Bullying in higher education: it's time to hold the sector to account

The results of the Guardian higher education network’s survey on bullying in higher education should give the entire sector cause to worry about the competence and style of leaders and managers in the sector.

As someone who has examined the equality policies and action plans of every institution in the UK in the last 12 years, I identify three key problems:

1) University leaders put money ahead of learning

Vice-chancellors, provosts and principals are running institutions that see themselves more and more as corporations or conglomerates. They are not understanding that financial management and brand leadership should not displace the fact that universities are first and foremost learning communities – and that the principal function of education is to humanise society.

Management competence must be measured as much as anything else by senior managers’ capacity to demonstrate a knowledge of employment law and acceptable practice, and its convergence with equality and human rights legislation. They need to know how they would ensure that it forms the foundation on which they set about building and sustaining a culture of equity.

2) HR protects senior management

Complaint procedures are often far too legalistic and bureaucratic and are not as responsive as they might be to the pain and hurt that staff routinely experience.

Rather than dealing with the offending conduct, institutions indulge in a form of back covering and self justification which blocks their ears to the messages that those suffering bullying wish to convey. Rather than holding managers to account for respecting the rights of employees, HR departments see it as their business to put a ring of steel around offending managers and ignore the duty of care the institution as employer has to those whom they bully.

Like schools and Ofsted, higher education appears to believe that the institution’s place in the REF (research excellence framework) league table is paramount and therefore whatever is done to achieve the highest assessment is justifiable, irrespective of the denial of rights and the damage it causes to individuals as differentiated by ethnicity, gender disability etc.

3) Universities feel they are untouchable

Increasingly, these corporations believe that no one could hold them to account on issues to do with employment law, employee relations and their compliance with equality and human rights legislation. So, they bully staff in respect of other organisational goals and in the process contravene the very laws that are in place to protect people from such abusive conduct.

When employees exercise their right to challenge them externally, and the institutions capitulate and go for a compromise agreement, such agreements invariably come with a non-disclosure or gagging clause. Thus, the problem simply becomes embedded.

Too many institutions see it as being in their interest to settle out of court and avoid massive legal fees and the danger of being found guilty by an employment tribunal. But they also do this to silence the victims of such abuse in return for a pay off.

They very rarely go on to scrutinise the management conduct that led the victim to seek redress in the first place. Therefore, business goes on as usual. The institution and the offending manager learn nothing and have no incentive to review and alter their conduct, even though the career of the complainant is pretty much ruined by the time matters get to that stage, however hefty the pay out.

Universities and gagging clauses

AcademicFOI.com report that over the last three years, 366 gagging clauses resulted from employment tribunal claims against universities that were settled prior to hearings. Those settlements involved payments to staff of £4.4m and legal costs of £7.1m. 810 staff submitted claims to employment tribunals for a range of alleged employment breaches, including bullying and harassment. Academic FOI.com says of non-disclosure agreements:

“The exact wordings vary and are kept confidential but typically the member of staff signs their agreement not to discuss their settlement with anyone apart from immediate family or professional advisers. They also agree not to publicly criticise the university or discuss the dispute that led to the agreement being signed.”

In the interviews and focus group discussions I have held with complainants in universities, however, everyone has pointed to the stress, mental distress and disruption they suffered before, during and after their decision to take their complaint to the employment tribunal. The institution insulates itself and moves on. Most complainants find it difficult if not impossible to do so with their health, reputation and careers “intact”.

One would hope that this damning report would make the government review the criteria for granting external validation to the sector and re-examine the conditions upon which they continue to fund institutions to carry on with business as usual, especially having regard to the observations above.

Professor Gus John is a fellow of the london centre for leadership in learning at the Institute of Education and visiting faculty professor of education at the University of Strathclyde – follow him on Twitter @Gus_John

From: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/dec/16/bullying-higher-education-university-managers

Email sent by Martin Wilkins to Stefan Grimm - Imperial College

Email 1
Date: 10 March 2014

Dear Stefan

I am writing following our recent meetings in which we discussed your current grant support and the prospects for the immediate future. The last was our discussion around your PRDP, which I have attached.

As we discussed, any significant external funding you had has now ended. I know that you have been seeking further funding support with Charities such as CRUK and the EU commission but my concern is that despite submitting many grants, you have been unsuccessful in persuading peer-review panels that you have a competitive application. Your dedication to seek funding is not in doubt but as time goes by, this can risk becoming a difficult situation from which to extricate oneself. In other words, grant committees can become fatigued from seeing a series of unsuccessful applications from the same applicant.

I am of the opinion that you are struggling to fulfill the metrics of a Professorial post at Imperial College which include maintaining established funding in a programme of research with an attributable share of research spend of £200k p.a and must now start to give serious consideration as to whether you are performing at the expected level of a Professor at Imperial College.

Over the course of the next 12 months I expect you to apply and be awarded a programme grant as lead PI. This is the objective that you will need to achieve in order for your performance to be considered at an acceptable standard. I am committed to doing what I can to help you succeed and will meet with you monthly to discuss your progression and success in achieving the objective outlined.  You have previously initiated discussions in our meetings regarding opportunities outside of Imperial College and I know you have been exploring opportunities elsewhere. Should this be the direction you wish to pursue, then I will do what I can to help you succeed.

Please be aware that this constitutes the start of informal action in relation to your performance, however should you fail to meet the objective outlined, I will need to consider your performance in accordance with the formal College procedure for managing issues of poor performance (Ordinance ­D8) which can be found at the following link. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/secretariat/collegegovernance/provisions/ordinances/d8

Should you have any questions on the above, please do get in touch.

Best wishes
Martin

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/imperial-college-professor-stefan-grimm-was-given-grant-income-target/2017369.article

Bulster Uni’s Bullying Boffins

Last time we “named and shamed” Bulster’s notorious VC “Tricky Dicky” and his HR gopher-torturer, “Mad Bonnie”. We offered an expose of the mediocre former nurses, school teachers, administrators and policy “chancers” who make up the senior management team at Bulster University.
The local UCU branch and many of their staff have argued that top management  have been so consistently ineffective over decades that the only way Dicky could keep his multi-campus Gulag archipelago together, was through bullying at every level of this depressing institution.

Since this misery is inflicted on  Bulster University staff and students and offered to the public on the bank-rolling of public money, our readers are entitled to quiz the evidence of public shame in this province where one might have thought the lofty European Declaration of Human Rights might apply? Why is public money being wasted on a failed university? And why are the moguls of Bulster University apparently so unaccountable? With a HR Chief like Bonnie, Arthur Cox Solicitors are the current in a long line of lawyers kept busy for Bulster University!

Among universities in the UK and Ireland, Bulster University has consistently been among the worst for harassment of staff, and for work-place stress. It has among the highest rates of staff bringing cases to Industrial Tribunal and has been the subject of a number of successful landmark employment discrimination and bullying cases. Bulster University’s track-record for industrial relations is so bad the mild-mannered University and College Union which supposedly represents most academic staff believe Bulster University is “off the scale” on bullying and harassment of staff and needs a whole new category beyond just “grey-listing”.

In regard to its internal reconciliation of industrial conflict Bulster University employs its own watch-dog or “University Visitor”, normally a senior legal figure, but whose terms of reference make him or her a de-facto employee of the University and who staff believe takes instructions directly from the university administration. Under such a procedures the Visitor, a person who is supposed to be genuinely independent and to represent the Monarch in the interests of fair-play, could be no more than an apology for an academic dictatorship.

Recently these luke-warm powers have been weakened and the Royal Visitor cannot now address employment issues. It is a sad indictment of Bulster that it’s Legal Head  “Olly” Mac is embroiled in a legal battle against the University.

This has involved Olly being suspended from his post on several occasions and has placed him in head-on conflict with the “uber dictator” his line manager, the universities Director of Torture and Execution, “Mad Bonnie”. And for those who might feel some sympathy for Olly getting a touch of his own nasty medicine, one should not forget this legal supremo has “ducked and dived”, and allegedly “lied and falsified” over decades of Industrial Tribunals brought by the University’s desperately immiserated academic staff. Never reluctant to wield the knife against his employees, it is a safe bet to say that nasty Olly is just now getting it in his own ass!

We can also report that Olly’s boss, “Mad Bonnie”, may himself be on his last days at the University. Subject to final disciplinary warning for bullying and threats, Bonnie is now under police investigation for criminal harassment and misconduct in public office. What also seems likely is that once Dicky’s ship finally sinks, Bonnie will be drowned with the other senior managements rats.

What implications has all this bullying for academic standards at Bulster University? Well for the malaise of plummeting academic standards in every league table we must attribute a good deal of blame to the University’s Provosts and academic deans who have been the enforcers of the college torture chambers. One thinks in particular of former Coleraine Provosts, Mal Blunt and Robbo “The Hutch”, both well remembered for their over-use of “Mad” Ronnie and his HR heavies.

Not quite s dazzling as the famous “TV cops”, our Campus Provosts “Blunt and Hutch” had no scruples about bulldozing their colleagues along the way. In the process this duo became infamous for allowing large-scale closure of their programmes and singularly advancing their mediocre academic careers. Blunt was especially loathed by staff for his KGB-style web monitoring and “cyber-trolling” of academics. Perhaps more famous for sporting prowess than genuine scholarship, Blunt predictably turned campus management into a “game sport”.

After a week or two of “Blunt’s KGB treatment” his line-employees were cornered like rabbits in a flash-light. “Hutch” who had a less than stellar career as an economist is probably better known for being “economical with the truth” at college disciplinary and employment tribunal proceedings.

At most universities deans are custodians of collegiate knowledge. Bulster University is singularly unique in maintaining a deanship enforcing University House policy across the campus archipelago. Names which come to mind among corporate tsars include an Arts Dean whose life-hero is probably Polish General Jaruzelski, the former Communist supremo who imposed martial law to crush the Solidarity democracy movement.

Under Bulster’s own General, the Arts faculty has been reduced to shreds, its courses and staff dislocated across the archipelago and academic morale in ruins. Great Arts course that worked well in cultural cities like Derry were closed down while new ventures in scientific areas like Pharmacy,  Veterinary Science and Microbiology have yet to deliver!
In Bulster academic leadership is less of a deanship and more of a dictatorial tsar-ship! Then we have the recently elevated Milly Dick whose gaff in accepting hundreds of unqualified students did not prevent him making Pro-VC…a truly Ulster illustration of the corporate American saying “f..k up and get kicked up…”
Then we have the over-promoted Dean Raisin in Life Sciences famously ridiculed as Dicky’s most loyal dunce. Ms Raisin has wasted no time in joining Dicky in the international “cookie trough”. With Dicky she was  among about a dozen Bulster boffins accepting substantial gifts from Saudi educational institutions (who now owe Bulster over £2m in unpaid fees). 

Ranging from Rolexes, scarves and rugs, these might be interpreted as expensive “kick-backs” which the Senior Executive Team Minutes show resulted ultimately in a teminated contract, a £2 Million loss and the bizairre reality of a heavily indebted Bulster educating rich Saudi students at full cost to the local tax-payer. The Bulster managers got their gold watches, the university lost money, the tax-payer footed the bill, and local Northern Ireland students suffered from the short-fall.

Finally we have Social Sciences golden man, and rumored to be Dicky’s confidante, Micky Paul, whose rush to power shows how a Kingston boy can make a few talents go a long way. And as his leader is about to bow out as Bulster VC it is rumored that Dicky is also about to “come out “about his sexual identity.

These gossiped revelations recall those of a former Ulster University Education Chief whose personal sex-change journey would have been viewed more sympathetically even by Ulster’s “religious far-right” management had she not also been a bullying maniac. In true Ulster Christian fashion they allegedly ordered her thereafter to use the disabled toilets!

Ousted from Ulster, she went on to be removed for further bullying in Scotland. Well if indeed Dicky become one of our first VC’s to come out as part of the LGBTI community, this might well be one of his most honest actions at Bulster. But if announcement follows the rumor mill, Dicky is likely to be compared negatively with Thames Valley Uni’s flamboyant ear-ringed, pony-tailed bully Mike Fitzgerald (pictured here)  who finally  resigned after a devastating watchdog’s report said that degree standards at TVU could no longer be guaranteed. Echoes of Dicky in Bulster although “Tricky Dicky’s” suits are somewhat more sober and one doubts he’d ever get an ear-ring!

So that’s all for now from our Dictator at Bulster University. Next time we’ll take a look at what it’s genuinely like to be in one of Bulster University’s torture chambers, and we’ll see if the keepers of the torture machine, Dictator Dicky and “Mad Bonnie”, will finally get their just deserts. Who knows maybe this would not be the first time Dicky and Bonnie have worn handcuffs!

ADVISORY… This is a work of humorous fiction and any similarities with persons or places real or imagined is purely a matter of coincidence. If you’ve been bullied at Bulster University or any F/HE institution don’t hesitate in complete confidence to E-MAIL: bullied.academics@yahoo.co.uk  Victims may complain without penalty under their college procedures or consider making a complaint to their local police. Where the police are contacted bullying usually ceases immediately.

University of Ulster - Mandatory Injunction

The University of Ulster

“…At the University of Ulster, since 2009 there have been 16 claims lodged against the University of Ulster, with 14 of these withdrawn before they reach tribunal. Of the remaining two, one case is still ongoing and the other was won in favour of the University. The University spent £67,282.45 on legal fees to fight this equal pay case…”

From: http://www.thedetail.tv/issues/37/employment-tribunals/a-hidden-world-of-settlements-and-gagging-orders

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“…A University of Ulster lecturer whose fixed term contract was not renewed was unfairly dismissed and discriminated against, a Northern Ireland industrial tribunal has ruled. He is to receive compensation in excess of £36,000 for losses incurred.

The landmark decision, in a case backed by UCU and Thompsons McClure Solicitors, clarifies the employment rights of fixed-term workers.

The damning judgement of the tribunal describes the reasons given by the Human Resources Director, Ronnie Magee, for not following a proper redundancy procedure as 'simply breathtaking in their arrogance and inadequacy'…”

From: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2399

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“…Ulster University is not only harassing and bullying staff, they are also wasting an extraordinary amount of taxpayers money on legal costs in the process. Here are the costs for one single industrial tribunal case (IT): a whooping £72,990. This was only one case, UU has been taken to the IT more times than any other UK university in the last three years!...”

From: https://www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Ulster-Victims-Association/1614149405477420

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“…Does Mr. McCullough’s absence in the Tribunal case substantiate the rumor that he is indeed suspended? If so, on what grounds he is suspended? Would he face a disciplinary action? For what reason? Would there be a tribunal case- Oliver McCullough vs. University of Ulster? Would Mr. Barry Mulqueen, the usual barrister of the University of Ulster alongside Mr. McCullough, would also represent Ulster and this time face Mr. McCullough?”

From: http://profrichardbarnett.com/?p=282


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 “…In Biggart v University of Ulster, an employment tribunal said that the University’s failure to consult with Dr Biggart when his contract came to an end was an act of discrimination against him as a fixed term worker…”

From: http://www.thompsons.law.co.uk/ltext/lelr-weekly-007-end-of-term.htm

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“…In 2009, Prof Holscher raised concerns about the ethical conduct of Prof Howard after learning of his involvement in the Alder Hey organs scandal. He told external bodies about his past conduct. In 2012 a disciplinary hearing charged Holscher with pursuing a vendetta against Howard. This year, at a second disciplinary hearing, Holscher was demoted from professor to senior lecturer. Holscher has named nine senior members of staff he claims were involved in a conspiracy against him and that his demotion was linked to his complaints against Howard…”

From: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/professor-obsessed-with-colleagues-work-job-bias-hearing-told-29831698.html

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“…In this piece we’d like to show you what it’s like to be a staff member in such a failed institution as we get up close and personal with the torturous disciplinary process of the Ulster Gulag. Some partial explanation for this travesty may lie in the antecedent institutions of Ulster University as the merged entity inherited academic contracts which gave managers absolute power over academic staff, minimized individual academic freedom and left Ulster University a despotic variety of pre-92 institution by comparison with the relatively relaxed nature of contracts in more mature institutions. Good people would not stay, and bad management nurtured further mediocrity and repressive governance…”

From: http://uubullying.wordpress.com/

More on Imperial College...

A management culture that prefers to deal with complaints based on how it suits. Ignore them and let bullies thrive as long as they are "productive" and sing along the same song. But follow them and take actions on those that might come against people that have a problem with, to the point that they even manufacture them in order to achieve what they want. For all their kind words, if you go to them with a complaint management will work behind the scenes to make sure nothing happens - a typical tactic is to wait so long that your legal options have been timed out. Academic management have an excuse for being useless - they aren't trained in management and are in constant fear from the top. But Human Resources have no excuse. They know exactly what they are doing. Some of them are malicious and seem to take pleasure in the pain they cause. Top management (most of them failed academics thirsty of power they could not get through their normal work/research) is carnivorous.

This is an institution who has an employment lawyer from one of the most expensive legal firms in the country (the Queen's solicitors) on retainer, working on site one day a week. And they make full use of them. The lawyer isn't there to help Imperial stick to the law. They are there to help them get away with flouting it.

Anonymous

Publish and perish at Imperial College London: the death of Stefan Grimm

This week’s Times Higher Education carried a report of the death, at age 51, of Professor Stefan Grimm: Imperial College London to ‘review procedures’ after death of academic. He was professor of toxicology in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial.

Now Stefan Grimm is dead. Despite having a good publication record, he failed to do sufficiently expensive research, so he was fired (or at least threatened with being fired).

“Speaking to Times Higher Education on condition of anonymity, two academics who knew Professor Grimm, who was 51, said that he had complained of being placed under undue pressure by the university in the months leading up to his death, and that he had been placed on performance review.”

Having had cause to report before on bullying at Imperial’s Department of Medicine, I was curious to know more.

It is my understanding that the interim head of his department had written to Grimm along the following lines (but I have not yet got the exact wording)

Your current level of funding does not constitute the appropriate level for a professor at Imperial College. Unless you submit and are awarded a Platform grant as PI in the next 12 months we will seek to initiate disciplinary action against you. This email constitutes a warning that your performance is being monitored and that action may be brought if you fail to meet the conditions herein

It didn’t take long to get hold of an email from Grimm that has been widely circulated within Imperial. The mail is dated a month after his death. It isn’t known whether it was pre-set by Grimm himself or whether it was sent by someone else. It’s even possible that it wasn’t written by Grimm himself, though if it is an accurate description of what happened, that’s not crucial.

No doubt any Imperial staff member would be in great danger if they were to publish the mail. So, as a public service, I shall do so.

The email from Stefan Grimm, below, was prefaced by an explanation written by the person who forwarded it (I don’t know who that was).

Dear Colleagues, You may have already heard about the tragic death of Professor Stefan Grimm a former member of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College. He died suddenly and unexpectedly in early October. As yet there is no report about the cause of his death. Some two weeks later a delayed email from him was received by many of the senior staff of the medical school, and other researchers worldwide. It has been forwarded to me by one of my research collaborators. From my reading of it I believe that Stefan wanted it circulated as widely as possible and for that reason I am sending it to you. It is appended below. This email represents just one side of an acrimonious dispute, but it may be indicative of more deep seated problems. best wishes Begin forwarded message: From: Stefan Grimm <professorstefangrimm@gmail.com> Date: 21 October 2014 23:41:03 BST To: Subject: How Professors are treated at Imperial College Dear all, If anyone is interested how Professors are treated at Imperial College: Here is my story. On May 30th ’13 my boss, Prof Martin Wilkins, came into my office together with his PA and ask me what grants I had. After I enumerated them I was told that this was not enough and that I had to leave the College within one year – “max” as he said. He made it clear that he was acting on behalf of Prof Gavin Screaton, the then head of the Department of Medicine, and told me that I would have a meeting with him soon to be sacked. Without any further comment he left my office. It was only then that I realized that he did not even have the courtesy to close the door of my office when he delivered this message. When I turned around the corner I saw a student who seems to have overheard the conversation looking at me in utter horror. Prof Wilkins had nothing better to do than immediately inform my colleagues in the Section that he had just sacked me. Why does a Professor have to be treated like that? All my grant writing stopped afterwards, as I was waiting for the meeting to get sacked by Prof Screaton. This meeting, however, never took place. In March ’14 I then received the ultimatum email below. 200,000 pounds research income every year is required. Very interesting. I was never informed about this before and cannot remember that this is part of my contract with the College. Especially interesting is the fact that the required 200,000 pounds could potentially also be covered by smaller grants but in my case a programme grant was expected. Our 135,000 pounds from the University of Dammam? Doesn’t count. I have to say that it was a lovely situation to submit grant applications for your own survival with such a deadline. We all know what a lottery grant applications are. There was talk that the Department had accepted to be in dept for some time and would compensate this through more teaching. So I thought that I would survive. But the email below indicates otherwise. I got this after the student for whom I “have plans” received the official admission to the College as a PhD student. He waited so long to work in our group and I will never be able to tell him that this should now not happen. What these guys don’t know is that they destroy lives. Well, they certainly destroyed mine. The reality is that these career scientists up in the hierarchy of this organization only look at figures to judge their colleagues, be it impact factors or grant income. After all, how can you convince your Department head that you are working on something exciting if he not even attends the regular Departmental seminars? The aim is only to keep up the finances of their Departments for their own career advancement. These formidable leaders are playing an interesting game: They hire scientists from other countries to submit the work that they did abroad under completely different conditions for the Research Assessment that is supposed to gauge the performance of British universities. Afterwards they leave them alone to either perform with grants or being kicked out. Even if your work is submitted to this Research Assessment and brings in money for the university, you are targeted if your grant income is deemed insufficient. Those submitted to the research assessment hence support those colleagues who are unproductive but have grants. Grant income is all that counts here, not scientific output. We had four papers with original data this year so far, in Cell Death and Differentiation, Oncogene, Journal of Cell Science and, as I informed Prof Wilkins this week, one accepted with the EMBO Journal. I was also the editor of a book and wrote two reviews. Doesn’t count. This leads to a interesting spin to the old saying “publish or perish”. Here it is “publish and perish”. Did I regret coming to this place? I enormously enjoyed interacting with my science colleagues here, but like many of them, I fell into the trap of confusing the reputation of science here with the present reality. This is not a university anymore but a business with very few up in the hierarchy, like our formidable duo, profiteering and the rest of us are milked for money, be it professors for their grant income or students who pay 100 pounds just to extend their write-up status. If anyone believes that I feel what my excellent coworkers and I have accomplished here over the years is inferior to other work, is wrong. With our apoptosis genes and the concept of Anticancer Genes we have developed something that is probably much more exciting than most other projects, including those that are heavily supported by grants. Was I perhaps too lazy? My boss smugly told me that I was actually the one professor on the whole campus who had submitted the highest number of grant applications. Well, they were probably simply not good enough. I am by far not the only one who is targeted by those formidable guys. These colleagues only keep quiet out of shame about their situation. Which is wrong. As we all know hitting the sweet spot in bioscience is simply a matter of luck, both for grant applications and publications. Why does a Professor have to be treated like that? One of my colleagues here at the College whom I told my story looked at me, there was a silence, and then said: “Yes, they treat us like sh*t”. Best regards, Stefan Grimm

There is now a way for staff to register their opinions of their employers.The entries for Imperial College on Glassdoor.com suggest that bullying there is widespread (on contrast, the grumbles about UCL are mostly about lack of space).

Googling ‘imperial college employment tribunal’ shows a history of bullying that is not publicised. In fact victims are often forced to sign gagging clauses. In fairness, AcademicFOI.com shows that the problems are not unique to Imperial. Over 3 years (it isn’t clear which years), 810 university staff went to employment tribunals. And 5528 staff were gagged. Not a proud record Imperial’s Department of Medicine web site says that one of its aims is to “build a strong and supportive academic community”. Imperial’s spokesman said “Stefan Grimm was a valued member of the Faculty of Medicine”.

The ability of large organisations to tell barefaced lies never ceases to amaze me.

I asked Martin Wilkins to comment on the email from Grimm. His response is the standard stuff that HR issues on such occasions. Not a word of apology, no admission of fault. It says “Imperial College London seeks to give every member of its community the opportunity to excel and to create a supportive environment in which their careers may flourish.”. Unless, that is, your research is insufficiently expensive, in which case we’ll throw you out on the street at 51. For completeness, you can download Wilkins’ mail.

If anyone has more correspondence which ought to be known, please send it to me. I don’t reveal sources (if you prefer, use my non-College email david.colquhoun72 (at) gmail.com).

From: http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6834

Imperial College London to ‘review procedures’ after death of academic - A matter for his family?

Imperial College London is to examine its staff policies after the death of an academic who was believed to have been placed under a performance review.

Stefan Grimm, professor of toxicology in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial, was found dead in Northwood, Middlesex, in September. An inquest was opened and adjourned at the West London District Coroner’s Court on 8 October.

Speaking to Times Higher Education on condition of anonymity, two academics who knew Professor Grimm, who was 51, said that he had complained of being placed under undue pressure by the university in the months leading up to his death, and that he had been placed on performance review.

He is understood to have been unsuccessful in a number of grant applications, and to have been told that if he continued to struggle in this regard his job would be at risk.

The academics said Professor Grimm had felt let down by Imperial and did not feel he was given sufficient support in the months leading up to his death.

THE understands that shortly before he died, Professor Grimm asked not be named as the corresponding author on one of his recently published papers, and one of his colleagues took on the role instead.

A spokeswoman for Imperial said that the college would provide “all the assistance it can” as the statutory authorities conduct their investigation, and that the university was to conduct its own review.

“Following Professor Grimm’s death, Imperial’s provost has tasked the director of human resources and one of the college’s senior elected academic representatives to review the relevant college policies and procedures,” she said.

“Their report will be considered by a senior group led by the provost, and the college will move swiftly to implement any recommendations.”

Her statement also says: “Imperial College London seeks to give every member of its community the opportunity to excel and to create a supportive environment in which their careers may flourish.
“As with all serious and tragic events involving the loss of life of serving staff or current students, the college conducts appropriate reviews of the circumstances in order to see whether wider lessons may be drawn.

“At a time when family, friends, colleagues and students are still coming to terms with a death, it is important to undertake any reviews in a manner that respects these sensitivities, and that does not create a more difficult or challenging environment for those people.”

In response to claims that the university had not circulated information to colleagues of Professor Grimm, other than a short announcement of his death, the spokeswoman said she was “aware that a number of Stefan’s former colleagues and students have written an obituary and have submitted it to one of Nature’s publications”. She said that Imperial was “planning to republish this, with permission, when it appears”.

Details of Professor Grimm’s funeral, she added, were “a matter for the family”.

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/imperial-college-london-to-review-procedures-after-death-of-academic/2017188.article

Bullying at the Democratic Republic of bULlySTER University - An Introduction

In this first of an occasional series on the most despotic university in these islands, we would like to introduce you to the university's current dictator, President (definitely-not-for-life) Pritchard Farnett and his “Cabinet of Horrors”... sorry, I mean senior management team... Like many a uni expansionist Pritch interpreted BU's old motto "to build anew" rather too literally and has reduced both his finances and a big district of Belslow, literally to rubble. Possessed with unhealthy ambitions of college lebensraum "Bully Farnett" came unstuck with his central Belslow campus vision. In fact unlike the Pyongyang based Mr. Kim, Pritch met the fate of many erstwhile uni super-thugs, known in the murky trade of college politics as "Gadaffi's end". Pritch is now on life-support having recently been shafted by his University Council, and will not remain dictator indefinitely. Like the late Libyan Colonel, BU's “lame-duck” President finally got a touch of his own unpleasant medicine as the uni Council forgiving the concurrence of any two (but not three) Presidential neuroses, ultimately deduced their strong man possessed a super-abundance of them all-myopia, incompetence and odiousness. Slightly more reticent than his immediate predecessor, the ousted Gerry "Black Bush" McKenna (a BU despot famed for outrageous drunkenness at University Senate) Farnett prefers “delegated genocide", never wishing to get professorial blood on his decidedly off-the-peg suits. But like Gerry, Pritchy also espoused too literally the word "Vice" in "University Vice-Chancellorship" until his campus "killing fields" finally caught up with him.

There comes a time in every dictatorship when cupboards are just too full of academic corruption, closets unhealthily brimful of skeletons, and college basements overrun with the putrefying corpses of sacked lecturers. And so it came to pass that after almost a decade of staff harassment, financial mismanagement, dismal planning and ungodly governance, Pritch finally got it in his own nuts. So indeed even now Pritchard is busily packing his suitcases with his ill-gotten gains of college dictatorship, including his proudly sported Rolex - sorry name drop - , a bribe for passing all those illiterate students his university loves to recruit from the Middle East. Some would say that he single-handedly brought BU to its knees, but that would mean air-brushing out the rest of the college mafia, the top uni managers who collectively sunk the “good ship bULlySTER”. So with displeasure, I solemnly introduce to you Pritch's evil cabinet.....as horrible in appearance as they are singularly heartless. This is a university "A Team" which makes Capone's gangsters look like an ensemble of choir-boys.

Let’s start with a vulgar creature who might seem more lion-tamer than human resources gopher in BU's grisly Zoo, one Ronald MacDonald, the university's Chief Torturer and Executioner. This is a ghoulish man allegedly responsible for scores of destroyed careers, several staff suicides, numerous forced redundancies and whose very presence is enough to panic the university's immiserated working population. Ronald who allegedly found "student love" is to inter-personal relationships what Hannibal Letcher is to dinner-time entertainment. This self-confessed socio-path  particularly enjoys his job portfolio of "discipline" but rumours are his days are numbered. Having already been formally suspended, his sojourn as BU arch henchman may expire with his master's departure.

Also introducing Deborah Keenan, Minister of Mis - communication, a lady with a penchant for self-promotion, TV cameras and conjugating in uniform, and who at an early point in her career realized the best route to promotion was not a vertical trajectory but horizontal conviviality. "All frock and no filo-facts" Deborah had a brief career as a telly don until the questions finally proved too difficult under the glare of live TV. Intensely grilled by BBC bULlySTER journalists her sickly smile could no longer disguise her intellectual emptiness and she vanished amidst vapors of Austin's couture and cheap perfume.

Pugh Antenna is Chief of Research and Innovation, sometime country and western crooner and defrocked nurse with all the comforting manners of a pedophile priest. Always a bit crazy, Pugh’s start in mental health nursing was a good preparation for the mad-house of BU. It's oft said in health-care a good bed-side manner is critical but Pugh quickly became known in the uni as "`Nurse Death", harkening back to  his days as Southern Board’s cruel matron espousing the doctrine of "cure or kill". He's put those instincts to use flogging the university’s research arm.

Our Finance Chief (appropriately named) Pete Despair, has labored for years imaginatively mis-juggling the finances of a “no hope" uni. While employed to cook the university books, Pete is a discreet specimen who is actually better known for having almost lost his wife to the uni's former HR director, Brendan “Halifax" Hamilton. Brendan started off his career threatening trainee bank clerks! The latter's liaison with (and unlucky gift of a watch to) Mr. Despair's wife (dishonestly purloined with a university credit card) persuaded BU to call time on Hamilton’s job. Our friend "Axe man" Ronald MacDonald was instrumental in his former boss's demise! That left the Despair couple intact and despite the bad times for university finance, the name-card on Pete's door remains the only "hope" left in the entire campus.

We would also like to mention Fred Astaire, perhaps a reluctant thug, who asks forgiveness to his God at night for every poor soul he persecutes. Professor of Property Investment and an expert on the Built Environment, Fred may just be a little too principled for the rest of the management team. Not keen on the university's expansion plan he may survive Farnett's departure but somehow lacks the unwavering ruthlesness needed for the BU "killing machine". It remains to be seen whether he will suffer the fate of another college "year zero" or may yet be the liberator after years of oppression.

Then we have Richie Killar in Planning & Partnerships whose former department accidentally admitted scores of failed students. A man with a mission, this muscular (or maybe just overweight) Christian is proud to be a leading light of British Computing and can rugby-tackle the scrum of bULlySTER university politics. Indeed his rise was achieved at the expense of BU strong-woman Anne Moran. A former school teacher, Anne was dubbed “Miss Moron" but her sharpened stilettos bludgeoned their way to university power despite her impressive ignorance. Finally Prof Killar slew this she-dragon in a manner that would have made St George proud.

It is hard to find anything interesting to say about Davina MacBribster, Teaching and Learning Supremo except that like many health academics if you linger too long around her she is decidedly "bad for your health". Leading “Quality Assurance and Enhancement”, Davina would hardly recognize quality if it hit her with a rock.

Finally, Estates Director Faddy Donut the "man without a plan”. Trusted  to spin the uni's expansion and collect back-handers from property moguls, Faddy was almost sacked for being caught in coition with a former lady dean in a college store-room. Unlucky enough to be discovered by an evangelical security guard the latter's complaints about Faddy's impropriety could not be silenced. BU took the predicable decision to lance the boil. They promptly made the poor Christian security man forcibly redundant and let Faddy letch on.

That's all for now from the Democratic Republic of bULlySTER University. You've met the entire kitchen cabinet, the whole hellish rogue’s gallery. Next time we'll introduce you to the university deanship, known popularly as "Prich’s dunderheads" at least one of whom does not even possess an undergraduate degree. With such an august team of over-promoted dunces it is hardly surprising that some BU boffins think a "Dean's List" is something you'd find in a posh restaurant. So bon appétit from the cannibals of bULlySTER University!

Again...

During one of the many times I was bullied by my last department head while I was teaching, I suggested that we go to mediation. I thought that since we couldn't arrive at a resolution that we both could agree to by ourselves, perhaps a third party could help. Maybe there was something at least one of us were missing.

Did it help? Of course not. I only succeeded in making him mad. He pounded his fist on the table, said he wanted nothing to do with that "mediation BS" (or words to that effect) and added: "I will deal with you as your supervisor!" The fact that I suggested mediation, which he refused, meant nothing to the dean. He himself was only to glad to be rid of me and I'm sure my telling him that only made him more determined.

One word of advice. NEVER rely on your staff association or union. It may be working with the management as collaborators and, yes, it happened to me. My department head put all sorts of defamatory material in my personnel file without my knowledge. This was contrary to regulations as not only was I to receive copies of such submissions, I had the right to offer a rebuttal. The president of our staff association at the time received copies of that material, as did the dean. For some mysterious reason, not only was my name left off the circulation list, I had no knowledge of it.

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