Friendships between junior faculty/staff/TAs and students -- how friendly is too friendly?

[saw]

Just trying to get a sense of what's usual now ... one of my DDs is heavily involved in an extracurricular at her university. There's a fulltime faculty member in charge and a fulltime junior staff/faculty member (Jane, age 26 or so) who is his assistant. Jane helps run the extracurricular, but Jane is also very very friendly with many of the students in the EC. For example, Jane is in a number of chat groups with students (and not just hey guys times have changed types of groups but groups that gossip about other students etc). Jane regularly hangs out with students, has lunches, does fun stuff with them, etc. Jane also has some "power" over the students in that she helps make decisions about who gets what role in the extracurricular and who gets special parts and so on. I suspect, from information I have personally been given, that Jane is also passing private information she gets back to the faculty member in charge. DD has shown me some chat group texts and so on and I agree that a faculty member should not be participating in these conversations as they're ridiculous, gossipy and not cool (who's with whom, who is disliked, etc). 

Normally I would warn DD to be a bit careful of Jane, as she doesn't seem to understand appropriate boundaries. Now, however, things are spiralling out of hand. DD figured out on her own that Jane was behaving without respect for boundaries, and has pulled back on her friendship with Jane (they used to be quite close, and DD's BFF is extremely close to Jane). Jane is now gossiping about DD behind her back, telling DD's BFF that DD is ghosting her (bc DD hasn't responded to two texts). Jane has sent DD some texts that were inappropriate in the sense that they were giving advice over matters that don't concern Jane at all. Jane also reported DD to the university, supposedly because of concerns about DD. DD got abruptly called in to talk to a dean, who agreed that the texts were inappropriate and that DD is fine (for that matter, I have no concerns about DD -- I think reporting her to the university was a move in response to DD's pulling back on the friendship). DD is very upset by all of this, because she is extremely softhearted and worried about losing her BFF if she isn't friendly with Jane.

Having said this, I'm not there to see for myself. Maybe this is normal on campuses these days? Maybe all junior faculty are buddy-buddy with the students? It seems very strange to me. DD has considered reporting Jane to the department to say that Jane is overstepping, but has been advised by another faculty member (who has no power and is outside the situation) that this will backfire and lead to negative consequences for DD. I'm trying to help DD think through this and come up with some good options. Obviously she needs to sort this out on her own, but is actively coming to me to seek my views and so I feel it appropriate to give her advice (whether she takes it or not is up to her). I also need to figure out at what point I go to the university, if this gets out of control. 

Anyway, sorry so long -- practical suggestions and commiserations are welcome please. I may delete later bc of identifying information. 

[madteaparty]

My friend’s DD was a very young college student so she had some issues with boundaries, etc when it came time to apply to grad school (because the one or two of the faculty she had these issues with were in fact the ones best positioned to write the letters). The issues she was dealing with were inappropriate in exactly the sense you mention, advice over matters that just didn’t concern them but which betrayed a point of view that could have ruined a recommendation. She ended up in a good program in the end but there was a scramble and some stress.

My issue is not the relationship as such (though that does raise a flag) but the whole vengeful reporting. I feel like I would advise DD that the parting shot has been fired, and not by her, so I’m a bit concerned what this Jane person might do if for two unanswered texts she reports DD to a dean?! I would very much advise DD to go talk to someone, in confidence, and just show the texts and explain the whole dean thing.  Almost with a view of “I’m looking for advice on how to handle this situation so I’m not hauled into a dean’s office again. Also, here’s a bunch of texts, not sure what’s up with this level of involvement and it’s confusing to handle and I want to do the right thing”.

Is Jane having a relationship or otherwise protected from someone higher up? That reporting of DD is a bit audacious...That the dean is on notice of the texts and nothing has happened Jane-wise is also weird.

Edited March 4, 2019 by madteaparty

[8filltheheart]

If her phone automatically deletes texts over a period of time or number, I would have her start moving those group and individual texts to a backup system.

My next piece of advice seems like your Dd doesn't need, but I'll share it anyway. Warn her to never put in writing anything she isn't ok with anyone seeing and with being around forever. 

In terms of Jane, she has already made the break, I would advise her to be polite and cordial, but not wade back in. Let time deal with the "new normal." Is also tell her not to discuss Jane with her friend. She can just say the groupme or whatever t is was making her uncomfortable, so now she only wants to know the info pertinent to the group meetings and ignore the rest.

[Bluegoat]

Well, in my college experience, this might not have been unusual, it was a fairly small university department and a lot of the students belonged to the same college.

So, most of the TAs were grad students, and it wasn't particularly uncommon to have friendships between grad students and undergrads.  I remember I had one grad student friend who was secretly living in his office in the department, and since none of us had a tv we would go to the department to watch late movies on the weekend sometimes.

It wasn't uncommon either for students to have close relationships with dons, who were kind of like residence councillors and were older than the undergrads.  Some were grad or post-grad students, some were faculty, and sometimes they had regular jobs.  

I also had a fairly close relationship with my first year tutor, who was faculty, though not so much while I was in first year, but in subsequent years.  We, and a few other people, used to regularly have dinner Friday night and hang out and such.  Now, he was a man who had some issues with boundaries, or maybe just some issues in general, and 20 years later, I still think he has some issues today, which is to say he's still in the circle of people I hear about.  I did learn quite a lot from that friendship though.

I guess my thought, coming from a situation where there was a fairly close knit social life of the college, including between different groups, is that it was much more positive than negative.  There were of course various guidelines for those who were employees, and while I never saw those significantly breeched, I'm not sure that situations that were not ideal actually particularly corresponded to that.  The case of the tutor I mentioned above never crossed that line as far as I know, but it had some negative consequences for a friend of mine who was quite close to him - there was just a lot of influence being used through a strong personality.  But then I know of other cases where there was something, like an eventual romantic interaction, where the rules were really skating against quite hard, and actually I think were objectively healthy relationships and  turned out to be very good things in the long term.  

Anyway, it's a difficult thing to make hard rules about, and I'm not sure how helpful it really is.  If the students come to see someone has a problem personality, I think that is actually more useful than any set of rules.

[saw]

7 hours ago, madteaparty said:

My friend’s DD was a very young college student so she had some issues with boundaries, etc when it came time to apply to grad school (because the one or two of the faculty she had these issues with were in fact the ones best positioned to write the letters). The issues she was dealing with were inappropriate in exactly the sense you mention, advice over matters that just didn’t concern them but which betrayed a point of view that could have ruined a recommendation. She ended up in a good program in the end but there was a scramble and some stress.

My issue is not the relationship as such (though that does raise a flag) but the whole vengeful reporting. I feel like I would advise DD that the parting shot has been fired, and not by her, so I’m a bit concerned what this Jane person might do if for two unanswered texts she reports DD to a dean?! I would very much advise DD to go talk to someone, in confidence, and just show the texts and explain the whole dean thing.  Almost with a view of “I’m looking for advice on how to handle this situation so I’m not hauled into a dean’s office again. Also, here’s a bunch of texts, not sure what’s up with this level of involvement and it’s confusing to handle and I want to do the right thing”.

Is Jane having a relationship or otherwise protected from someone higher up? That reporting of DD is a bit audacious...That the dean is on notice of the texts and nothing has happened Jane-wise is also weird.

 

Thanks. I think the part about recommendations is what is particularly concerning, as DD will be asking for these and Jane is in a position to exert some influence on these. I agree that it's the reporting that is the issue, and that, in and of itself, the relationship could be dealt with. I've suggested to DD that, as you say, she go talk to someone in confidence and provide evidence of the texts and so on, without asking for action to be taken with respect to Jane. 

The whole thing sounds very middle school to me. DD, having been homeschooled between ages 11 and 16, clearly missed this part of socialisation and is at a loss. Lol. 

Thing is, I remember a TA from college who was a good friend. We would have meals together or hang out in the library together, but never socialize outside of this. But I respected him for his age and wisdom (he was all of 26 or so I believe) and found it so helpful to have someone in between college age and faculty age to be friendly with. So I think there's a value in such relationshps, just not when they're taken to this extent. 

Thanks all!

[Bootsie]

I think that this is going to vary greatly from school to school and situation to situation.  Many smaller, liberal arts schools encourage a lot of interaction between students and faculty.  It is not necessarily about the amount of interaction but the type of interaction.  Is Jane a faculty member or staff?  Is this a university sanctioned extra-curricular activity?  Is Jane serving in a role related with the university?  For example, a person who is serving as an alumni advisor to her sorority, who also happens to be on the staff at a university is a different situation than a staff member at a university is also working with the college ministry through her church.  A faculty member who is serving as an advisor to a university club may have very different interactions than a faculty member who is the coordinator for a club sport that does a lot of traveling.