Administrative Roles of an Early Career Academic
Sarah Gilmartin
As a departmental Year Tutor, perhaps known instead to the reader as a Student Support, Wellbeing or Pastoral Tutor, I am tasked with supporting student welfare alongside Academic Advisors. A Year Tutor is the first port of call for students in need of support above and beyond academic need. A student experiencing a mental or physical health issue, disability, bereavement, financial difficulty, estrangement from family, trouble with flatmates or friends, homesickness, relationship breakdown, parental divorce, pregnancy or caring responsibilities, or any multitude of life events, all experience an impact on their studies. That impact must be managed and mitigated in terms of student wellbeing and academic progression.
Pastoral roles require you to familiarise yourself quickly with departmental and university processes and regulations, such as the welfare support on offer, accommodation offerings and financial support, as well as intercalation, repeat year and assessment processes. Some students approach you directly for support or are referred by other staff. Students are encouraged to use staff office hours to book appointments, but life does not happen in an orderly fashion, and we must be flexible to see students as and when issues arise. Some student contacts must take priority, and frequent ad hoc meetings with students needing their Year Tutor’s support are not unusual.
Being a Year Tutor carries a lot of responsibility. The role offers a very fast insight into the challenges faced by our students. As one of the department’s first points of contact for a student struggling with pastoral issues, you may literally have to address matters of life and death, particularly with vulnerable students at risk to themselves or others, as well as other heavily emotive issues. The best thing a Year Tutor can do is listen and signpost students to relevant support.
There is no rule-book or one-size-fits-all guide to supporting students (Collins in Bleasdale, 2024), especially not to help a student in the depths of a crisis. As a Year Tutor, we have to address circumstances that we may have no familiarity or previous professional experience addressing. We have, however, all been students ourselves and we have all experienced personal and professional issues that have challenged us. We therefore all have the ability to sympathise, if not empathise, and can offer practical suggestions to assist our students (Huyton, 2009). We also all have the ability to maintain contact with the student, even if just by follow-up email or meeting to make sure the student is safe and knows where to turn if further support is needed. The scaffolding approach to student support that is recommended by some is: Contact, Assurance, Dialogue, Signpost, Information, and Follow-up (CADSIF), (Hughes-Gerber et al in Bleasdale, 2024). CADSIF is a valuable acronym of what effective student support can look like and is utilised by academics tasked with student support roles.
Signposting is a particularly key part of CADSIF. Institutions will offer a range of services, however, as with administrative titles, all will perhaps call those services something different. Such sources of support in your institution may include, for example, wellbeing or counselling services, college support systems, buddy/mentor services, or financial support. It can also include directing students to where they can access resources in your department or institution to assist with their academic skills’ development or career choices. Whilst these latter issues may seem more academic than some other matters highlighted, a disappointing grade or the question of ‘what comes next’ after university can cause deep upset, anxiety and stress for students. It can therefore fall on the Year Tutor to offer support at such times. It is also important to know if your institution has external contacts they recommend for student support, particularly out-of-hours services, and to know how to navigate university websites or systems to show students where they can find and access contacts for things like a GP, or other health and essential services.
Another key thing for all staff to know, regardless of administrative role, is what your institution’s emergency procedures are, for example, what it is recommended staff do where a student presents at your office or in one of your teaching sessions with a health crisis. It really helps to have key institutional contacts in your phone, for your department, university security, or other services like wellbeing, who you may need to contact in an emergency situation. Most institutions will recommend which telephone numbers you should hold and will provide guides which explain their emergency procedures. It helps to be aware of these in advance of any issues arising, though you may need to proactively seek them out. Be mindful as well to update your knowledge regularly, because advice on where and how to signpost students, or on procedures, does change from time-to-time, as universities constantly seek to improve their student support. Your institution may also offer training or regular updates on their support provisions through their chosen staff communication channels.
You may find that certain times of year are busier and that some students require regular and consistent support. Other students may meet with their Year Tutor only once or twice. In my experience, first year undergraduates often need the most support, initially with issues living away from home, living with others, finding friends, and managing their studies (McChlery and Wilkie, 2009). By their second term, most are hopefully settled, but by this time, and through their third term, they need support managing assessment deadlines and their first university assessment feedback. Second and final year students generally need most support during and after assessment periods, the stress of which inevitably exacerbates pre-existing life-issues. These are referred to as ‘stress-points’ by Hughes-Gerber, McGuirk and Savva (Bleasdale, 2024).
I find three big challenges to being a Year Tutor. The first is that seeing our students experience difficult and/or life changing events is hard to witness, especially when there is no clear path to a ‘fix’. Second, many who work in this role comment on the emotional toll it has on them, as what we hear and situations we must assist with can be distressing, and we can often feel ill-equipped to address matters (Huyton, 2009). Furthermore, they can be time-consuming to address and hard to balance with our teaching and research commitments. The students at risk to themselves certainly present the greatest worry, and the concern outside the 9-5 is real. Third, not all students will listen to their Year Tutor’s advice and as academics who want their students to do well it is difficult to watch a student fail, or struggle because they do not take our advice. In this circumstance we have to remain present for our students and ready to advise further when things do not go as the student may have hoped academically.
There is no right or wrong way to be a Year Tutor. Each ECA drawing on their own personal and professional experiences will approach it differently, and no two students will present with identical circumstances, but if there is any key advice to offer ECAs in student support roles it would be as follows:
- Ask questions of students, but be clear that they can disclose as little or as much as they are comfortable with. You just need to know enough so you can direct them to, and provide them with, the most appropriate support.
- If you do not know how to address a student’s circumstances, tell them that you do not have the answer and need to find where to signpost them. Students are okay with this, so long as they are heard, and know when they will hear further from you.
- Put any advice further to an in-person meeting in writing to the student and follow-up at least once more after a meeting. Diarise to follow up in 24-48 hours, a week or two weeks, depending on the circumstances and level of support needed, to remind the student of the support available and that the door remains open for them to speak further with you.
- Keep a list of students whom you know have experienced personal circumstances so you can remind them of any deadlines to make Assessment Committees or Boards aware of any adverse effects on their academic performance.
- Familiarise yourself, and keep up-to-date, with university procedures, including getting to know staff within your own department as well as those in central student support services, as this makes for good working relationships and knowledge development.
- Keep precedent documents so you can copy/paste anything relevant into student emails so they have everything they need to hand. This also helps you cover everything and more efficiently manage your own time. There is a caveat, however, to ensure that all emails are personalised, acknowledging the student and their individual circumstances.
- Do not take everything on by yourself. Speak to colleagues, especially regarding cases which are challenging or emotionally difficult. Many universities also offer support services for staff.
- Take time to reflect, something we are all encouraged to do in relation to our teaching and research. Apply the same principles to your role as Year Tutor (Huyton, 2009): what did you do well; what could you do better; and what have you learned from the experience of supporting each student?
Whilst there is no training to be a Year Tutor, the role itself is a fast-paced training course in providing effective student support. The challenge is to balance this often emotional and unpredictable role with our other day-to-day tasks. Ultimately, an administrative role of some kind is part of the ECA’s job description and whilst the role of Year Tutor is time consuming, I remain mindful that many students are grateful for even the simplest of support. We should not forget that simply listening, offering a kind and sympathetic space, and a helping hand in the right direction, is of great benefit to our students. Being a Year Tutor has also made me a better all-round academic, more mindful of accessibility issues and alert to hidden issues students may be experiencing, so that when a student comes to tell me that they have missed a number of teaching sessions, I am now inclined to ask ‘why?’, in order to make sure the student has holistic support and not just module support. Year Tutors play a vital role in the student support system and, in my experience, students do acknowledge and appreciate it, which makes it all the more worthwhile.
Where Next?
Experience as a Year Tutor or in other course-level roles might lead you to consider – or be asked to take on – Leadership Roles within and beyond your Course or Department.
Or
Legal education research can be one way of engaging with contemporary issues which may arise in course roles. Peer Reviewing offers one way to further engage with relevant literature and to support work on legal pedagogies.
Where After?
Sit down with a colleague working as a Year Tutor as they will have knowledge of the most up-to-date guidance and ways for managing situations, and ask questions of them when addressing a situation with which you are unfamiliar. The shared experience of colleagues provides collegiate support in the most challenging of circumstances and a shared wealth of knowledge for management of similar situations.
Or
Keep notes, emails, anything that may be useful for you to return to as a memory refresh, so you can more efficiently address recurring issues.
Sources:
Bleasdale LK (ed), How to Offer Effective Wellbeing Support to Law Students (Edward Elgar Publishing Limited 2024)
Huyton J, ‘Significant Personal Disclosure: exploring the support and development needs of HE tutors engaged in the emotion work associated with supporting students’ (2009) Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education 1
McChlery S and Wilkie J, ‘Pastoral support to undergraduates in higher education’ (2009) 8(1) International Journal of Management Education 23
Further Reading:
Earwaker J, Helping and Supporting Students: rethinking the issues (The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press 1992)
Hunter N, ‘Pastoral support in higher education: a survey of university provision and students’ perceptions of it’ (DPhil, Keele University 2021)
Larsen AS, ‘Who Cares? Developing a Pedagogy of Caring in Higher Education (DPhil Thesis, University of Utah 2015)
