Written by Liam White, Students’ Union President
What should we expect from our university? I like to think in terms of education and experience – the academic journey that we initially sign up for, and the experiences that shape who we are. This journey is one that we embark on at huge (and often unexpected) financial cost, and that’s without even acknowledging the barriers of mental or physical health that so many of us have to overcome to access our education. It’s pretty reasonable, then, for us to ask universities to meet us halfway.
You can therefore imagine my disappointment whilst reading an article by my former psychology lecturer, Professor Jane Ogden, claiming that “mollycoddling universities are setting young people up to fail.” I have always been proud of Surrey’s progressive approach to minimising barriers to education, helped by its strong collaboration with Surrey Students’ Union and respect of our students’ voice. Had I not been supported by Surrey’s support services and deadline extension system, I would likely have dropped out of university when I found myself in a mental health crisis in my first year. That’s why I was incredibly concerned to read one of our own lecturers using infantilising language to describe Surrey’s increasingly modernised approach to education.
Professor Ogden’s lectures encouraged me to develop my critical thinking and challenge what I read; so I will match her article’s claims to the context of our students. She first discusses how Surrey has adopted captured content, enabling students to work from home. I’m glad that Professor Ogden acknowledges how this helps student carers and commuters to engage with studies, and I even agree that leaving your room and attending lectures can be an important part of wellbeing and social connectivity. My sabbatical officer team feels strongly about building communities on campus, placing this as a Union Priorities and giving rise to our Belonging Events series.
The benefits of physical attendance do not, however, invalidate the need for recorded lectures. I find it gross when Professor Ogden glamorises stories of students attending lectures despite holding down multiple jobs or navigating public transport whilst being visual impaired, speaking as though it is a gold standard contrasted against students who “just don’t want to come” to lectures. A student who is part of Surrey’s Disability and Accessibility Group shared with me how this perception can feel like a guilt-trip: “because there’s such a strong emphasis that if you don’t come in you’re not trying hard enough, you feel you have to because of the pressure. How can I do my best when I’m forced to push my body so hard I collapse?”.
Clearly this is not the message Professor Ogden is trying to convey, but broadly painting students who access recorded lectures rather than in-person lectures as having “poor life management skills” is incredibly alienating. More concerning still is Professor Ogden’s admission that she deliberately keeps her lecture videos purposefully dull, twisting the arms of students to choose between poor learning materials or attending lectures at personal cost (as in the above student’s example). This underhanded approach not only violates the spirit of accessibility underpinning recorded lectures, but stands staunchly against students’ needs and the culture fostered by Surrey’s inclusivity teams. Sabotaging one’s own lecture materials because of a personal view is unprofessional and is condemnable by students, academic staff, and university leadership.
Professor Ogden proceeds to target Surrey’s inclusive approach to deadline extensions. To clarify one of her points, self-certified extenuating circumstances were in fact trialled pre-COVID, through the work of my predecessors at the Students’ Union in 2019. Professor Ogden mischaracterises this as supporting those who are “disorganised” or “perfectionists” despite, by her own admission, the extension doing nothing to change the fact that assignments must eventually be completed. In reality, self-certified ECs serve to empower us as students. For context, staff members were able to self-certify for illnesses to get time off work, yet students weren’t afforded the same luxury. Getting the ‘correct’ evidence for illness was a needless barrier for our students, in addition to the financial strain of obtaining a £20 sick note from the doctors.
Another student from the Disability and Accessibility Group shared how they were “concerned at the environment being created” at Surrey, where students are expected to meet a deadline despite unnecessary stress and risk to self. This was in response to Professor Ogden’s describing how one of her students “came in with stitches in her head after a brain operation”, and another “stepped over her alcoholic mum in the morning to get the bus.” I am no academic, but I would not be touting these as success stories of dedicated students. I have nothing but empathy for the harrowing circumstances these students have worked through, and think a deadline extension is the least I could do. Lifting a line from my psychology books, however, these examples may instead be a fundamental attribution error: perhaps these students’ ‘dedication’ isn’t one of academic commitment, but is necessitated by the poor quality of their professor’s dull recorded lectures…
It feels disingenuous for this article to have been framed as “universities setting students up to fail” by including these adjustments, when they are designed to level the playing field and help our students to succeed. Let’s pretend, for a moment, that the working world is completely devoid of workplace adjustments, deadline extensions, and remote working. Should we not be expecting students, as future innovators and leaders, to ask for more? To push for not only education, but for the working world to be inclusive and accessible?
As me and other students read Professor Ogden’s article, we were left feeling pissed off. Support networks and adjustments that have enabled so many of us to stay in education being minimised as “mollycoddling” completely misses the point. Yet if you can look past the condescending article heading and mortifying anecdotes, there are genuinely important questions to consider. Do recorded lectures detract from our ability to engage with university? How do you balance compassion for students’ situations with academic expectations?
Professor Ogden approaches these questions through the antiquated lens of university being about being “toughened up” or left to “fall through the cracks”, as though this is something to be celebrated. University should absolutely challenge us, to educate and to train new skills. But the concept that we should let students “fall through the cracks” when education doesn’t meet their requirements is a leap backwards from where inclusive education stands today. We make immense personal and financial sacrifice to be at university; I strongly believe that we have the right to access the adjustments we need to learn and excel.
Your Students’ Union is here to represent you. I lead your elected offer team to work closely with university leadership, advocating for an inclusive and accessible university experience. If you have any thoughts about these articles, please share them with us; and remember that you can always access support at the university or through our independent academic advice team.
