Contact with Faculty Members

In this Issue:

• Family contact with faculty members
• P’28s – how to find family orientation activities in the New Deac Welcome Week app

Family contact with faculty members

As we get close to the start of the fall semester, I like to share some of the unspoken norms of college life. Sometimes a parent or family member will ask me how to get in touch with their student’s faculty member, because they want to discuss their student’s progress, why they aren’t doing well in class, etc. Contact with faculty members is something we strongly advise against. Here is why:

While family members talking to teachers might have been a routine occurrence at the K-12 level, it is something that is just not done at the college level. There are many reasons for that, not the least of which is that faculty expect that if there are issues with a student’s learning or understanding, the student will be the one to initiate that discussion. If a family member is the one trying to talk to the faculty member (rather than the student), it can actually hamper the student’s relationship with their faculty member, rather than help. A faculty member might wonder why the student is making their family member advocate for them, which can reflect poorly on the student.

We like to think of our whole campus as a classroom. An important learning opportunity for students is to learn how to initiate difficult conversations, advocate for themselves, etc. We learn by doing, so students need to practice those skills on their own. It is simply not in a student’s best interest for their families contact their faculty members.

Typically when I hear from family members asking to be put in touch with their faculty, it is because their student is not performing well in a class. We have soooooo many free resources for students who are struggling. The Center for Learning, Access, and Success (CLASS) has individual peer tutoring and also academic coaching. There is also a Chemistry Center, Computer Science Center, Math and Stats Center, and Writing Center with free assistance for students in those areas. These services can be accessed from the start of the semester.

Another resource students should take advantage of is faculty office hours. Office hours are set times each week that the faculty member makes themselves available for drop-in visits from students who have questions or need assistance. In the event office hours conflict with a student’s class time, they can contact the faculty to set up a meeting at a convenient time for both parties. When a student shows up in their faculty member’s office, it can signal that they are really trying to master the material/get their questions answered/put in the necessary work.

So in the event your student is struggling in a class this fall and has issues, your best course of action is not to have contact with the faculty member. Contacting the professor will not likely have the impact you want, and could even be counterproductive. Instead, prompt your student with some questions that might spur some action on their part:

Didn’t I read somewhere that there is free tutoring on campus? 

What has your faculty member said when you talked to them about it?

Could your RA [or for first-years, your Faculty Fellow] be a potential thinking partner to help you find campus resources?

Is this something your academic adviser or the staff in the Office of Academic Advising might be able to help you with?

So give your students some suggestions on how to get started, then stand back and let them do the rest.

P’28s – how to find family Orientation activities in the New Deac Welcome Week app

Several new P’28 families have contacted me saying they are having some difficulty locating parent and family Orientation activities. It might be helpful to have this brief tutorial:

Download the New Deac Welcome Week 2024 guide or simply scan the QR code below:

Once you have the app, here is how to navigate the app to see the Parent and Family Orientation activities (click photo to enlarge).

While we hope our new families’ schedules will allow them to participate in Parent and Family Orientation activities, it is not required. And if you cannot attend, but are receiving the Daily Deac, know you will also be seeing important news throughout your student’s first year via this blog, and you can always hit reply to any Daily Deac if you have questions or need help (replies come straight to my Inbox).