Imperial College London: Why has no one resigned? Possibly because we are all culpable?

There has been a lot of coverage of the suicide of Professor Stefan Grimm of Imperial College London and the pressure he was under to fulfill the expectations of being a professor. These expectations were NOT about publishing, teaching, mentoring, invention, creativity or new intellectual frontiers. Instead they were about raising money for the University. In fact, they seemed to have very little to do with what a traditional understanding of a professorial role might involve.

Although there is quite a lot of published correspondence on this case (from and to Professor Grimm, and about him), it is unlikely that we will ever know the full story. Corridor conversations and backroom chats leave a scant evidential trail.

If a member of staff commits suicide because of pressure of work one would expect that workplace to ask serious questions about its practices and culture. One might even, from the point of view of human decency, expect a few resignations. After all, a human life has been finished and the suicide victim makes a direct link between his impending suicide and pressure from work. But, to the best of my knowledge, no one has resigned. A human being is dead. The blame lies at the door of the University. The University … well … continues as normal. So how can this be the case?

The primary answer lies in the fiction that Universities manage to create that they are systems rather than amalgams of people. Universities, through the prioritisation of a set of bureaucratic norms and officer-holders, have normalised the view that they are top-down corporate entities. A managerial class has always played a role in modern universities, but this class has grown in size and influence as universities have been forced to compete in a series of markets. By competing for students, research income, high achieving staff, and ‘impact stories’ a series of pernicious political economies have been created. Rather than collegiate environments based on scholarship, learning and creating space for innovation and thinking, many universities are being reduced to sales offices with academics serving as clerks for a new managerial class who wield coercive metrics.

The complex structure of universities – multiple committees and chains of command – means that very many of us are implicated in a coercive bureaucracy that is based on incentives and threats (that are often veiled but nonetheless real). By complying with very basic activities (such as uploading lists of our publications on University databases) we are fuelling the metrics that are then used to govern us. That is the pernicious thing about the system – we are all part of it. In the case of Stefan Grimm, it is convenient to look for individuals to blame (and I still hold out hope that human decency might spark a few resignations) but the real aggressor here is a system that we have all contributed to. We probably have bitched about it and groaned, but we have contributed to its construction and maintenance. We have been far too meek in pointing out the irrelevance of committees, metrics and placeholders to the real business of teaching, research and sharing creativity.

I have heard a few horror stories in recent weeks (from other universities) about how younger members of staff have been shouted at for not bringing in research income, and about how some staff members’ time has been bought out by 250% (surely illegal!). In cases like this, we can point to shoddy practice by individual managers – and hopefully they can be faced down as bullies. But the wider problem seems to be the system. We may not like the system, but we maintain it.

So what to do? I do not have a grand manifesto (but am all ears if anyone has one). Instead, I look at my own practice and the very small acts of resistance that I carry out. The first is not to take too seriously the managerial class and the narrative they perpetuate. Yes, we all have responsibilities in a collegiate environment, but my primary responsibility is to students and research – not necessarily to corporate goals. I will avoid listing the precise everyday resistance strategies that I use with the bureaucracy (I don’t want to get into trouble) but the general approach of not taking bureaucracy and bureaucrats too seriously seems to work. The second very small act of resistance is to try to encourage younger scholars to follow their own intellectual curiosity. Grants and publications will follow more readily than if they try to game the system by mechanistically targeting grants and ‘prestige’ journals. The third is to call undue pressure by one colleague on another what it is: bullying.

From: http://rogermacginty.com/2014/12/09/imperial-college-london-why-has-no-one-resigned-possibly-because-we-are-all-culpable/

Who Gets Targeted

...research findings from our year 2000 study and conversations with thousands of targets have confirmed that targets appear to be the veteran and most skilled person in the workgroup.

Targets are independent. They refuse to be subservient. Bullies seek to enslave targets. When targets take steps to preserve their dignity, their right to be treated with respect, bullies escalate their campaigns of hatred and intimidation to wrest control of the target's work from the target.
Targets are more technically skilled than their bullies. They are the "go-to" veteran workers to whom new employees turn for guidance. Insecure bosses and co-workers can't stand to share credit for the recognition of talent. Bully bosses steal credit from skilled targets.

Targets are better liked, they have more social skills, and quite likely possess greater emotional intelligence. They have empathy (even for their bullies). Colleagues, customers, and management (with exception to the bullies and their sponsors) appreciate the warmth that the targets bring to the workplace.

Targets are ethical and honest. Some targets are whistleblowers who expose fraudulent practices. Every whistleblower is bullied. Targets are not schemers or slimy con artists. They tend to be guileless. The most easily exploited targets are people with personalities founded on a prosocial orientation -- a desire to help, heal, teach, develop, nurture others.

Targets are non-confrontive. They do not respond to aggression with aggression. (They are thus morally superior.) But the price paid for apparent submissiveness is that the bully can act with impunity (as long as the employer also does nothing)...

From: http://www.workplacebullying.org/individuals/problem/who-gets-targeted/

Typical... As for UCU...

I would just like to add here my own experience.

Recently I won an unfair dismissal case against the University of Essex. I was dismissed, because I submitted a claim for permanency having worked there for over 5 years continuously on a sequence of 19 fixed-term contracts.

No procedure was followed, I was not granted any right during dismissal. I was not even informed about the reason for it. This made my dismissal unfair already. Regarding the reason, the key evidence was an email in which an HR Officer advised the Head of my Department as follows:

"X is pursuing her case for permanency... Was the intention that she would teach modules in the next academic year? I would advise against this if possible as ongoing teaching of modules each academic year can lead to claims for permanent employment."

This advice on its own is a clear cut breach of the law (Fixed-term Regulations). I represented myself in the case, since UCU recommended that I should settle with the University, i.e. accept their bribe.

Since the University lost this case at the Employment Tribunal, the HR Officer sending the above email has been promoted to become an HR Manager. I have not heard anything and have not met anyone from the University since. It seems that I have been wiped out of history from their point of view.

Anonymous

President Dicky’s Christmas Message

This will be my last seasonal message to you as your Dictator at Bulster University, those of you who are still lucky enough to be employed, and in celebration of that positive thought I encourage you to give thanks in the University Chapel every day. For those of you who have been pointed or even dragged screaming, feet-first, to redundancy, early retirement or have fallen ill in service this year, I want you to see it as a new door that had opened for you, and return all Bulster property before our security team summarily escort you off the premises.

It has been a hard year for Bulster. Things have not quite worked out with DEL and thanks to government cut-backs we are running a bit short of money and students. We are having a few difficulties with our “Build Belfast” campaign and those pesky property moguls keep upping the “bakseesh” on us. I’ve even started to get worried about my own properties and doubt I’ll ever get tenants for them. And even worse, the Saudis owe us £2 million which I was relying on for a few readies at Christmas, and many of Bulster’s emerging market investments have just not emerged! In fact things are so bad I think I can now appreciate what happened to my old friend Gerry Jameson, and I hope you can sympathise how distressing it is for those of us in power when things go a bit pear-shaped.

The great thing is that at Bulster, we are all in this together and we are all making sacrifies to try to get Bulster back on its feet, and ready for your new dictator, sorry I mean new President. I myself have been making personal cut-backs. Where possible I’ve been making do with upper class rather than a sky-suite unless its a particularly long flight. I never use a hotel with more than 5*- no 7* opulent palaces for me, fellow Bulsters! Bulster never quite recovered from that time Gerry spent 25k on a weekend with the girls a la Peninsula in Hong Kong! And you can appreciate the great saving on booze alone during my time compared with Gerry has allowed us to put a penny or two by! Every little helps!

I know some of you have been worried about the amount of money we’ve been spending on legal bills and employment tribunals and this kind of thing. Personally I think it would be far cheaper if we could just assassinate these dissident members of staff, and an old mate I used to run into in the Lodge Hotel even told me he knew a few boys who had quit the paramilitary racket and were going free-lance. But my henchman “Mad Bonnie” whose had a bit of a run in with the peelers recently himself, tells me a shooting or two on campus might not look so good for our post-conflict institute, so he’s persuaded me instead that selective internment might be the thing to deal with these niggly complainers!

Those of you who might be inclined to think of my past decade as a bit of a black time, might take sympathy from what those CIA fellows said recently defending torture and counter-terrorism. When Gerry blew the budget on us, we all had our own terrible 9/11 here at University House. Desperate times demand desperate remedies. And I also want to tell you that all those stories about water-boarding and electric torture in the Tower basement were greatly exaggerated. I never authorised “Mad Bonnie” to use anything stronger than knuckle-dusters and in extremis his University-issued taser. Gee  thanks to “Mad Bonnie” and me, Bulster’s a walking PANORAMA  investigative report waiting to happen!

And let me just squash that rumour that I’d closed the SCR to turn it into a “listening post”. Don’t believe everything those lefty no-gooders in the union might tell you. Most of them need a good kick up the arse! Anyways we needed the SCR for all those Arab fellows with their special diets, only they aren’t coming any more….I thought once they gave me a magic carpet and a Rolex we were best mates, I even read a bit of the Quran  in anticipation…Now they aren’t even answering my calls…..
Christmas always makes me feel emotional. It hardly seems like yesterday that I led the palace coup, and was full of excitement in my early days of dictatorship. Believe me it gets lonely at the top. I spend far too much time with “Mad Bonnie” and he really smells kinda garlicly of Sodium pentothal  and that other “truth serom” stuff  he must have down there in the Bulster dungeons. That banking fellow on Council is too smart for his own boots, and Jimmy never returns my calls either. I suppose he might be off somewhere on a Hobbit movie.

Recently I’ve been asking myself what I’ve got to show for it? True I’ve had a fat pay-packet for a while, a nice pad, luxury foreign travel and I’ve a bit of pension for a rainy day- yeah a few millions worth! But QUB laughed at me when I put in for their vacancy and to be honest I haven’t made the short-list anywhere else. In fact I didn’t even get a reply when I inquired about heading up a miserly FE college. And those buggers in Stormont have blocked me from getting any medals, never mind a gong. Even my cleaner has an MBE for some shitty Ballysally Community initiative, and here I am a hard-working dictator and no-one’s thought to award me anything.

Didn’t my fellow dictator, President Idi Amin, have all sorts of medallions on his uniform and wasn’t he just a humble Ugandan soldier? I’m wondering if I should follow Idi’s example and go off into exile in one of those Arab states. Maybe the Saudis would offer me some kind of retirement post in lieu  of the £2 Million they still owe Bulster! Life is so hard for former dictators- I’m just remembering what happened to that dead Chilean President, General Pinochet - it got to the stage where he couldn’t leave the country for fear of rendition to some foreign court in handcuffs! Gee I might end up like “Mad Bonnie” being questioned by the local police or being stopped at the airport!

And now I’m gonna have to get used to a life without servants and waiters and all the perks that go with having a University Mansion. I’m gonna have to down-size badly and maybe put some stuff into storage, especially those Arab rugs and things- they’re so bulky, and not maybe my best memory of good old Bulster! Gotta get things ready for the new man…..Succession-planning we modern dictators call it. Better try to make a start with that at the Christmas hols. “Bonnie’s” kindly offered to lend me a hand if he’s out of work by then, and Dean Raisin gave me a cup of tea and a bun yesterday- its good to have friends... now its only me and the dog.

And talking about dogs! I just can’t understand why thev’ve all gone and bitten me as I thought I was a good master. I was only just chatting to a few of the union boys in BA’s lounge last week (terrible the riff raff they let in these days) and we agreed it was all down to a couple of loud-mouths. After all Olly and the others bought the union off a long time ago. There’s hardly a true socialist among them apart maybe from that ideological girlie, and the union heavies have muscled her. Now even the footballers hate me and there’s talk the entire staff will boycott my farewell do, apart from of course “Bonnie” but he might have to get day-release to attend.

Well I’d better get on with the rest of my Christmas cards. Let me sign off now with Presidential seasons greetings to all of you of any faith or none! And in the true spirit of Christmas I’ve told everyone they can go home an hour early on 24th December but don’t abuse the privilege or it’ll be taken off you in 2015.

“Season’s Greetings from Your Vice(y) Chancellor & President”

President’s New Year’s Resolutions: “Beware of Saudis bearing gifts” - “Don’t trust a banker when he says he’s here to help” - “Watch your enemies, and your friends even closer” - “As ever, His Excellency Dicky”

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.

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/

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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.

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