I feel sorry for the administrator who entered a number wrong and is now being blamed for someone’s death when he clearly had bigger issues
Jackie__Moon__ on
Even if it wasn’t an error offing yourself isn’t the solution.
orange_fudge on
Meanwhile – at my last departmental assessment meeting, I had colleagues in tears over the unreasonable workload for marking. We had approx 10 working days over the Christmas break to mark hundreds of papers *each*, as well as prepare the next semester’s courses and support students with extensions for special circumstances. I calculated that we had on average 5-10 mins to mark each essay and give detailed written feedback.
Academic staff are also close to shattering from the stress. This system isn’t serving anyone.
Alive_kiwi_7001 on
That’s a crazy jump. One course logged as unmarked prevents a degree being awarded while still several months out vs a 2:1? It’s been a while for me but the fact that there’s a minimum doesn’t seem unusual. But I would have expected more margin than that for it to be marked as a fail even without that module.
I guess we don’t know how the uni handled it, but I would have expected a tutor to get on the case about it as they’d have an idea of whether he’d done the course or not, rather than it being buried in administrative hell.
Alive_kiwi_7001 on
That’s a crazy jump. One course logged as unmarked prevents a degree being awarded while still several months out vs a 2:1? It’s been a while for me but the fact that there’s a minimum doesn’t seem unusual. But I would have expected more margin than that for it to be marked as a fail even without that module.
I guess we don’t know how the uni handled it, but I would have expected a tutor to get on the case about it as they’d have an idea of whether he’d done the course or not, rather than it being buried in administrative hell.
Nalena_Linova on
The QAA ruling seems crazy to me. It’s essentially saying that university administration can never make a mistake because a vulnerable person might take their life over it.
It seems like in this case and several other recent high profile cases, the student didn’t have a diagnosis of mental illness and wasn’t flagged as vulnerable to the university.
This standard isn’t expected in any other walk of life, why should universities be expected to hold to it?
YamGrouchy8230 on
Every university ha0s an obligation to all the figures that pads through their doors but find me a psyclogist that says uni killed me 😆. It is more likely that he felt so much pressure to impress his parents and get a degree (to please THEM). This us a case of a young child that didn’t have the ……. also do the parents or his doctors/teachers lhold NO. RESPONSIBILITIES for his death or should he be fobbed of as quickly as we can find a scapegoat
TheL0wKing on
This feels an odd focus for the discussion.
Obviously the misgrading by the university and apparantly systemic internal issues are bad, but shouldnt the focus be on how the student could have been supported in the two months following his (incorrect) results? Students fail their courses or drop out all the time, the fact that this one should have passed doesn’t change that it should never lead to suicide. That seems like the greater failure, from everyone really.
CrazyGazpacho on
The university failed, that’s clear, but to blame them for his death is out of all proportion. Its very sad but that doesn’t mean its their fault
KoffieCreamer on
This has been going on for ages (this story). No rational person takes their life over a grading error, yes it might be the straw that broke the camels back but to pretend it’s the only reason is completely insincere.
Astriania on
It’s important that university grading is able to correct its mistakes, but I think it’s pretty unfair to blame the university for the suicide, even if they were wrong in their grade.
MissSephy on
I’m limited in what I can say as an employee, but all of senior management can get fucked at the University of Glasgow, and they all need to be held accountable. Sick and tired of frontline staff warning they are stretched wafer thin and the lack of training and resources, while senior management pretend its all just staff being “negative” and refusing to listen. They all deserve to go.
The latest internal comms is a yet another poor effort at downplaying the severity of what has happened.
12 commenti
I feel sorry for the administrator who entered a number wrong and is now being blamed for someone’s death when he clearly had bigger issues
Even if it wasn’t an error offing yourself isn’t the solution.
Meanwhile – at my last departmental assessment meeting, I had colleagues in tears over the unreasonable workload for marking. We had approx 10 working days over the Christmas break to mark hundreds of papers *each*, as well as prepare the next semester’s courses and support students with extensions for special circumstances. I calculated that we had on average 5-10 mins to mark each essay and give detailed written feedback.
Academic staff are also close to shattering from the stress. This system isn’t serving anyone.
That’s a crazy jump. One course logged as unmarked prevents a degree being awarded while still several months out vs a 2:1? It’s been a while for me but the fact that there’s a minimum doesn’t seem unusual. But I would have expected more margin than that for it to be marked as a fail even without that module.
I guess we don’t know how the uni handled it, but I would have expected a tutor to get on the case about it as they’d have an idea of whether he’d done the course or not, rather than it being buried in administrative hell.
That’s a crazy jump. One course logged as unmarked prevents a degree being awarded while still several months out vs a 2:1? It’s been a while for me but the fact that there’s a minimum doesn’t seem unusual. But I would have expected more margin than that for it to be marked as a fail even without that module.
I guess we don’t know how the uni handled it, but I would have expected a tutor to get on the case about it as they’d have an idea of whether he’d done the course or not, rather than it being buried in administrative hell.
The QAA ruling seems crazy to me. It’s essentially saying that university administration can never make a mistake because a vulnerable person might take their life over it.
It seems like in this case and several other recent high profile cases, the student didn’t have a diagnosis of mental illness and wasn’t flagged as vulnerable to the university.
This standard isn’t expected in any other walk of life, why should universities be expected to hold to it?
Every university ha0s an obligation to all the figures that pads through their doors but find me a psyclogist that says uni killed me 😆. It is more likely that he felt so much pressure to impress his parents and get a degree (to please THEM). This us a case of a young child that didn’t have the ……. also do the parents or his doctors/teachers lhold NO. RESPONSIBILITIES for his death or should he be fobbed of as quickly as we can find a scapegoat
This feels an odd focus for the discussion.
Obviously the misgrading by the university and apparantly systemic internal issues are bad, but shouldnt the focus be on how the student could have been supported in the two months following his (incorrect) results? Students fail their courses or drop out all the time, the fact that this one should have passed doesn’t change that it should never lead to suicide. That seems like the greater failure, from everyone really.
The university failed, that’s clear, but to blame them for his death is out of all proportion. Its very sad but that doesn’t mean its their fault
This has been going on for ages (this story). No rational person takes their life over a grading error, yes it might be the straw that broke the camels back but to pretend it’s the only reason is completely insincere.
It’s important that university grading is able to correct its mistakes, but I think it’s pretty unfair to blame the university for the suicide, even if they were wrong in their grade.
I’m limited in what I can say as an employee, but all of senior management can get fucked at the University of Glasgow, and they all need to be held accountable. Sick and tired of frontline staff warning they are stretched wafer thin and the lack of training and resources, while senior management pretend its all just staff being “negative” and refusing to listen. They all deserve to go.
The latest internal comms is a yet another poor effort at downplaying the severity of what has happened.