At 18 I arrived at university, desperate to leave home and determined to have fun. In my short skirt, fishnets and converse I was at my prime – and student life definitely delivered. In my second term I had a brief “relationship” with my lecturer which was swiftly ended by me when it dawned on me that he was so old (30) and put Vaseline on his face.
The idea of a student/ lecturer relationship conjures up images of vulnerable young girls and predatory middle-aged men offering essay marks for sex. But power runs along many different lines, and like all good essays, the question of their morality is more complex than it might first seem. I chose that relationship, and un-chose it, and there was no harm done.
Universities are increasingly clamping down on these affairs: Cambridge has announced a new code that bans interactions that are “personal in nature” completely, with staff required to report any flirtatious behaviour to HR.
I’m now a lecturer myself and a professor of psychology, and in my 40 years on both sides of the line I have witnessed many versions. In the 70s it was pretty much a perk of the job that male lecturers got their pick of female students, and when I started to teach in the 90s there was a heavy cloud of rumour as to who the serial culprits had been.
I was told that this was no longer “really allowed” although there were plenty of nostalgic stories of drunken parties and trips to the pub all told with a smirk and a leer. And note: it wasn’t “really allowed” rather than deemed to be wrong – in other words, just don’t get caught. My friend was on a residential weekend as part of her post-grad training, and got the after-hours knock on her bedroom door and the offer of a “drink”. He suggested it could help her career and she shut the door in his face.
Cambridge’s ban is the simplest solution, but, I’d argue, bad for nuance. Not all students are 18. Some are 25, some 35 and some even 50. Some are single, some are stuck in unhappy relationships and some are lonely, single parents. The same goes for lecturers. Universities are diverse places and we pride ourselves on catering for everyone, whatever their stage of life. They are also places where people make friends, and sometimes these friendships slither into something else. My academic friend married her same aged post-grad student and they went on to have kids. My non-academic friend now lives with her ex-lecturer and they are very happy.
The problem is that power can be tricky to define. Vaseline man became a serial offender after me, and those other women may not all have felt as in charge as I did. What might seem fine at the time can become problematic the morning after.
I know of students who have been given job interviews as a “thank you” or had their names taken off research papers as a “f**k you”. Power sits with those who teach and mark, and relationships contaminating any form of assessment or career reference has to be wrong. And often this power is aligned with age (older), gender (male) and status (senior).
The lines can get blurry, especially when fuelled by alcohol. As a lecturer, I had 14 Christmas parties at my house with a disco and plenty of drink for post-grads and staff. There was lots of fun and dancing but no line-crossing behaviour (that I was aware of). But what about a birthday party, a trip to the pub or a conference? Or when students are definitely “adults”, have even become “friends”, and staff are single or just up for it? Are we still lecturers when we are no longer in the building? And are they still students if it’s after hours, if they have graduated or if we are not responsible for their grades? And if both are consenting adults choosing to have fun – is there any harm in that?
I have seen colleagues lean in for a snog to be sometimes welcomed, sometimes rebuffed and sometimes regretted the following day. I have heard lecturers complain of students trying to flatter them into a higher grade and have heard students complain of lecturers being lecherous but seen them flirting happily together in the corridor a few days later.
So what’s the answer? If pushed for an answer, I think we ban anyone from marking anyone’s work in any way if they have a personal relationship with them. And to be safe, this pretty much covers all undergraduates and all staff as we are all involved in marking something of everyone in some way.
But for the rest, I suggest we take it on a case-by-case basis, accept the nuance, open our ears for complaints of abuses of power (from both sides), check for conflicts of interest and most importantly, keep an eye open for those slippery serial offenders.
