Student/Parent

Here is my interesting event of the week.

A parent emailed me pretending to be the student. This was pretty frustrating to me. I understand that many parents now are super-involved in their kids' academic lives...but why couldn't the father just tell the student what to write, and send it from the student's email address? Or, if you insist on pretending, maybe don't CC the student so I can see it...

I responded to the student at his university address.

I found out later that the student's parents had been in before. They signed a FERPA waiver so that they can sit in on appointments and request the student's grades to be sent to them directly. Apparently his mother argued for an extended time with our records person, insisting that we automatically always send grades out so they didn't need paperwork (of course, colleges do not send grades to anyone but the student except for special exceptions).

Interestingly, once parents sign that waiver, it stays in effect until the student dissolves it. So technically, the father could have emailed me as himself and I could have answered him - no need to pretend.

This was my first "parent situation." I am actually most nervous about working with parents in this job. There are a lot of things at stake, especially because of FERPA. I'm nervous about slipping and accidentally revealing something specific...I don't want to let myself get "tricked" into saying something (like a parent posing to be a student to get info from me!). Another example that makes me nervous is when a parent called another advisor and the advisor said that she could only answer the question generally, and that the student would have to ask the specific stuff himself. The mother argued for a minute but then agreed to put her son on the phone. Well, during the course of the advisor's conversation with the son, the mother accidentally blurted out a question - she was on the other phone, listening! I know I will need more practice with parent scenarios in order to stop being so nervous...but I would definitely prefer to avoid the practice!