Your Senior Tutor and Faculty Senior Tutor
Senior Tutors
Your department’s Senior Tutor (UG) has overall responsibility for the academic and pastoral care of undergraduate students in the department. For postgraduate students this role is fulfilled by your Senior Tutor (PG). These experienced colleagues will be able to guide and support you in handling individual student problems or queries, and you should consult them if you are uncertain of how to proceed or would value a second opinion. Except in the case of familiar or straightforward interactions, Personal Tutors are advised to keep the Senior Tutor informed of their actions or to discuss an individual case before taking action with a student. Find your Senior Tutor Contacts.
Faculty Senior Tutors
The Senior Tutor team are supported by a Faculty Senior Tutor. The Faculty Senior Tutors have responsibility for ensuring the delivery of consistent, high quality support for students in their personal, general academic and professional development. Working with and supporting Personal Tutors and Senior Tutors, they ensure that support systems are effective, that training is appropriate and that College policies in student support are implemented. In addition, each Faculty Senior Tutor provides support to their senior tutors and directly to students who have more complex concerns or situations.
The Faculty Senior Tutors are available for additional support and guidance, augmenting the support that your department can provide for academic and personal matters. You may find a Faculty Senior Tutor particularly useful if you have a matter which you feel is highly sensitive or complicated and wish to ensure that you will be talking to the right person or team to help you. The details of the Faculty Senior Tutors are in the table below.
| Faculty | Faculty Senior Tutor | Email address |
|---|---|---|
| Business School | Dr William Cox | w.cox15@imperial.ac.uk |
| Faculty of Engineering | Dr Lorraine Craig | l.craig@imperial.ac.uk |
| Faculty of Natural Sciences | Professor John Seddon | fons-seniortutor@imperial.ac.uk |
| Faculty of Medicine | Dr Jeffrey Vernon | j.vernon@imperial.ac.uk |
Experience and involving
Their experience
Senior Tutors will normally have had a lot of experience as Personal Tutors themselves and are a good source of information on what to do in tricky or unusual situations. They will have detailed knowledge of the structure of the UG or PG programme and will have dealt with various academic and support services in the College (Registry, Health Centre, Disability Advisory Service etc). They normally attend monthly Senior Tutor Forums where current issues concerning students are discussed. There are regular training sessions for new Senior Tutors. In some departments the Senior Tutor is aided by a Student Liaison Officer (or similar), responsible for the pastoral care aspects of the role.
When to involve them
The Senior Tutor is normally in charge of their department’s personal tutorial system. It is important that Senior Tutors are informed promptly of any major personal or academic problems with tutees, and in particular about repeated absences. Senior Tutors usually have undergraduate discipline in the department devolved to them by the Head of Department and will normally be involved with assessing alleged cases of plagiarism.
For the School of Medicine, Senior Tutors operate a supportive role only and are not involved in disciplinary action. They will offer support to students who are undergoing disciplinary action within the College and through external agencies. This is a requirement of the General Medical Council.
It is very important that Personal Tutors do not take certain matters into their own hands e.g. in cases where a student wishes to lodge a complaint against a member of staff, or reports financial issues or visa queries (also consult International Student Support). In fact, anything which is potentially controversial should be directed to the Senior Tutor.
When involving your Senior Tutor there is guidance on how to manage confidentiality and disclosure of student information that you should be aware of. Also, your tutee may wish to go directly to the Senior Tutor and should be made aware of this.