February 19, 2009

Workplace bullying and mobbing in academe: The hell of heaven?

Academic life can be a great thing, providing one with the opportunity to engage in teaching and educational activities, scholarly research and writing, and myriad forms of public service.

However, the culture of academe can be petty, mean, exclusionary, competitive, and hierarchical. Bullying and mobbing behaviors occur with surprising frequency, and sometimes with stunning brutality. They can transcend the type of institution, academic disciplines, and political beliefs.

Here’s my short take on bullying in academe: Academicians are adept at intellectual analysis, manipulation, and argumentation. When applied to the tasks of teaching, scholarship, and service, these skills reinforce the most socially useful aspects of the academy. But many of us who have worked in academe have seen what happens when they are applied in hurtful or even malicious ways.

Of course, exquisitely rationalized actions and explanations occur in many organizations, but in dysfunctional academic settings, they often rise to an art form. After repeated such bludgeonings, we may become accustomed to, and sometimes all too indifferent towards, intellectual dishonesty and rhetorical “mal-manipulation.” Call it Dilbert in Tweed.

Because this kind of mental facility often is at the heart of both perpetrating and defending bullying, academe becomes a natural petri dish for such behaviors, especially the covert varieties. After all, so many decisions in the academy are based upon very subjective judgments. This can create a particularly attractive setting for the passive-aggressive bully and the quiet-but-deadly mob.

Fortunately, bullying in the academic workplace is receiving more attention. For those who want to investigate this topic further, here are some good starting places:

The Work of Kenneth Westhues

Kenneth Westhues is a University of Waterloo sociologist who has written a series of insightful, provocative, and exhaustively researched books about workplace mobbing in academe. Ken’s work, which is grounded in
meticulous case studies and analyses of how professors have been subjected to extreme mistreatment at the hands of administrators and faculty colleagues, digs well beneath the surface: He shows us just how twisted and frightening these behaviors and the rationale behind them can become – often at the hands of intelligent, successful people who claim to be fair-minded, ethical human beings.

Ken’s most important book, in my opinion, is The Envy of Excellence, which explores in horrible detail the
mobbing of former St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto theologian Herbert Richardson during the 1990s. The impact of Richardson’s story runs throughout Ken’s subsequent works.

Ken and I share a great mutual respect for each other’s work, even though we disagree on several matters. Ken uses the term “mobbing” to label the behaviors he finds so disturbing, while I usually use the term “bullying.” More substantively, Ken expresses deep reservations about enacting legal protections to address these behaviors, while I believe that the law can and should enter the picture when bullying becomes malicious and harmful. (For those who want to explore that debate, The Envy of Excellence includes his argument, while my response and general observations about mobbing and bullying in academe are contained in my essay, “The Role of the Law in Combating Workplace Mobbing and Bullying,” which appears in Ken’s edited volume, Workplace Mobbing in Academe.)

Ken’s website http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobbing.htm) is a mere introduction to his work. His books require study, not casual perusal.

Significant Relevant Works
(Mellen Press series)

Eliminating Professors

The Envy of Excellence

Workplace Mobbing in Academe

Winning, Losing, Moving On

Remedy and Prevention of Mobbing in Higher Education


***


The Blogosphere


Commentaries on bullying and mobbing in academe are appearing with greater frequency in the blogosphere as well:


Bullying of Academics in Higher Education (http://www.bulliedacademics.blogspot.com/), hosted by a group of European scholars, is an excellent ongoing source of information and commentary.


See also individual posts in:


Historiann (http://www.historiann.com/2008/04/10/academic-bullying-and-discrimination-round-up-yee-haw/)


Millennial Law Prof — with an interesting generational view (http://www.themillennials.org/2008/07/academic-bullying.html)


Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=3284)


Academic Ladder (http://www.academicladder.com/gblog/2008/02/hazing-and-bullying-one-academics-story.htm)


Professor Chaos (http://profssrchaos.blogspot.com/2008/07/academic-bully-symptoms-and-diagnosis.html)


Wake Up APS Physics (http://wakeupapsphysics.blogspot.com/2008/04/relationship-between-bullying-violence.html)


BrainstormChronicle of Higher Education blogger Marc Bousquet blogs on “The Last Professors,” with comments that follow (http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bousquet/the-last-professors)

From: http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

From the bottom of my heart thank you for this.

In solidarity

Aphra Behn

Anonymous said...

Twice I have resorted to legal redress - the first time via the union UCU - it took them 8 months to deal with the issues I was raising. Their advice - useless...

I also went to a solicitor (outside UCU) - that cost a lot of money for one consultation... I couldn't afford to buy any more time...

The legal route results in a compromise agreement and then SILENCE... that is in a good case...

...in the worst case scenario you will not win your case... your case may not get to court because of legal technicalities...

...or because you have become so ill that you cannot go on..

...to take the legal route you have to hand in your notice... take constructive dismissal... or of course have your contract terminated by the university...

...I remain working at my university... in defiance... just imagine how hard that is... everyday I have to confront those who I believe bully me... my silent tormentors... who I suspect any day will come up with some trumped up charge to get rid of me... imagine that pressure on top of the alleged bullying...

..they are probably plotting something as I write...

... the silence surrounding workplace bullying is unbelievable...

...the silent witnesses in my Faculty... who watch me from the shadows and whisper amongst themselves...

...the denial at my university is unbelievable...

..the deceit...

...the collusion..

...the lies...

...the hours of writing to them...to challenge...

...knowing that they are looking for any word I write to hold against me...

..the hours of meetings...to challenge practices which contravene dignity at work policies

...knowing that they are looking for any word I utter to hold against me...

...waiting to pounce on me...

...to discredit me...

...because that is the game that is played..

...in a top rated university...

..with professors who travel the world to share their wisdom...

...please please speak out against work place bullying...

...do it today..

... you know it makes sense.


Aphra Behn

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this. I agree with you that we need to work towards criterion and standards that would allow for this behavior to be recognized and condemned and for its victims to be compensated. For now, however, the only viable option is a) recognize mobbing and b) move away from mobbing.

I am trying to do the latter as I write, and am almost out of my current situation. Where I am currently I have seen people praised for poor work, punished for good work, threatened physically (with the throwing of objects), and screamed at behind closed doors. I have heard impertinent allusion upon impertinent allusion to my colleagues’ ethnicities/nationalities, as well as to their sex. I have had to hear/read endlessly about my male counterparts’ and professors’ sexual/alcoholic rompings. And I have been systematically ignored and socially isolated by other women (victims more than me) after showing distress about these things.

Really, if it were not for one or two people here (also in the process of escaping) that share my experience, I would think I was insane. I can’t actually talk to my friends or family outside of academia about this because they wouldn’t believe me.

Anonymous said...

Over the years, I've worked for a number of employers and have been associated or had dealings with several academic departments. Unfortunately, the behaviour you described was typical of what I encountered.

I've had supervisors who were in serious need of psychiatric care. I've had colleagues who would have gladly slit my throat for whatever reason they chose, no matter how trivial. You name it, there's a good chance I was accused of either being it or having engaged in it.

There were a number people who were reasonable and even civilized, some of whom I actually liked. There weren't enough of them, however, to convince me that each place I was at wasn't an anarchic lunatic asylum.

I've been semi-retired for a number of years. I don't deal with many people any more but I'd sooner be in my current situation than be subject to the abuse and sheer lunacy that I endured during that time.

El Cid

Anonymous said...

I lost my first full time teaching job to sudden, relentless mobbing by my academic colleagues.
Two aspects of this process horrified my students:
a) the colleagues doing the mobbing were my university buddies, we all graduated together from the same CR program in 1993;
2) the discipline we were all teaching was, for God's sake, conflict resolution!

Graduate students kept asking: "Isn't there any other more peaceful way to deal with a colleague's supposed transgressions and misdemeanors than destroying this same person's career and reputation? What about reconciliation and forgiveness, two strong issues in the curricula we were all teaching? What about role modeling what we were teaching?"
The poisoning of the environment at that department was such that the mobbing leaders left for other teaching institutions within the first year...

I was able to get another teaching job only after 3 years of no income, living from my retirement savings and doing part time jobs to survive.

I could not recover any trust on any teaching environment since...