Disclaimer: The Views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not speak for Her Campus Aberdeen.
Ok, so hear me out. I know even the idea that during a pandemic the university could have voted against a policy that is supposed to protect our degrees is outrageous, BUT is the policy that was being debated actually any good for us in the first place?
In April, Aberdeen University developed and put into place their no detriment policy, something that was intended to support students in attaining their degrees to the standard they would have without the challenges and disruption brought about by lockdowns and social distancing restrictions. The policy offered structure and procedure to allow flexible deadlines, adapted assessments, and new calculations for degree classification, alongside changing the cap on resit grades. All of these adjustments were reassuring, a comfort in what was still a new and terrifying situation for the UK (as opposed to it being normal and horrifying now). Knowing that there was a policy in place to protect our degrees – even if we hadn’t fully read it – was enough to offer some peace of mind for the entire student body.
Here’s the thing – a no detriment policy is obviously meant to ensure no detriment. The problem with this is that a policy lays out a strict set of guidelines for university staff to follow for whatever situation may arise and have an effect on our work or overall performance. While, at a glance, guidelines to help counter the chaos going on in our lives may seem like it can only be a good thing, for some people it may not be. Depending on your circumstances, no detriment can become a detriment in itself.
Each department has a Disabilities and Mental Health Coordinator, guardian angels that you can reach out to in times of need; you don’t need to have a particular condition or meet certain criteria to reach out for some support if you are struggling. Hopefully, you have also met your Personal Tutor at some point, someone who can also help and offer guidance. Last semester, when there was a no detriment policy in place, there was a limit on how coordinators and lecturers could support us – they had to follow what to do in outcome a, b, or c depending on which box you fell in. As we are all very aware, while we are all in the same boat when it comes to being in a pandemic, we are all experiencing it differently – we are all individual people living individual lives with individual perspectives. We don’t fall neatly into boxes, especially in a time as unprecedented as this. By not having a no detriment policy, staff are actually better equipped to give us the help we need instead of adhering to a list of instructions. Voting against the policy doesn’t remove staff’s ability to offer flexible deadlines or to adapt assessments to make them manageable in our current circumstances – it means that they can offer this support in a way that is best suited to you and your situation. This is something we should remember before sending too many angry e-mails to school representatives you find on the infamous spreadsheet breaking down the votes – think about how to have a productive dialogue. Did they vote against it because they want to actually help you, as I truly believe some will have done? Or, as I am sure most of us have cynically assumed (myself included), have they voted that way to prioritise academic elitism, focusing on what their big benefactors may think, over how their students are feeling?
I tried so hard to create even a tiny bit of optimism in the way we think about this, but alas, I can’t ignore all of the many concerning issues that remain unresolved since this decision was made. The university, in an email to all undergrad and postgrad students, assured us that they recognised the struggles we are facing and would ensure “consistency and fairness” for all students going forward. Here we have yet another example of something sounding great on the surface, but what does that actually mean? While we may be able to receive more tailored support without the policy in place, how do we go about getting that support in a “consistent” and “fair” way? I am able to write about this from the privileged perspective of a music student; the entire department is small enough for us to know most – if not all – of the lecturers, as well as have them know us. We are also incredibly lucky to have a particularly fantastic Disabilities and Mental Health Coordinator who works tirelessly to help all those who need support. What happens when you aren’t in that position though? What if you are studying in a huge department? What if you don’t have a lecturer you feel you can turn to for support, don’t have anyone that knows your current circumstances? Even within my degree programme there are fellow students who do not feel confident or secure in the situation going forward. We have been advised to “make every effort to keep your lecturers and tutors informed about how circumstances are affecting your work” as they “can’t help with a problem if [they] don’t know a problem exists.” I am grateful that our lecturers are supportive and want to help, yet I can’t help but feel how deeply alarming it is that the university as a whole has now forced us to “make every effort” to keep staff informed about our personal circumstances in order to ensure we get a fair mark on our little bit of paper – something we won’t even be presented with this year, but will rather receive in the post.
If you are struggling, are you supposed to e-mail each and every lecturer or tutor you have, or just one? Can you just e-mail your Disabilities and Mental Health Coordinator and ask them to vouch for you? How much detail do you have to include about your personal wellbeing and circumstance in order to make sure that your marks and the support you are provided really is “fair”? After all of that, how do we know that this is consistent not just in our department or school, but across the whole university? Will getting a couple of extra B’s this semester dash the First you had worked so hard for? Does a 2:1 become a 2:2 because there is no policy in place to have the degree calculations reflect all of the hurdles we are having to overcome? Will our classifications recognise that some of us have had to essentially educate ourselves from recorded lectures and glitchy zoom discussions?
Until the university get round to actually defining their plans for providing “consistency and fairness”, any hopes of a positive spin on the no detriment policy remain up in the air. With deadlines already fast approaching, if not having already gone past for some, will our grades be fair and consistent before or after we have actually graduated? Making support better suited to individual students is fantastic – but why remove the one thing that was preserving our expensive educations until you can guarantee how exactly that can and will be done?
Once again, our degrees are just as uncertain as the world around us.