Want to get rid of an annoying academic?

University administrators are familiar with academics who are uncomfortably outspoken, disruptive or different. If these problem staff would just leave the campus, life would be much easier. But how can this desirable outcome be achieved?

The answers are in a book by Kenneth Westhues, Eliminating Professors: A Guide to the Dismissal Process (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998). Westhues, a sociologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, gives a step-by-step account of how administrators can get rid of troublesome academics.

There are five stages. First is ostracism, to cut the victim off from influence and support. Second is administrative harassment, often in petty ways. Then comes the incident, an action by the victim that can trigger formal retribution. The fourth stage covers the various appeal procedures and the final stage is elimination.

Within this framework, there are many specific points of value. For example, the matter of truth can sometimes be an obstacle, but by following Westhues’ practical principles for administrators it can be reduced to manageable dimensions. Principle one, for example, is that charges should be formulated sufficiently vaguely that hard facts are not relevant.

From this description, you might imagine that Westhues is some sort of academic Machiavelli, giving advice to university rulers on maintaining power. Actually, Westhues is on the side of those targeted by administrators. Indeed, he has been a target himself. His book is an extended satire.

After immersing himself in the details of some 25 cases of academics targeted for elimination, Westhues extracted common features and developed his guide for administrators. To personalise his advice, he dubs the hypothetical target for elimination "Dr Pita," an acronym for Pain In The Arse...

Review of Kenneth Westhues, Eliminating Professors: A Guide to the Dismissal Process (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), published in Campus Review, Vol. 9, No. 38, 6-12 October 1999, p. 12. Written by Brian Martin.

Pack of Wolves #2

...This story describes how my partner endured breaches of contract, bullying and misconduct by managers during his probationary year and, despite his probation being concluded, how such conduct was turned against him as the basis, for the first but not last time, of a spurious attempt to formally discipline him...

After many breaches, dismissed complaints and breakdown in communication by the School, my partner was called in to meet with the Dean Moreton. During the meeting, despite acknowledging that the events my partner cited constituted "unprofessional conduct" by the colleagues concerned and seemingly recording my partner's allegations of bullying, Prof Moreton used the meeting to accuse my partner of having relationship problems which he needed to address...

Strangely enough, while my partner's probation was due to end on 31 August 2005, the 3 month extension was declared to be until 31 December. Either the Dean was trying to impose a prohibited 16 month probation or there were serious problems in managing dates within the School; either way the extension was not admissible and its handling represented yet another contract breach.

The letter dated 7 September was clearly instead a disciplinary letter. It invited my partner to "a formal probationary review meeting" at 10am on Tuesday 13 September. This was itself impossible given that his probation officially had ended on 31 August. However, my partner and I attended to answer to the two spurious allegations set out in the letter...

By Melody Boyce - The complete story available at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bullied_academics/

Procedures for making allegations concerning higher education institutions and the 2008 RAE - UK

The 2008 RAE is managed on behalf of the higher education funding bodies for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW and DEL) by a project team based at HEFCE.

Different procedures are in place for making and investigating allegations of financial irregularity or impropriety, mismanagement, waste or fraud (public interest disclosures) about the higher education institutions (HEIs) funded by each funding body. Disclosures concerning HEIs and the RAE will be handled through these same procedures.

If you wish to make such an allegation concerning an HEI and the 2008 RAE, either about its preparations for the RAE or its submissions, then you should follow the procedure that applies in the relevant country.

• For allegations concerning an English HEI funded by HEFCE, please follow HEFCE's procedure.
• For allegations concerning a Scottish HEI funded by SFC, please follow the procedure described in paragraph 23 of Guide for members of governing bodies of Scottish higher education institutions and good practice benchmarks' (SHEFC, HE/05/99).
• You can also refer to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.
• For allegations concerning a Welsh HEI funded by HEFCW, please follow HEFCW's procedure.
• For allegations concerning a Northern Ireland HEI funded by DEL, please follow DEL's procedure.
  
• The RAE team will handle allegations of perceived irregularity within RAE submissions that it receives from chairs or members of RAE panels during the assessment process through the RAE data verification procedures.

Any allegations of irregularity or impropriety on the part of members or chairs of RAE main or sub-panels will be treated as complaints.
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...The criteria and working methods encourage higher education institutions (HEIs) to submit the work of all of their excellent researchers in the 2008 RAE, including those whose volume of research output may have been limited for reasons covered by equal opportunities legislation...
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...The legal framework for the RAE: a changing context

7. Since the last RAE there has been an increase in the scope and application of equalities legislation that encompasses all functions of HEIs and of the UK higher education (HE) funding bodies, including the RAE.

8. This means that, throughout all stages of the planning and implementation of the RAE, legislative requirements must be met by HEIs and the funding bodies. HEIs, funding bodies, and panels acting on behalf of the funding bodies may be open to external scrutiny. HEIs and funding bodies may be open to challenges in respect of their operation of the law.

9. HEIs will need to meet legislative requirements in selecting their staff for inclusion in RAE submissions. The funding bodies, through the RAE team, will require HEIs to confirm that they have developed, adopted and documented an appropriate internal code of practice in preparing RAE submissions and selecting staff for inclusion.
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From: http://www.rae.ac.uk

Let us not forget the governors...

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has produced practical guidance for auditors and companies on the obligations in the revised Combined Code on Corporate Governance. Encouraging companies to follow our approach, the ICAEW recommends that boards should ask about the following questions:

• Is there evidence that the board regularly considers whistleblowing procedures as part of its review of the system of internal control?
• Are there issues or incidents which have otherwise come to the board's attention which they would have expected to have been raised earlier under the company's whistleblowing procedures?
• Where appropriate, has the internal audit function performed any work that provides additional assurance on the effectiveness of the whistleblowing procedures?
• Are there adequate procedures to track the actions taken in relation to concerns made and ensure appropriate follow-up action has been taken to investigate and, if necessary, resolve problems indicated by whistleblowing?
• Are there adequate procedures for retaining evidence in relation to each concern?
• Have confidentiality issues been handled effectively?
• Is there evidence of timely and constructive feedback?
• Have any events come to the committee's or the board's attention that might indicate that a staff member has not been fairly treated as a result of raising concerns?
• Is a review of staff awareness of the procedures needed?
  

From: Public Concern at Work
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One wonders if there are similar guidelines for Governors of universities and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The seven principles of public life (Nolan Committee) do apply to the governance of HEIs. There is also a guide of best practice, BUT no real accountability or policing.

OK, HEFCE, QAA, HEA... To whom are governors accountable? An answer we received not too long ago from somebody in HEFCE, suggested that governors are accountable to the other governors that elect/appoint them! Impressive.

To whom are governors really accountable?

A Golden Oldie: The Mobs of Academe - Excerpts from an online discussion

The Chronicle of Higher Education

The guest: Kenneth Westhues is a Professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo who has written a five-volume series about mobbing in academe and who frequently visits college campuses to collect data on episodes of mobbing.

'...Academe is a perfect petri dish for the culture of mobbing, according to the sociologist Kenneth Westhues, thanks to its relatively high job security, subjective measures of performance, and frequent tension between individual professors' goals and the goals of the institution. The victims of mobbing are not always wholly innocent, he says, but the campaigns against them are often based on fuzzy charges, take place in secret, happen fast, and are full of overheated rhetoric. And yet academics tend to think they are immune from the groupthink that characterizes mobbing...'

'...Mobbing is especially tragic when the target is a young scholar who has not yet had a chance to acquire credentials to fall back on. The graduate student most at risk is an independent thinker whose scholarly record (e. g., publications) threatens the supervising professors. So yes, of course, mobbing happens at all levels. My priority has been on the mobbing of professors because if professors are not secure, graduate students working with them are even less secure.

How does one heal from the humiliation of being mobbed? The general answer is, "Slowly." Support from family and friends is indispensable. Some kind of professional counselling may or may not be helpful. Healing happens above all as the mobbing target regains confidence by renewed achievements in whatever is the relevant field -- or in an altogether new field of work. It can be really, really hard for a mobbing target to "move on," but it gets easier with every day of successful negotiation of relationships at home and at work...'

'...First, encourage administrators and colleagues to inform themselves about the mobbing research (the mobbing.ca website is a rich resource, so is the book, Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, by Noa Davenport and her colleagues in Iowa, or one can simply google "mobbing"). The more aware we make ourselves of the human tendency to mob, the more able we are to control that tendency in ourselves and others.

Specific step number two is to keep campus media for discussion and debate alive and active. A vigorous campus press helps a lot. So do chat rooms for faculty. I often quote Churchill's line, "It is always better to jaw, jaw, than to war, war." Yes, it sounds better with a British accent.

Third and probably most important, stand with mobbing targets. In most healthy, productive, well-functioning departments and faculties, one can identify individuals who do not let colleagues get mobbed. Such individuals have the guts to say at crucial moments, "Cut it out." They are what researchers call "guardians" of prospective targets. They are willing to be seen with a mobbing target and to speak up for him or her when that is a risky, unpopular thing to do...'

'...The starting point for any possibly effective action to stop or turn back a mobbing has to be a careful analysis of the structure of the mob. Who, one asks, is the instigator, the "chief eliminator"? Sometimes this is the administrator who formally leads the exclusionary action, but sometimes such an administrator is only responding to the ardent wishes of some number of colleagues. The goal, generally speaking, is to "break up" the mob, to try to take some kind of action that will get the professors to behave as independent, reasoned thinkers, as they're supposed to be, instead of like a bunch of sheep...'

Complete online discussion available at: http://chronicle.com/colloquy/2006/04/mobbing/

6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying

Call for Papers - 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying - Sharing our Knowledge 4^th – 6t^th June 2008, École des Sciences de la Gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada

Bullying has been a source of growing concern in contemporary organizations, and the international dimension to this conference will highlight the fact that the problem is not constrained by borders or culture. Following the highly successful conferences of Stafford (1998), Brisbane (2000), London (2002), Bergen (2004) and Dublin (2006), the 2008 conference in Montreal will seek to provide a leading edge overview of our current knowledge of bullying in the workplace.

The intersection between different research traditions, theoretical and methodological backgrounds, as well as between research and practice, are necessary conditions for the development of new ideas and theories, and we are eager to encourage such an expansion of knowledge in our conference.

We invite researchers, business and organizational representatives, labour leaders, industry representatives, lawyers, human resources, health and psychological professionals, and practitioners from all disciplines who are involved in research and/or practice on bullying at work to submit proposals for poster presentations, and papers on new research findings, prevention/intervention programs, and policies that address the problem of bullying at work. Students and junior researchers are invited to share their research as well...

Please note that the deadline for Posters and Papers is December 1, 2007

E-mail : bullying@er.uqam.ca - More info

Cheat Line - UK

Blow the whistle on cheating lab rats - By Phil Baty, Times Higher Education Supplement, 11 May 2007

Is your colleague fiddling his research data? Is your head of department too quick to "borrow" your ideas without acknowledging your input? Is your research student so eager to make her name that she is cutting corners in the laboratory? If so, you may want to consider calling the UK's first research whistleblowers' "hotline", meant to ensure that misconduct is properly investigated and the perpetrators held to account.

From May 11, the UK Research Integrity Office's new hotline - 0844 77 00 644 - will be open from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday. Callers will be offered practical advice, drawing on a panel of experts, on what is and is not acceptable research practice and how to take allegations of wrongdoing forward. The hotline will also advise universities.

At present, the hotline covers only misconduct in medical research and biomedical sciences, but it plans to expand into other fields soon. The UK RIO was launched last April, after a ten-year campaign, with a blistering attack on the UK's "good chaps" network and general complacency towards research fraud and misconduct.

But those hoping that a call to the integrity office will lead to an immediate investigation followed by remedial action will be sorely disappointed. The UK RIO has no regulatory or investigative powers. It merely dispenses advice on how to use universities' internal procedures and how to engage the relevant regulatory authorities, thereby placing the onus for action on the callers themselves. [A real toothless tiger...]

Whistleblowers can, of course, call The Times Higher's whistleblowers' hotline (020 7782 3298), where they can speak in complete confidence about how cases of misconduct might be brought into the public domain.

People Power

...the people have the power to redeem the work of fools...

Patti Smith

Ofsted staff report rise in workplace bullying

By Debbie Andalo - Thursday May 10, 2007 - EducationGuardian.co.uk

Bullying at the schools inspectorate Ofsted has worsened in the last two years, according to the results of an internal staff survey. Some 23% of staff admitted that they had been subjected to bullying or harassment in the 12 months up to October 2006, compared with 21% in the 2004 staff survey.

Staff complained that they had to ask permission when they went to the toilet and they were only allowed to send two internal emails a day, it was reported.

In a statement the inspectorate said it had a no bullying culture and would not tolerate it in the workplace. It said: "Clear standards of behaviour are communicated to all staff and managers and one of our values is to respect and value one another. "Since the last survey was undertaken, a new chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, has joined Ofsted and she is determined to tackle this issue."

The new-look Ofsted was created in April from four separate offices, forming a single inspectorate for services for children and young people across social care and education. The statement said that the "new organisation as a whole is determined to tackle this issue."

The results of the staff survey, which had a 71% response rate, disappointed the civil service union the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents Ofsted's administrative staff.

A union spokesman said: "Nothing has changed since the 2004 survey. There is still a feeling that this oppressive management style is still prevalent in parts of the organisation even though it has undergone a great period of change.

"Managers need to be properly trained in terms of management style and how to get the best out of people. Getting people to seek permission before they go to the toilet is not going to get the most out of people or the organisation as a whole."

Ofsted was unable to confirm staff claims that they had to seek permission to go to the toilet and were only allowed to send two internal emails a day.

Whistleblowing: Call time on fraud

'The five most dangerous words in business may be "everybody else is doing it ".' So said Warren Buffett, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist, in a memo to his top managers at Berkshire Hathaway.

And that 'everybody's doing it' is one of the top reasons that staff give for not reporting misconduct. According to research by the Institute of Business Ethics, of those employees who witnessed misconduct in their workplace, only a quarter actually reported it. The main reason staff gave for not reporting their concerns was fear of alienation from colleagues (21%), closely followed by a sense that it was none of their business (19%). Fear that their job would be jeopardised (13%) and that everybody’s doing it (12%) were not far behind.

These results show that much needs to be done if staff are to be encouraged and feel supported in voicing their concerns. Employee welfare aside, companies can gain tangible business benefits if they ensure such mechanisms are in place.

...A working environment in which it is made clear that bullying, harassment and discrimination will not be tolerated could lead to fewer pay-outs at employment tribunals. Another benefit could be that good employees are retained with increased staff morale and loyalty. But perhaps the most compelling reason is that it makes for a happier and more productive workforce if staff believe and see that a culture of mutual trust exists.

...An effective whistleblowing policy creates a culture of trust and makes business sense...

Key elements

Board-level buy in: The CEO or another senior director should set out the organisation’s commitment to its speak-up policy. This is a good place to make a statement on the support that the organisation will give to those who raise concerns in good faith.

Purpose of the policy: This explains what the speak-up policy is, and gives examples of issues where employees may have concerns.

Outline procedures: This section will set out the details of the procedures that individuals should follow when raising a concern. It should also include a statement on confidentiality and/or anonymity and encouragement for employees to speak to their colleagues, line managers or other managers if appropriate.

What next? Staff need to know what they can expect if they speak up. Here, you should describe the details of the process that the investigation will follow. Set out the principles guiding the recording and investigating of reports, such as confidentiality, protection and feedback. What can the employee expect in terms of timeframes for investigations, call backs and progress reports? It should also reiterate the company’s commitment to support the employee raising the concern.

List other supporting documents: Typically, this will include guidance for managers, guidance for staff, code of ethics, posters and desktop reminders that are available. The role of any call lines/web pages: when to use them and how they can help.

Warning of disciplinary action: This is a policy that has to be taken seriously. Outline clearly the likely outcome for malicious use of the line.
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By Katherine Bradshaw. From: http://www.accountancyage.com/