Ottawa's Dismissal of Denis Rancourt

Commentary by Kenneth Westhues, University of Waterloo, August 2009

A good five years of conflict between administrators at the University of Ottawa and senior tenured physics professor Denis Rancourt came to a head on December 10, 2008. Dean of Science André Lalonde formally recommended to the Board of Governors that Rancourt be dismissed from the faculty. That same day, Provost Robert Major suspended Rancourt, closed his lab, and forbade him to set foot on campus.

The Ottawa administration's decision to fire Rancourt, imposing on him the "capital punishment" of labor relations, was even more vigorously opposed than were the lesser punishments dealt to him in preceding years. In a factual, reasoned letter to the Board of Governors dated 5 January 2009, Rancourt defended himself. Well over a hundred professors and students from Ottawa and elsewhere sent individual letters protesting Rancourt's elimination. Even before the axe fell, the Canadian Association of University Teachers had appointed a three-person Committee of Inquiry to investigate the long series of run-ins, dating back at least to the fall of 2005, between the Ottawa administration and Rancourt.

Is this a case of workplace mobbing in academe? Yes — and more precisely, administrative mobbing. (Click here for the standard checklist of indicators, here for the mainpage of the relevant website, and here for a short, basic article.)

What allows so unqualified a diagnosis is that Rancourt has made comprehensive documentation on the conflict (letters, emails, press reports, videos) publicly available on his blog and at academicfreedom.ca. For want of adequate information pro and con about a professor's dismissal or humiliation, it is often impossible to make more than a tentative assessment of whether it is a case of mobbing or merely a hard but measured and warranted response to some betrayal of academic purpose. In this case, Rancourt has laid bare to the public the actions that got him into trouble, the sanctions imposed, and what is most important, documentary evidence of both his own and his adversaries' views. Thereby he has bolstered his own credibility. Let other aggrieved academics take a lesson: only in so far as full information is publicly available, the cards all on the table, can outside observers make confident judgments and say things worth listening to.

It is plain from the material online that over time, administrators at Ottawa coalesced in the view that Rancourt, despite his stellar research record and the respect given him by very many students, is an utterly unworthy and abhorrent man, fit only for expulsion from respectable academic company. While administrators appear front and centre in this mobbing case, they are joined by dozens, even hundreds of students and faculty who are after Rancourt's neck. According to Karen Pinchin's trenchant article in Maclean's, "nearly one-third of Rancourt’s colleagues at the school have signed a petition of complaint against him." (Click here to read the petition, unambiguous evidence of ganging up.) Even distant pundits like Stanley Fish and Margaret Soltan piled on.

An email from Chemistry Chair Alain St-Amant is telling. Shortly after Rancourt's suspension, with his dismissal pending, St-Amant apparently agreed to debate him on a TV talk show, but then cancelled out. Rancourt sent him an email asking why, and suggesting that administrative or peer pressure was the reason. St-Amant emailed back, "I refuse to enter a battle of wits with an unarmed man. ... This will be the last you will hear from me on this matter. Enjoy the paycheques while they last." The contempt in these sentences is total. With a clever turn of phrase, St-Amant gives Rancourt the ultimate academic insult, that he has no wits, that is to say no intelligence. Then he cuts off communication and gloats that Rancourt will soon be off the payroll. St-Amant would not likely have felt free to send such a message had he not felt himself part of a campus crowd united by scorn for Rancourt.

From the available documents, Rancourt appears to exemplify a type of professor I described in my first book on academic mobbing, a professor I called "Dr. PITA" — acronym for pain-in-the-ass, or in politer terms, a thorn in administrators' sides, the one who makes them see red. Being a team player is not Dr. PITA's priority. Administrative demands that most professors comply with uncomplainingly are occasions for Dr. PITA to raise questions — and more questions.

Real-life professors can become Dr. PITA for any number of reasons. Administrators usually chalk it up to a personality defect. The documentary record suggests that the reason in Rancourt's case, as in many mobbing cases I have studied, is that he has thought deeply enough about education and the search for truth, to realize how much these noble purposes are subverted by the academic structures established to serve them. During his first dozen years of university teaching, he seems to have not only lengthened his vita but actually developed his mind, gaining awareness that institutionalizing the process of learning (that means creating a formal organization with a policy manual, chain of command, course credits, degree programs, human resources office, and so on), even though it facilitates learning in some ways (not least by providing teachers with a stable livelihood), cheapens and diminishes learning in many other ways. A student's working life easily becomes a matter of memorizing things and jumping the hoops of standardized tests, without personal engagement or independent thought. Indeed, one of the things students learn is not to learn about power, nor to question the structure of power in place, since the organization depends on this structure for funding and public legitimacy. Awareness of this downside of institutionalization is a common theme of the varied authors Rancourt cites in support of his own brand of anarchism — Paolo Freire, Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Herbert Marcuse, Ward Churchill, among others.

It was apparently Rancourt's deepening understanding of and commitment to what learning actually involves, that led him to refuse to rank and grade his students in the established, expected way. Since grading is central to the institutionalization of learning, he felt obliged to renounce it. This was the sticking point, the offense that became the main official reason for his termination. As Rancourt plaintively wrote in his letter to the Board, "Socrates did not give grades to his students."

Rancourt's revulsion at assigning marks is not common among professors, but neither is it rare. Over the past four decades, I have known dozens of professors who, in the course of their intellectual maturation, became exceedingly uncomfortable with assigning grades. A few of them met the same fate as Rancourt. One of the offenses that led to the dismissal of theologian Herbert Richardson from the University of Toronto in 1994 (a case of administrative mobbing to which I have devoted a substantial book), was that he and his students in a graduate seminar agreed that all of them should receive the same final grade.

More often, however, administrators and colleagues find ways to accommodate, sometimes even to honor and reward, the brilliant, unusually effective researcher and teacher whose process of growth has led to reluctance to give grades. Three professors of this kind have written letters of support for Rancourt: John McMurtry, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, John Southin, retired Professor of Biology at McGill University, and David Noble, Professor of Social and Political Thought at York University. These respected academics report that their universities managed to put up with them for decades, albeit sometimes grudgingly, despite their own dissent from conventional systems of student grading. McMurtry wrote that he "almost got fired for challenging the grading system at my university 35 years ago. The V-P Academic, the Dean and the Chair all went on the record as deciding to dismiss me, but many faculty and students successfully defended me." Noble told Maclean's that "he hasn’t given grades for more than 35 years."

It is worth remembering, moreover, that Ivan Illich, dean of educational iconoclasts and author of the 1971 classic, Deschooling Society, was recruited to the faculties of Pennsylvania State University and the University of Bremen in the last decades of his life. Those universities were apparently pleased to have Illich around for students and colleagues to learn from, despite his congenital lack of docility and institutional loyalty.

Why do some university administrations mobilize collective resources to eliminate professors of the Dr. PITA type, professors like Rancourt or McMurtry or Illich, while others somehow make room for them? One key difference is whether the administrators, despite all the bureaucratic pressures upon them, continue to have a feel for what searching for truth actually means. If they still hear that search as a personal call, they cannot bring themselves to demonize, harass, and try to get rid of one who embodies truth-seeking in a pristine way, despite the administrative challenges such a professor poses. They are able to recognize in Dr. PITA not just bothersomeness and impracticality but successful engagement with inquiry and learning, the fundamental goals of a university. Their own commitment to education obliges them to show respect for the dissenter, in much the same way as commitment to the basics of Christianity obliged Joseph Ratzinger, an organization man if ever there was one, to invite the dissident theologian Hans Küng to dine with him at the Vatican, a few months after Ratzinger was elected pope.

The complete commentary: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/Rancourt09.htm

7th International Conference on Workplace Bullying

The Centre for Research on Workplace Behaviours at the University of Glamorgan will be hosting the 7^th International Conference on Workplace Bullying and Harassment between the 2^nd and 4^th June 2010, for more information on this please see the website:

www.bullying2010.com

Conference Announcement / Call for papers

1st Global Conference - Bullying and the Abuse of Power: From the Playground to International Relations 6-8 November 2009 - Salzburg, Austria

Call for Papers

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to explore the phenomenon of bullying as it manifests and has manifested itself in a wide range of contexts in the personal, social and global spheres. Bullying is a multi-faceted phenomenon, of interest and concern to academics and professionals of all kinds, including psychologists, sociologists, teachers, ethicists, politicians, social workers, philosophers, theologians, historians, physicians and human rights lawyers. It is present in every sphere of life and consists, essentially, of the abuse of power. It can involve psychological cruelty; cultural and personal insults; religious and sexual intolerance. Anyone can be bullied,anyone can bully. It goes on in schools, workplaces, and on the street. It can occur in any context in which people meet people. Bullying damages society; it produces human misery and corrupts societal values. It can ruin lives, and it can end lives. Most of us have experienced bullying, whether as a victim or as a perpetrator, or as one who has stood by while bullying went on before our eyes. Like other enduring cultural phenomena it has an ability to mutate into new forms – for example, the invasive use of email to intimidate people, or the use of text messaging and social networking sites which have claimed lives through the suicide of victims.

Abstracts are invited for papers that discuss bullying from any of the perspectives and in any of the contexts mentioned above. They are also invited for papers that address bullying as it manifests itself in other contexts at a societal and global level, including the abuse of political and economic power and ultimately physical force, by repressive political regimes that suppress dissent, through, for example, torture and 'disappearances'. Submissions are welcomed from people who view other phenomena in the modern world as manifestations of bullying, including the ways that powerful nations exert power over and interfere in the affairs of less powerful ones, or the ways in which some multi-national companies do business with suppliers of produce, and manage to exert their influence over the shopping habits of consumers, to the detriment of local retailers. Bullying is perhaps the most important ethical problem in the modern world, because it is arguably present everywhere.

The following list of themes and sub-themes may be helpful. Abstracts which illuminate and comment on more than one sphere in which bullying manifests itself will be especially welcomed, as will abstracts that draw together insights from more than one academic, professional or vocational area. As a result, abstracts may fall into more than one of the themes outlined. The conference programme will thus be organised with a view to producing the most vigorous and helpful debate.

* Bullying in everyday contexts
Bullying in school/in the workplace
Bullying of older people/disabled people
Sexual bullying
Racial bullying
Religious intolerance

* From playground bullying to genocide/Bullying:
How far can it go?
Human Rights abuses
Genocide
The Holocaust
Human trafficking

* International relations
Cultural intolerance
Terrorism as a means of persuasion
Imposition of the wishes of the developed
world on developing countries
Bullying of Indigenous people

* Multinationals, impoverished nations and corner shops
The effects of globalisation on business
Changing patterns of shopping: corner shops vs superstores
Advertising and vulnerable consumers
Cut price goods and low pay for workers

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12th June 2009. If your paper is accepted for presentation at the conference, an 8 page draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th October 2009.

300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs.
Abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d)title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Gavin J Fairbairn
Professor of Ethics and Language
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds
United Kingdom
Email: G.Fairbairn@leedsmet.ac.uk

Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
Email: bully@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Ethos Hub series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Critical Issues domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.

All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume.

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/bullying-and-the-abuse-of-power/

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/bullying-and-the-abuse-of-power/call-for-papers/

Checklist of 16 mobbing indicators

1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.

2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: “Did you hear what she did last week?”

3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.

4. Collective focus on a critical incident that “shows what kind of man he really is.”

5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a lesson.”

6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.

7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.

8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.

9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.

10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to “speak up for”or defend the target.

11. The adding up of the target’s real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.

12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.

13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.

14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.

15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.

16. Mobbers’ fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

From: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/checklist.htm

University of Ottawa dismisses Professor Denis Rancourt over grading dispute

I was fired by the University of Ottawa on March 31, 2009. I was fired under the false pretext of having arbitrarily assigned high grades in one course in the winter 2008 semester. All relevant documents have been made public at http://academicfreedom.ca/.

In order to fire me the university had to dispense with due process. In the words of the professors’ union’s lawyer, my dismissal was “both a denial of substantive and procedural rights […] and a contravention of the basic principles of natural justice.”

Until my firing I was for the whole of my 23 year career, a professor of physics at the University of Ottawa. I was tenured and had occupied the highest academic rank of Full Professor since 1997. I am recognized as an expert in my profession and have taught over 2000 students.

Throughout my tenure, my overriding goal has been to give my students the highest quality of education, affording them the best possible means of learning and understanding a sometimes difficult and daunting subject. To achieve this I have researched pedagogy, conferred with professional physics education researchers, and implemented many new teaching techniques. I have developed several unique and very popular undergraduate and graduate courses, including the Physics and the Environment (Physique et environement) course, the Science in Society course, and a graduate interdisciplinary course in measurement and characterization methods in science. The Science in Society elective course had to be given in the largest auditorium on campus to accommodate the registered and community participants.

The Physics and the Environment required course was considered one of the most motivating courses in the Environmental Studies (ES) program: The executive members of the ES Student Association have referred to me as a “phenomenal teacher” and to the course as “extremely enriching … individualized … empower[ing]” and as “creat[ing] a positive learning environment where inspired students gained confidence and courage” (Letter to the dean of science dated March 15, 2007).

I have paired this teaching profile with a strong research effort, receiving throughout my entire career some of the largest research grants in the Faculty of Science. I have one of the highest scientific impact factors (h-index) in the entire Faculty, with an h-index of 25. To put this in perspective, my present scientific impact factor is more than twice that of the dean of the Faculty of Science, 40% higher than that of the present chairman of the physics department, 80% higher than that of the present chairman of chemistry, and more than twice that of the previous chairman of physics. In 2008, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) reviewed my research and renewed my grant through 2013. Such research success had been expected, because I started my university career under the prestigious NSERC University Research Fellow program, following a national competition among newly sponsored university professors.

In 2001, after I obtained the largest NSERC Strategic Project Grant ever obtained in the Faculty of Science, to study boreal forest lakes for five years, the university put out full-page-width advertisements [click to see in English / French] in the Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Citizen, Le Droit, and Silicon Valley North featuring me and my research group and entitled "Can you recognize Canada's university of the 21st century? Denis Rancourt, LSSE group" (LSSE = Lake Sediment Structure and Evolution). I have supervised more than 80 junior research terms or degrees at all levels from post-doctoral fellow to graduate students to NSERC undergraduate researchers. I have been an invited plenary, keynote, or special session speaker at major conferences nearly 40 times, an exceptional number by Faculty of Science standards. To put this in perspective, many past and present science department chairs and deans have never been a plenary or keynote speaker at an international scientific conference.

No reasonable person, and in fact so far not a single person or organization who has examined the background of my dismissal, lends any credibility to the university's claim that my grading in one course, one year ago, is the real reason for its recent actions. How can a disagreement about grading possibly justify ordering the university police to remove a tenured professor from campus, banning him from campus, assigning his graduate students to other faculty, firing his postdoctoral research fellow, and summarily firing him without due process?

The university’s pretext for firing me is particularly ironic given its Vision 2010 strategic plan, which states that the university will “Support and recognize initiatives designed to implement a range of new and diversified strategies for learning and evaluation.”

The lack of due process in the university’s recent actions is also alarming and is a threat to the principle of tenure. The dean simply asserted that my grading was not part of my teaching method and thereby circumvented a formal evaluation of my teaching without my ever being heard by a committee of my peers, as foreseen by the due process rules in place...

More info at: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/component/content/article/25.html
and
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/

Institutions slap down those who speak up, argues campaigning scholar

Scholars who embrace the role of the "public academic" are not only insufficiently rewarded for their efforts, they are often punished for them, too.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an American professor who campaigns against human trafficking for the illegal trade in vital organs, has said that the reward system for publicly engaged intellectuals is "a fallacy". Her comments come as UK academics face growing pressure to take on a public role, with plans in the pipeline for research funding to be linked to public engagement.

The proposals mooted for the forthcoming research excellence framework could lead to funding being allocated on the strength of television or newspaper work.

Writing in the journal Anthropology Today, the professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, says: "Scholars who want to reach diverse publics - through popular writing, speaking or participating in social activism - are not only under-rewarded by their universities, they are often penalised for 'dumbing down' anthropological thinking, cutting social theory into 'soundbites', 'vulgarising' anthropology, sacrificing academic standards or (in the US) for playing to the anti-intellectual, illiberal American popular classes."

Professor Scheper-Hughes says her engagement with the media and her participation in parliamentary hearings and on United Nations and World Health Organisation panels is counted by her university as "community outreach", "on a par with giving a lecture on the cultural origins of Hallowe'en to local primary school students".

"This academic reward system is based ... on a fallacy," she says.

Professor Scheper-Hughes is one of the founders of Organs Watch, a project that aims to make the global trade in human organs a pressing social issue.

She said her involvement with the organisation had led to her being excluded from meetings, ridiculed, called a liar and branded, among other things, a "medically unsophisticated naif caught up in urban legends of blood-sucking, organ-stealing monsters" and an "organs terrorist". But, she says, her interventions "eventually bore fruit".

She argues that the goal of public anthropology is to make issues public, rather than simply respond to issues publicly. Academics who are politically engaged with their work are "very much like the first generation of working mothers", forced to do "double time", she says.

This includes "keeping up with the expected home-front duties, with the expected rate of scholarly productions of books, articles and graduate students, participating in academic meetings etc, while simultaneously doing human rights work, serving on international panels, giving keynote speeches in places and at events that don't matter a hoot to one's peers".

Despite the difficulties, Professor Scheper-Hughes warns against academics waiting until they are "safely tenured" before jumping into the "public fray".

"If you do, you may find you have lost what I call 'the habit of courage'.

"But protect yourself by keeping up with the expectations of the academic home front. And don't complain about being overworked and underpaid. Just be glad they don't pull you off the stage and haul you off to jail for speaking your mind, and for being what academic administrators sometimes call a 'loose cannon'," she advises...

From: Times Higher Education

HR's Employee Betrayal Secrets

Elimination ritual...

Dear Madam or Sir,

I have spent two and half years as an Assistant Professor of English at XXX University in Northern XXX. My first year at XXX was challenging and pleasant, while the remaining year and half was a living hell, complete with harassment, sexual harassment, physical intimidation, false charges, false testimony, perjury and the obstruction of justice. It has been a long process, with some triumphs and some defeats. Eventually, as in all bullying stories, I was forced to leave. A year and a half after leaving XXX I am still trying to come to terms with my horrible experience there.

I am appending my story in the hope that it might be of use to other people who undergoing similar experiences. I would also be happy to communicate with other victims in order to share experiences and offer comfort and motivation:

In summer 2005, I was hired as an Assistant Professor at the department of English Literature and humanities in XXX. I arrived in XXX in August 2005 and worked hard and with great expense to relocate my family to Northern XXX while preparing well in advance for the coming school year. The school year began with great turmoil on campus resulting from a fierce labor dispute. A number of promises that were made to me in a hiring letter were not kept, and I was unable to receive a working contract until February 2006. As soon as the school year began, one faculty member in my department resigned and left immediately, and the number of students that I was teaching doubled. At the same time the department chair announced that she was resigning as well, sending the department into a perpetual crisis. Instead of complaining and looking for a different job, I was grateful to work at XXX and had said so at every opportunity.

I volunteered to serve my department at every opportunity and did my best to be a helpful, friendly and supportive colleague. I volunteered for every committee (including a conference and a hiring committee for which I prepared the call-for-papers and job announcement respectively), and when the chair wanted to restructure the MA program I was happy to conduct research for this project as well as to contribute my experience and ideas, most of which have been incorporated into the restructured program proposal. When the chair asked for urgent faculty help in coordinating a large proposal for a translation laboratory that was due within four days I volunteered to accomplish the task and had a good report on her desk before the deadline. When the department was desperate to produce on-campus events I volunteered to give a poetry reading. At the chair’s request, I prepared two new versions for the departmental web page.

I maintained good professional relationship with both faculty and students, and I continuously received good students’ evaluations as well as occasional notes from students thanking me for my work and for my help. When students sometime complained, I worked closely with the chair to solve their problems and have always deferred to the chair’s judgment.

I have also done well at XXX academically. During my time there, I added a number of academic publications to my CV. I presented new research at the ACLA conference in Mexico in April 2006, and I was recommended by XXX as an expert in English Language and Humanities for the European Union’s FP7 project. I was nominated as an advisory board member of the University’s Women Studies Center and associate editor of the journal, Women 2000. In Spring 2007 I have organized a campus visit and lecture by a renowned scholar.

During my first year at XXX I approached the chair periodically to ask how I am doing and if there is any area in which I should improve. Without exception, the response was always positive. I was complemented for the quick way in which I adapted to living in Northern XXX and working at XXX. The chair observed one of my classes towards the end of the fall semester and complemented my teaching. The chair has found me a devoted employee and supportive colleague and included me, not only in professional activities, but also in social activities in the department. Sometime in April I was recommended for a continued two-year contract.

It was within a month since that recommendation that the tables turned. Sometime in May 2006, and for reasons that are completely unknown to me, the department chair and my colleagues in the department began to hate me with a passion. From that point on I was continuously harassed, my work was being continuously sabotaged and I was even physically intimated at one time. I was “punished” with a “silence treatment” and barred from departmental activities, faculty meetings, equipment, important memos and even the department’s Christmas party. At one point, the entire faculty (except me) was asked to submit a list of courses that they would like to teach in the following semester. At some point, the chair announced again that she is “resigning” but in fact did not leave her post. As a “perpetual non-Chair,” she has been using the ambivalence of her position to persecute me with renewed vigor. I was no longer allowed to say “hello” to the chair, and have been verbally and physically abused when I tried to do so. I had no access to the department’s office, and could only enter the department's mail room, using my key and avoiding the secretary desk. The Chair had also organized students, asking them to sign a petition against me. When I complained about that, the petition was simply put away, placed secretly in my personal file to be used against me at a later time. The chair also asked the faculty members in the department to sign a petition to have me removed from the department. Six men, whom I have never hurt, some who have been my friends, and who have absolutely no reason to hate me, signed this document without thinking twice.

On December 28, 2006 I had to lodge a formal complaint at the XXX police station after the chair’s husband physically threatened me in my office. I complained bitterly to the university’s administration about the Chair’s treatment and her behavior against me. Eventually, the Chair did leave the department and I believed that my difficulties were over. A new chair and a new faculty Dean were appointed, and I was told that the slate was cleaned, that all of the Chair’s previous complaints against me were dismissed, and that everyone will now strive to work together harmoniously. I was delighted and have again done everything to contribute to the department in faculty meetings, committee work, and socially, as I was now able to talk with colleagues, join them for lunch, etc. I was extremely careful to avoid any misunderstandings, and when I thought that I erroneously hurt someone, I apologized immediately. I was determined to patch things up and put past trouble behind me. I went to an international conference in Mexico in April where representation from Northern XXX was highly appreciated, and at the conference, I arranged for a renowned scholar to come and give a talk at the department. I published another book review and sent an article for publication.

Unfortunately, these efforts were neither appreciated nor reciprocated. My situation in the department remained consistently intolerable. I was still isolated and unable to receive basic services from the department. I did not have a working university computer since November 2006, and I could not receive professional collaboration from my colleagues. And my colleagues used every opportunity, either in committee work, exam invigilation or other professional opportunities, to create altercations and disrupt any possible working relationship.

In fact, as I found out on April 30, while I was trying to be professional, courteous and helpful, my colleagues have been keeping a close watch and reporting through gossip, innuendos and semi-official complaints on my "behavior." I was confronted by the new department chair by a list of silly, petty, and sometime simply untrue complaints. I told the chair that if harmony is to be achieved in the department, the effort should be made on both sides. I asked him to communicate this to my colleagues and try and affect some peace in the department. When he failed to do so, I wrote a letter to my colleagues, urging them to put last semester’s events behind them and to make an effort to work together harmoniously.

But the chair had done nothing to assist me, and in fact turned my complaints against me. I was harassed again. A student who attended two of my classes “suddenly” began to disrupt and sabotage classes, as well as harassing me through emails and phone calls. My complaints to the Chair, the Dean and the University's Disciplinary Committee were “strangely” ignored, and I was even presented with a list of “students’ complaints:” that I was looking at my watch during the lesson, that I was penalizing students when they are late for class, and that I was “forcing” them to buy the reading materials for the course. It was laughable, but again, for “strange” reasons taken very seriously.

In May 2007, I finally complained again to the university’s administration about being harassed by my colleagues. I was first told by the vice rector that the problem should be solved “in discussion with the chair and the dean of the faculty.” I told him that I welcomed such a discussion, but no conversation ever took place. One day later, the chair of the department filed disciplinary action against me.

My complaint was completely ignored. The Chair’s complaint, however, was a thing of beauty. The students’ complaint that they were forced to come to class on time and buy class materials disappeared. Instead, alongside a number of petty accusations (some completely false) were finally the contents of the student petition that the former chair organized in November 2006: The former chair had organized the students in my gender studies class to complain that I have been discussing sexual content! The charge was not only completely ridiculous (why does the university have gender studies classes in its curriculum if it forbids sexual context? Why wasn’t I ever notified of such prohibition (which does not exist)? Why wasn’t I ever consulted with while teaching the class?). It also smacked of bad faith and was illegal according to university rules. Any complaint must, according to university rules, be dealt with within 60 days. This complaint was lying in wait for six months (!). It was prepared in November and presented to me in May. There wasn’t a disciplinary committee in the world that could find me guilty. That is, none other than the disciplinary committee of XXX University, which was set to convict at all costs.

The charges, presented to me on June 18, were made by an investigator who never discussed them with me, and on the basis of evidence that I have never seen and testimony by witnesses that I do not know and whom I did not have an opportunity to ask any questions. The date of the hearing was set for June 21, only three days (!) later. My requests to have legal and/or union representative present, to meet and question witnesses and see the documents on which the charges are based, and specific dates and necessary details for understanding the charges were flatly denied. Only after my lawyer's intervention, I was given more time to prepare a defense.

But the committee had no interest in hearing (or reading) my defense. The committee members first refused to listen to my defense, and when I insisted on presenting it, they interrupted me, made deprecating comments about my arguments, and expressed disinterest and impatience with a response to the charges that I worked very hard to prepare. When I rose from my sit to hand out documents to the committee, I was reprimanded for standing up and ordered to sit down again. Afterwards, the chair of the disciplinary committee rose from his sit and stood next my chair, close enough to touch me, and disrupted me while I was talking. I was forced to ask him to sit down and keep an appropriate distance from me. I had to ask the committee repeatedly and sometime forcibly to “be quiet” and listen to me. I needed to raise my voice and fight hard to present my defense. Even so, I was only able to deliver a part of my defense, and the disciplinary committee seemed disinterested in the parts that I was able to make them listen to.

The committee, not having heard, read or considered any of my arguments, sentenced me to six months suspension without pay, throwing my family and me into poverty at a moment's notice and at the end of the summer when the prospects of finding academic employment are nil. My wife, our four-year-old daughter and I found ourselves in an impossible situation, with nowhere to go and no immediate prospects of income or employment.

To prevent me from complaining further, it was communicated to me unofficially that the disciplinary committee had also access to further complaints, which I have not seen or heard. When I was told of some of these complaints, I found that I could answer them and provide documents and witnesses to prove that they are not true. But since I was never asked about them (and since the disciplinary committee had never listened to any of my arguments), I was unable to defend myself. Furthermore, these complaints were still kept as a threat against me, as they are kept in stock to be pulled out later in the same way that the complaint from November 2006 was used in May 2007.

Nevertheless, I appealed the committee’s decision, as I was preparing to take the university to court. I decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by fighting back against an institution towards which I have shown nothing but good faith, and received none in return. In August 2007 I had also sent letters to the Higher Education Council and the Ministry of Education in XXX, the Union of European Universities, UNESCO and the Embassy of my country in XXX and in XXX. I asked for their advice and opinion on the ridiculous charges that the university made against me – which I was not embarrassed to quote. In fact, it was the university that should have been embarrassed, and it certainly was! The same officials who dismissed me like a piece of trash were now in panic. Even though I stopped short of fully denouncing the university or writing to newspapers, the university's vice rector was outraged. He had also made a quick deal to clear my name, refund the money that was already deducted from my salary, and put me back to work until the end of the semester, at which point I agreed to leave XXX. If I was to be left to work in peace until the end of the semester and to leave XXX without further hassles at that time, I agreed to write no more letters, and not to embarrass the university further by telling the truth about the way it behaved towards me.

I was quickly cleared of all the charges and was put back to work, this time teaching different courses in a different department. My colleagues also asked that I will be moved to another office. As I was told, their feelings against me were so strong that they could not bear to look at me. I wasn't surprised. How could they look me in the face after what they have done? On my part, I certainly had no intention of packing all my books and moving to another office only to move again after four months. As to the fact that seeing me reminded my colleagues of their crimes and unethical conduct, I was only sorry to realize that they will forget all about it as soon as my back is turned. I simply ignored them and carried on with my work.

Nevertheless, this was a difficult semester. My wife and daughter left XXX in the summer. They settled in with my mother in law, in my wife's childhood bedroom, sleeping on a double-bed on the floor. Unprepared, my wife was now a single mother, working full time and taking care of our child by herself. Her mother, helping as much as she can, is old and needs some attention herself. They managed bravely. But it was hard. As for me, I was missing them, living by myself, teaching classes that are not in my field, and spending time in a criminal university that continued to treat me horribly.

I was denied a standard pay raise that is given to all faculty members at the beginning of each school year for no other reason than that the chair of my department "doesn't want to give it to me." I was continuously pushed by the administration to move to another office… even one month before the semester was over. And although an agreement with the university has been reached in September, the vice rector just couldn't help himself from trying to trick and cheat me further. I was asked to place a resignation letter in trust, which would go into affect as soon as I receive everything that was promised me by the university. This included no compensations or special privileges. Merely a letter of reference, a letter of clear record, and everything that all exiting faculty receive: paid leave, airline ticket and assistance in receiving the money accrued in a trust fund throughout one's time at XXX. But the trust was broken. The faculty member who was supposed to hold on to the letter betrayed me and gave it to the administration. They, on their part, had no intention of treating me fairly even for a second. Two weeks before I was supposed to leave XXX forever, I received no cooperation on any of the things that I deserved merely by virtue of being someone who had worked in the university for two and a half years.

I realized that this was indicative of only one thing. That the vice rector who persecuted me forgot the temporary rage and embarrassment that he felt in August 2007, as I was telling the entire world of his and the university's unprofessional, unethical, criminal and disgusting behavior. A few days before I left XXX, I simply walked into his office and reminded him that I am still capable of sending letters to international newspapers and the press. I have certainly said the magic words. Within hours, checks were cut, letters were written and forms were signed. I received everything that I have asked for, and have left through XXX airport with an unimaginable sense of relief. Certainly, fairness, good management or even legality mean nothing to XXX officials. However, the prospects of public embarrassment obviously mean everything to them.

My story with XXX is not completely over. Even though I am back with my family, teaching elsewhere, and enjoying a life without hate, racism and corruption, I am still angry with XXX. My colleagues, who believe that their crimes of harassment, sexual harassment, physical intimidation, false charges, false testimony, perjury and the obstruction of justice are expunged as soon as my back is turned, are wrong. Their crimes do not disappear merely because they are not punished for them. Their crimes remain crimes, and they remain criminals.

Anonymous

Workplace Bullying ‘Epidemic’ Worse Than Sexual Harassment

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Workplace bullying could cause more harm to employees than sexual harassment, researchers say.

Belittling comments, exclusion from outings and criticism of work may seem relatively benign and get brushed off by business higher-ups as “kid’s stuff.” But the consequences to employees and even the bottom line are far from child’s play.

“Organizations don’t realize that just rude behaviors, ongoing discourteous types of behaviors, have such negative effects on employees,” said Sandy Hershcovis, assistant professor of business at the University of Manitoba, who is presenting research here today at the Seventh International Conference on Work, Stress and Health.

The meeting was co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and the Society for Occupational Health Psychology.

“Unless you’re in the situation you just don’t understand,” Hershcovis told LiveScience. “A lot of people say, ‘Oh it’s just a personality conflict, they don’t really mean it.’ But when you’re in the situation – and many of us have been – it’s pretty horrible.”

Bully prevalence

The Workplace Bullying Institute found in a nationally representative poll last year that 37 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 54 million employees, have been bullied now or some time during their work life.

“Anything that affects 37 percent of the public is an epidemic. But it’s a silent epidemic,” said Gary Namie, Director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash.

Evidence from several research fields, including law, communications, business management and psychology, are revealing the hardships that targets of bullying face, and they ain’t pretty.

“Targets of severe workplace bullying are suffering from physical and psychological conditions that would just drive even the strongest of us into the ground,” said David Yamada, of Suffolk University Law School in Boston. Yamada chaired a presentation session here on workplace bullying.

Bully consequences

Hershcovis and Julian Barling of Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, reviewed 110 studies conducted over 21 years and involving the consequences of workplace aggression and sexual harassment. The research duo focused on 12 consequences, including: job satisfaction, co-worker and supervisor satisfaction, job stress, intent to quit, psychological and physical well-being, anger and anxiety levels, withdrawal from work and level of commitment.

Bullying is just one form of so-called workplace aggression, which the researchers divided into categories:

• Incivility: rudeness and discourteous verbal and non-verbal behaviors.
• Bullying: persistently criticizing employees’ work; yelling; repeatedly reminding employees of mistakes; spreading gossip or lies; ignoring or excluding workers; and insulting employees’ habits, attitudes or private life.
• Interpersonal conflict: behaviors of hostility, verbal aggression and angry exchanges.

Compared with sexually harassed workers, employees on the receiving end of raging-boss behaviors and other forms of workplace aggression reported lower overall well-being, less job satisfaction and less satisfaction with their bosses; they were also more likely to quit their jobs.

Specifically the bullied employees reported more job stress, less job commitment and higher levels of anger and anxiety than did sexually harassed employees.

The upshot

The review results by Hershcovis and Barling suggest that bullies can wreak more havoc on a company than can sexual harassment.

“I want to make sure that’s not misinterpreted to mean that sexual harassment didn’t also have negative outcomes; it did,” Hershcovis said. “It’s just that bullying was worse.”

Some explanations for the findings include the fact that sexual harassment is illegal.

“There is a legal outlet to victims of sexual harassment,” Hershcovis said. “Organizations have policies in place to prevent and deal with it. That ability to voice may give employees who experience sexual harassment some kind of hope.”

In addition, since sexual aggression is illegal, the victims may be more likely to blame the perpetrator and not themselves, as can happen with workplace bullying, Hershcovis said.

Bully ban?

Beating up the bully may succeed on playgrounds, but inside the business world success is not so clear-cut. For one, often the bully is the boss or other manager, and so fighting back could cost a job.

While some countries, such as Sweden, and places like Quebec and Saskatchewan have implemented some form of anti-bullying workplace legislation, researchers here agree the United States has done little in the form of anti-bullying laws. Corporations in the United States also lack policies for preventing or dealing with workplace aggression.

“Employers ignore bullying because they can. Its legality is what gives them the license to ignore it,” Namie said during his presentation at the conference.

Following in the footsteps of sexual harassment, however, bullying could gain enough awareness for legal action.

“Where we are now with workplace bullying is where we were with sexual harassment maybe 15 years ago,” said Suzy Fox of Loyola University in Chicago, “before we had key court cases, before we had the major Anita Hill blow-up.”

In 1991, Hill, a law professor at the time, came forward with accusations that Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her. And like sexual harassment, workplace bullying needs a clear definition, Fox noted.

“Bullying is often more subtle, and may include behaviors that do not appear obvious to others,” Hershcovis said. “For instance, how does an employee report to their boss that they have been excluded from lunch? Or that they are being ignored by a coworker? The insidious nature of these behaviors makes them difficult to deal with and sanction.”

From: http://sutterjobs.wordpress.com

Mobbing as a factor in faculty work life - Composite Story of a Mobbing

...But despite your hopes, things do not improve. You are no longer chosen for committees. The department chair neglects to call on you when your hand is raised in meetings. And when you attempt to offer comments without raising your hand, you are called out of order. When you offer suggestions, your colleagues roll their eyes. If you disagree with the prevailing departmental view, even politely, you are shouted down. This explains why, during department meetings, your heart pounds, your hands tremble, and sweat runs down your back...

Read the complete story.