Dear Mr Needle,
We are writing to you in regards of the third year module ‘Investment Management’.
We as students are extremely appalled at the incredibly low quality with which this course has been delivered by David Ewers. Not only were his lectures and tutorial throughout the term extremely unorganised but he also failed to provide us with clear guidance on the coursework that is expected from us. Examples of this includes Mr Ewers repeatedly arriving 15-30 minutes late to our tutorials, on multiple occasions having to re-do his spreadsheets as students pointed out mistakes (often without being able to correct the mistake) and lastly having to spend 80% of the tutorial time to answer questions from extremely confused students.
The instructions provided from Mr Ewers for the coursework we are expected to hand in May 2nd are very unclear. The students have been confused by them from day 1 and despite uncountable questions and attempts of clarification from Mr Ewers himself, we students remain very uncertain about exactly what is expected from us in carrying out this task. The fact that the majority of the students are as confused today as they were two months ago shows a clear lack of quality of this module as a whole. There is a specific frustration around the fact that Mr Ewers avoided answering questions or provided very unclear and cryptic answers.
Some of the harm is already done, for example the great amount of students genuinely interested in the subject of Investment Management who walk away from the module with the feeling of having learned far less than they were hoping for, or the many students who are stressed about the lack of clarity in the task who have spent valuable revision time simply trying to figure out how to approach this coursework. However, there is still time and actions to be taken that will prevent further damage:
- We, the students, ask the management department to do a comprehensive review of this module and Mr Ewers in particular in the interest of next years 3rd year students and the reputation of the department.
- Anchored in the extreme lack of clarity and the poor quality of the instructions, we believe it is wrongful that the grades awarded for this module should affect our overall results for our Bachelor’s degree.
- We therefore appeal to the management department to take appropriate action to ensure that our grades will not suffer from poor quality of teaching and an unorganized module instructor.
- Alternatively, we would like confirmation from yourself and or the examination board that the marking for this coursework will reflect the lack of academic tutoring we have received and that a lower grade cap be put in place (ensuring no one will receive a mark lower than 40).
We would also like to underline that we understand that problem solving is a part of our education and that coursework is supposed to be a challenge. However, during our three years at the department and having submitted multiple coursework, we consider this specific assignment to be at such a low standard that is simply impossible to accurately display our understanding of the subject.
We hope to hear from you as quickly as possible so that any potential actions could be discussed.
Sincerely,
The undersigned