Bowland College Tutor’s Handbook 2007/08

Developing
The first meeting
relationships One of the first appointments that all students have once they have
with Tutees
arrived at the University is with their College Tutor. A meeting is
scheduled for new students to meet their Tutors, usually during the
first few days of Intro Week. You may choose to meet your tutees in
their kitchen so you get to know where they are living, or you may
prefer to see them in your office so that they will get to know where
they can find you. Often it is felt that the neutral and informal ground
of the students' accommodation is a more welcoming and relaxed
venue for introducing yourself.
You will be provided with a form for each student that you should use
to collect information about the student’s next of kin, doctor and
departments. This may be of assistance to you later on.
You should use this first meeting to introduce yourself to all your
tutees and to describe your role and the function of the Tutorial
system. It is an opportunity to start establishing rapport with each
student and to find out what it is that has brought him or her to
Lancaster and what they hope to get out of University. You should
also use this opportunity to ensure that each of your tutees is clear
about what will be required of them and how you can help them meet
the challenges they are likely to face.


Maintaining communication
It is important that, if you are to develop a trusting relationship
where the students feel that they can come to you as a friend and
mentor, you continue to see them throughout the year. Without
regular contact from you students are likely to seek their guidance
from others to whom they feel they can more closely relate. This may
mean that they turn to their peers or others who are less informed
about the workings of the University and thus they will not get the
best advice.
Keeping up to date with your tutees can be very hard. Often they are
difficult to track down or don't attend scheduled meetings. Sometimes
it is better to take a different tack when it comes to building a
relationship with tutees. You could try inviting them out for a drink
(often getting off campus reduces the distractions), or you might want
to get them to cook you a meal. Tutors have used all sorts of different
ways to get their tutees together. By establishing a relationship with
your tutees as a group as well as individually you can find that a self-
supporting system develops. Tutees look out for one another and can
often let you know when one or other of them has problems. This
process is assisted by the friendships that develop because of the
proximity of your tutees to each other as they will usually be sharing
the same kitchen.
One suggestion to help you think of suitable social events might be to
ask each tutee to come up with an idea for a social. This way you will
have occasions to have a gathering of your tutees about twice a term.
The thinking behind this is that if the students create the event they
will be more likely to attend. The College has limited funds that can
be used to offset some of the cost of these social events. Contact the
Senior Tutor for more information.
If you find that you are struggling to keep in touch with your tutees do
seek advice from the Senior Tutor, or other College Officers.


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