behind a glass door past reception, this would be very visible to the foyer, thereby ensuring that the student is very visible and thus vulnerable. Furthermore, not only were the initial plans put forward without any consultation with the SSOs, but it proposes moving them into a more visible, open plan room, with meeting rooms where students can discuss things in privacy not being soundproofed.

Yet though it would increase the workload of tutors and should thus be something that should be taken into account monetarily, training tutors to follow up on students if they fail to turn up to tutorials, something that many say they do anyway, might be better than the current system? Though in our conversation with them, both Dorothy Miell and Paul Norris ignored the fact that taking attendance is done so for visa reasons and as part of the governments Prevent strategy and instead stressed its welfare importance, yet this appears to be largely ineffective. Though I only have personal experience about this and thus am only able to talk about it from my own point of view, even if tutorial attendance is taken for welfare, it appears that the university considers this to be their only means of attempting to ensure that students welfare is ok, what is more, it doesn’t seem to work. 

Regularly missing contact hours where I was registered last semester at the time I was editing the paper, it was only in week eight or nine that I received an email from HCA Engage. Failing to respond due to having other more pressing things to do, the emailed me again a week after the end of term reminding me that failure to attend my course could result in exclusion, whilst also assuring me that they were here to help. 

Responding with confusion, as to my knowledge I had attended at least one of my contact hours in the weeks that they said I had a “high percentage of absence points.” It transpired that I had also signed up to ‘audit’ the tutorials of a course that I was auditing the lectures of and so they signed off, content. Yet had I been genuinely not ok, it is strange to me that failing to attend a single tutorial of a course was only addressed in the ninth week. This would seem to suggest that the computer system of ‘red flags’ is quite ineffective, and is only in place to remove the culpability of the university should anything bad happen. 

However, in our more egalitarian horizontal structures, was this conducive to helping those within our group access welfare? Combined with the fact that we did not take attendance, it could be argued that due to our more horizontal structures this meant that there was not one person of whose responsibility it was to check in on people. Furthermore, due to the nature of the course, failing to attend regularly was commonplace due to many not taking it for credit and the fact that for many it was less work than their other modules. Therefore someone checking in on someone due to a lack of attendance would have been unhelpful. In this situation, this would seem to suggest that us all being able to spot a fellow participant’s ill health would have been useful all taking collective responsibility for the welfare of those on the course, yet due to the number of people, it is hard to ensure the effectiveness of this. 

Yet maybe to focus on welfare is to ignore the importance of our horizontal structures. With everyone treated and listened to as equals, this facilitated a space where we were all the facilitators, planners (perhaps to our detriment), and leaders of the course. It allowed us to grow into the space and the weeks together and though this plausibly contributed to our slow start, it allowed for the creation of egalitarian student-staff relationships where participants were treated as voices rather than names to be entered into forms.

As the strikes demonstrated last year with many students angry at their lecturers for striking, the university is undoubtedly lacking wider student-staff solidarity and understanding. It was a pleasure to be involved in this project, not only for the connections we all made but also for what you all taught me about listening, facilitation, organisation, the university and each other. Thank you.

And another thing / The future of our university by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0