December 8th, 2008
Out: personal tutors. In: academic advisors.
Last week I had the first eight out of twenty-three meetings with the course representatives at the University of Manchester. I’ve been meeting them on a school-by-school basis, as schools have a great deal of autonomy in educating their students. It’s been highly interesting listening to course reps from right across the university, and discovering just how widespread some of the problems are.
While I’d expected that some personal tutors were better than others, with some being very knowledgable, full of useful advice, and eager to give it, while others being rather apathetic, not bothering to show up to introductory meetings or declaring they were “here for research and nothing else”, I was not quite ready when it turned out that the tutors’ lack of engagement with their students seemed to be the norm. While the average tutor was generally helpful if approached, and may have reached out to their tutees once or twice over the course of study, there was nothing near the appropriate level of academic advice that students should be receiving.
If Manchester is to embrace a learning culture which is personal to the student, allowing students the flexibility to choose units they wish to study, in the learning environment they work best in, and getting feedback on work they have done rather than on the work the group has done, and to get advice and support tailored to their needs, the tutorial system needs to change to reflect that.
Late last academic year a policy was passed at University Senate, introducing “Academic Advisors”. Academic advisors are required to make weekly contact with their advisees, and the role includes providing information and guidance on academic choice, planning targets for development, monitoring performance and identifying fulfilment of the “Purposes of a Manchester Undergraduate Education” (a set of attributes all graduates from the University should possess). This policy is a good one - part of a personalised education is developing personal relationships with members of academic staff. It is important for so many reasons, not least in that the academic a student gets to know the most is probably going to end up writing a reference.
I’m not pretending that all academic advisors will be brilliant. There will still be apathetic ones, who do not care about their students. But by making it more of a two-way street, with the academic advisor required to be more proactive and not just leaving it to the student, the safety net is increased, all students will get more support, and a major step along the pathway to a personalised education will be achieved.
