The first meeting that you have with a tutee is probably the most important meeting that you will have with them. First impressions really do count, and the first impression conveyed by this meeting will determine whether you establish a good and successful relationship with your tutee. When you first meet your tutee(s) at the start of their course, you may be the only member of staff that they have had significant personal contact with since they arrived at the university. For this reason, it is important that you are friendly, approachable, and willing to listen. Remember too that your tutees are in their first few days at the university and are living through a major change in their lives, so they may be feeling disoriented, anxious, isolated, and overwhelmed. A friendly, reassuring tutor can make a big difference to them settling in to life at the university.
You will normally need to give all your tutees the same information when you first meet them, so making the first meeting a group meeting can be an efficient way to do this. Ideally, you should meet with all your new tutees at the same time in a group tutorial meeting during Welcome Week. Students know very few people when they first start their course, so having a group tutorial allows them to get to know a small group of other students on their course. This promotes the building of the social bonds that promote a sense of belonging to the course and institution, and is vital in helping students to settle in. It also allows students to understand that they are not alone in feeling disoriented, anxious, isolated, and overwhelmed, and that other new students feel the same way too. During the meeting you should invite questions from your tutees, encouraging them to raise any concerns that they have and doing your best to allay these.
During your first meeting with your tutees you should introduce yourself, providing some information about yourself, your interests, and your role in the course/school. Try to convey an impression of yourself as friendly face, not a highbrow intellectual. Too much focus on your academic achievements and research interests can make you sound important and unapproachable to a new student.
It is important that you explain to your tutee the purpose of the Academic Tuition system and what your role as an Academic Tutor entails. It is also important that you emphasise the personal and academic developments aspects of the role, and do not convey the impression that you are only there to help them out when they are experiencing problems. It is useful to set expectations and explicitly spell out the boundaries of the Academic Tutor/tutee relationship. Provide your tutees with clear information on how they can contact you (email, telephone, etc), what your ‘office hours’ are, and how they can make an appointment to see you.
Your tutees will also find it helpful if you clarify
- How often you will meet
- The purpose of each meeting
- Whether you operate office hours, have an open-door policy or expect students to email you to make an appointment (see Unscheduled Meetings)
- How quickly they can expect a response to emails
- What will happen if they fail to attend a meeting
- The limits of confidentiality
- The boundaries to the personal support you can offer, making it clear that it is not your role to solve tutees’ problems, or act as a counsellor.
After introducing yourself, it is a good idea to use a short and simple ice-breaker activity. New students may find a group setting uncomfortable. They are likely to be nervous and may not initially feel comfortable sharing personal information and their concerns with strangers. An ice-breaker activity can help defuse some of the awkwardness, and then you can ask some appropriate questions to help you and the group to get to know one another. Table 1 lists some of the questions you might like to ask your group to promote discussion and to encourage tutees to raise any concerns that they have. You may also find you get better responses from a group if you get students to discuss the questions in pairs first or get them to write responses on Post-It notes. Post-It notes responses can then be used to initiate discussion around specific questions whilst preserving the anonymity of the respondents.
| Why have you chosen to study X? |
| Why did you choose to study at York St John University? |
| Tell me something about yourself |
| How are you feeling about being here? |
| How do you think university is going to differ to school or college? |
| What do you expect from your time here? |
| What do you think we expect from you? |
| What do you think are going to be the best things about being at university? |
| What extra-curricular activities do you hope to become involved with? |
| Is there any aspect of student life or university study that you are anxious about? |
| What qualities do you have that might help you to settle in? |