Complaint Letter

Must admit, I can see your annoyance with this staff member but you really have dug yourself a hole on this one. There isnt any excuse for not visiting or telephoning Jennifer, during the 6 weeks you had to do so.
Granted, she appears to have been incompetent in not replying, but she may have a valid defence (as Telescopi points out) whereas you have no argument for not calling her up.

If you need an extension, plead ignorance and apologise for not contacting her another way, pointing out that you have learned your lesson regarding this. University is also meant to be a place for learning life skills, your boss in a job wouldnt accept this excuse so why should the Uni?

Good luck with the course anyhow.
 
Neodite said:
Why did you waste all your time waiting for replys? Is it standerd practise in uni to not speak to tutors? :o
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A lot of my history tutors would literally appear on campus for seminars, and then leave straight away. Standard practice was to email to arrange a meeting time, or leave a note in their pigeon hole in the department office if that didn't work.

I do think the OP should have done more to try and contact the tutor concerned, but on the other hand I do sympathise - emails do get ignored.
 
Why didn't you just call her? .. its what I do if I dont get email responses from my tutors and why get angry also ? there could have been plenty of reasons behind why she didn't reply. Getting mad wont do you any favours and it certainly wont get you what you want if you really were rude your lucky you were seen at all.
 
I'm afraid the time you wasted writing yet another email (this time to complain) should have been used getting yourself busy with aforementioned work relating to this module.
 
dont rely on email you muppet. Get off your ass and go see her in person or pick up a fone. never assume someone reads their emails..

edit: just read above comments and looks like other people feel the same way
 
First of all, you do not "demand" things from someone in a position of power over you. You also do not insult their colleagues, because even if it's justified, they'll just close ranks.

Finally, does this Jennifer not have an office? Could you not have gone to speak to her in person? Or at least, waited for her after a class or something.

Oh and wtf is "Developing your potential"? That sounds like the most fluffy feel-good useless course ever conceived. Please tell me it's compulsory and you didn't choose that course. :p
 
Teachers sometimes have many emails that they need to read each day and often leave the less important ones till later which can then lead to forgetting about them entirely.

When teachers dont respond to my emails after 3 days I go knock on their office door and meet face to face so they cant escape answering the questions.

You left it way to long..., but I guess in your defence you did sent a lot of emails and she should have definately noticed them.
 
If this e-mail was coming to my inbox, I would reply with 'why didnt you call Jennifer' or 'why didnt you go along and make contact face-to-face'.

Yes, I agree she should have responded, but why did you leave it 6 weeks with using just e-mail.
 
Whilst I feel for you, I do think it's mainly your own fault. This is likely to be the thought of the guy you're e-mailing too, so I don't think it will get you far to go in with all guns blazing.

This is what I'd write, re-written from yours:
Dear David

I'm sorry to include you in this issue, but I consider it important, as it is likely to affect my grades in two assignments.

My grievance regards the module 'Developing your Potential' (TSM08115). On the 16th February I e-mailed Monika Foster about picking up materials for my flexible learning route and was instructed to contact Jennifer Graham, which I did on the 19th. This e-mail went unanswered, as did another sent on the 26th February. Contacting Monika Foster again proved unsuccessful and it was only on the 16th March that I heard back, having sent another ‘high-priority’ e-mail.

Having arranged a meeting with Jennifer, she warned me about my tone in my last e-mail and inferred during the meeting that she could make a complaint regarding my conduct. I was offered a non-negotiable extension period of one week, but as I have now to catch-up on an entire month’s worth of study and complete two separate assignments, this is likely to severely impact on my grades, along with the preparation time for my placement interview on the 31st. Even putting aside other assignments, as well as my job, I’m afraid I find this unacceptable.

I'm e-mailing you, as Year Head, to request a further extension. I feel that I am at an unfair disadvantage, through no fault of my own, and I am unwilling to let this impact on my grades for the year. An extension to the 7th April will give me enough time to concentrate on these assignments properly and allow me to read all materials and to gain a proper understanding of the module. A three-week extension may seem large, but I would stress that this is far shorter than the total time I should have had to complete the work and indeed only half the time spent attempting to contact Jennifer and Monika.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this and I look forward to hearing from you. Again, I apologise for including you in this matter, but I feel that my grades are too important to allow me to ignore this issue. For your consideration, I have attached both my e-mails with Jennifer and a screen-shot of my outbox, showing the dates and number of e-mails sent.

Yours sincerely

David
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My girlfriend had a similar issue at the Reading TVU when she did an accounting course there. She needed feedback from her tutor before she could finish her coursework and he consistently ignored her e-mails and was never available on the phone.

We even went so far as to visit the college twice (about half hour travel each way for us) and could not find him on both occasions.

After umpteen well mannered phone calls and an e-mails, it ended up with the head of that department arranging a meeting for her with the tutor, and she was able to meet with him and get it all sorted. When she asked him about the e-mails he blamed the "confusion" on not recognising her email address :(:mad:. Anyway, it turned out the deadline he'd set was really just for his benefit (bare in mind the head of the area was there during this) and he had no problem with extending the deadline for her to finish whatever was left to do subject to his feedback.

We managed to do all this without burning any bridges with her tutor. After all despite him being a mega douche he was still the one who would be marking her work, and ultimately granting her extension.

So in my experience you'll find that the head of whatever department it is will be sympathetic if you're well mannered and not at all aggressive, but in no way will he/she actually bad mouth the staff to you. Also worth noting you should not actively attack the tutor, just let the situation explain itself. That's what the girlfriend and I did after it was obvious we weren't going to get anywhere without escalating things.

tl;dr version:

Get rid of the demands and stop sounding like an ass hat. You're too aggressive for something that probably could have been avoided if you'd put in a bit more effort. You catch more flies with honey and should try the non-aggressive approach with your tutor before you go over her head. If you genuinley need more time then ask her for it as nicely as you can.

edit:

A.N.Other's letter is really good. You should totally use that.
 
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Whenever I send an academic an email I don't even think of following up on it for a week. Most receive over 50 emails a day and are busy organising their own research as, for many, this is more important than their students. The head of department will agree that research comes first because it's research that brings in the money. If you think your work takes a lot of time try filling out a hundred page request for funding.

Fundamentally you have absolutely no excuse for not popping in and talking to the person. They usually have defined office hours for that very reason. I'm surprised you got any extension when all you had to do was pick up the phone. Don't send the e-mail, you wont get anywhere and you will lose the respect of that academic and probably her colleagues.
 
Very few tutors are good with the emails. Infact, some don't even use email at all and have stated not to bother contacting them this way.

I would see her in person. Not making the effort to see someone in 6 weeks isn't going to be very convincing.
 
Thanks for the suggestion so far. I know in hindsight I should've went to the office. I was annoyed when I wrote this e-mail so thats why I haven't sent it yet, as I wanted an outside opinion.

Most tutors in my uni tell us to use e-mail as the primary contact method for even arranging meetings as they're never in the office, its always pointless turning up at the office as they're never there.

I guess i'll just see what happens, when I speak to them.
 
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