Bullying in Academe

Bullying behavior at your institution can result in lawsuits, high employee turnover costs, productivity declines, low morale and many other problems, writes Raymonda Burgman.

June 15, 2016

By Raymonda Burgman

Are you trying to lead a committee, department, unit, school, college, university or group through change yet have a bully on your team?

Whenever you meet with colleagues to discuss a change project, this person “aids” the team in eliminating information she says is not germane to the group’s scope of work or charge. As other team members start to speak, this person interrupts and changes the topic. Team members leave the meeting saying how productive the meeting was because they got to the heart of the matter. But the actual fact is that they do not know how to respond to the chilly climate during the meeting because they feel threatened or humiliated. And each feels isolated, thinking he or she is the only one who perceives the comments as harsh and off-putting.

You are not the only one experiencing such situations. According to Morgan State University professor Leah P. Hollis, in Bully in the Ivory Tower: How Aggression and Incivility Erode American Higher Education, more than 60 percent of respondents in an independent study of 175 four-year colleges reported experiencing workplace bullying, compared to less than 40 percent of the general public.

A biting email message, excluding a colleague from the office happy hour invitation or using the silent treatment when asked for an opinion about a new idea proposed by a colleague -- these all are forms of manipulation that we now recognize as bullying. If a supervisor or colleague removes areas of responsibility without explanation, yells at employees in public, constantly monitors employees or sabotages or discounts the quality of an employee’s work, it’s bullying.

The University of Louisville Ombuds Office offers their campus a self-help guide on bullying and succinctly defines bullying as “repeated, unreasonable actions of individuals (or a group) directed toward an employee (or a group of employees), which is intended to intimidate and creates a risk to the health and safety of the employee(s).” In the academic environment, bullying derails not only our hopes for a collaborative workplace but also the learning and discovery that are our mission. And with so many people impacted, you can imagine the emotional and psychological toll: anxiety, insomnia, low morale, trouble concentrating and fear of humiliation.

In 2014, HERS partnered with several organizations to look at the pathways to senior leadership in higher education. The research, in which 35 women presidents and senior officers were interviewed, described positive and negative aspects of being top leaders in their respective institutions. Two negative aspects are eerily similar to bullying: scrutiny and criticism, and not fitting in or being heard. Resistance to change and lack of buy-in, in their most extreme forms, are also bullying.

Statistically, men perpetrate most bullying in the workplace, but women are more likely to bully other women and tend to use less explicit forms of bullying. Women may not physically bully, but they will use verbal or indirect bullying, social alienation, intimidation bullying, or cyberbullying. If you witness such incidents, you may question whether you left bullying on a grade school playground.

The High Cost of Bullying

For the leader who encounters a bully on her team, here are some reasons why you should take action.

Usually bullying is about fear and insecurity. Differences in others make some people uncomfortable and foretell troubling consequences if such behavior runs rampant on your campus for faculty members, administrators and students from diverse backgrounds. In her research, Hollis found that bullies disproportionately target women, African-Americans and members of the LGBTQA community. And if your college or university is pursuing vigorous diversity and inclusion initiatives, such groups will be greatly affected if a systemic bullying problem exists. The people your institution most wants to attract, retain and develop may have the shortest employment or time on your campus. Those targeted by a bully tend to lose their jobs or quit.

The cost of such staff turnover is high. Some researchers believe workplace bullying costs at a minimum $250 million annually throughout all workplaces. Consider replacing a chief career services administrator. According to data from the College and University Professional Association of Human Resources, the average salary for a person in that position is $74,423, and a conservative estimate is that direct replacement costs will range from 40-60 percent of that salary, or almost $45,000 at the upper end. The total turnover cost, which includes an assortment of benefits, search costs and other impacts to your campus, ranges from 90-200 percent of the employee’s salary. In the worst case, that means it may cost almost $150,000 to replace a single employee.

Can your campus afford to lose $1.5 million because 10 employees voluntarily leave your campus due to avoidable dysfunction? Employee retention especially matters today, given the limited financial resources available on many campuses.

And, in addition to such high turnover costs, your institution may face potential lawsuits, health care costs and productivity declines as a result of bullying behavior. At the very least, in a collaborative work environment, a bully or bullies will impede you from reaching desired outcomes.

Options to Pursue

How can you as an institutional leader help lessen the risk and incidences of bullying -- potentially saving money and building campus morale? Taking action by learning to be a better ally is best for handling and reducing the risk of bullying. Developing people is the business of higher education, and when we work together to reach our goals, we are at our best.

A bully often lacks empathy, so you must teach and require this conduct if you are to make headway against bullying behavior. And you can’t assume that only certain types of people will engage in such behavior -- anyone can be a bully -- which is why you should make “no bullying” a broad mandate.
As you begin forming a no-bullying (and healthy) work environment, ask yourself and colleagues these three simple questions:

1. Does your supervisor have a positive attitude?
2. Does the administration respect all employees?
3. Do your colleagues respect you?

Answering these questions will help you identify the depth and breadth of campus programs needed for faculty members, administrators and students. Sponsoring or championing a course or workshop on ethics and civility in higher education -- open to all students, faculty and staff -- can serve as a signal of community standards of behavior. An active human resources department, which guides people and develops clear policies about bullying, as well as spaces and systems that allow employees to voice discomfort or concerns, is also important.

You must communicate and ensure that bullying behavior won’t be tolerated in any setting at any time. It’s for the greater good to have collaborative work environments where all employees are valued and appreciated.

At the heart of every campus are people who aren’t looking for salvation for one target of bullying but liberation for all of us as we pursue new modes of operation and systems. As campus leaders, our principal strength is that we are not lone agents of good. We can reach out and work with other people to eradicate bullying and create and sustain a community of thinkers, dreamers, learners and innovators. Bullying is everyone’s issue.

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/15/advice-dealing-bullying-behavior-essay?utm_content=bufferfad27&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=IHEbuffer

Abuse of Phd students

My PhD was a complete setup at Brunel university London. They accidentally sent me an email where one of the professors threatened to send me one of her scary emails (ONE OF HER SCARY EMAILS!!!). In a bid to cover up I got a letter of withdrawal in response to my complaint about the email. The review panel of doctors included one that advised me to use hard drug (YES HARD DRUGS) and I have a witness on the day he advised. The other two are addicted to nicotine gum (which results in bipolar). Sadly, one of them was my supervisor. I intend to fight for my right. Can anyone give me advice on how to bring this unworthy group down? Advise is needed. Oh, and I do have copies of the emails which they accidentally sent to me.

Anonymous

DEFENSIBLE ELIMINATIONS

Kenneth Westhues, 2006

The single best way to understand academic mobbing is to study many different cases of it, thereby to grasp the core reality amidst its many different expressions, details, and circumstances. 

Documentation on many such cases is available online (some recent ones here, for example), in my five books on this subject, on many other websites and in many other books.

A complementary way to understand academic mobbing is to study instances of professors being punished or losing their jobs that do not qualify as mobbing cases. One learns to recognize this organizational pathology the same way one does a poisonous plant: by inspecting not only varied specimens in varied locales but also a variety of nonpoisonous look-alikes. One way to grasp what academic mobbing is is to study examples of what it is not.

Below are four examples of professorial elimination that do not quite capture what academic mobbing means, though they resemble it in some respects. I hope to add further examples to this webpage in coming months — toward the end of bringing the subject of study into still sharper focus.

(1) Valery Fabrikant's loss of his job at Concordia University in 1992, and his imprisonment for life. There is a great deal of evidence, especially in the 1994 report by Harry Arthurs et al (summarized in the perceptive article by Morris Wolfe), of a process of administrative mobbing targeting Fabrikant in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is not far-fetched to understand his shooting spree in August of 1992, resulting in the deaths of four colleagues, as having been precipitated by many years of ill-treatment, harassment, shunning, and humiliation. Yet once Fabrikant had lashed back at his tormentors in murderous rage, there was nothing to do but lock him away. His being convicted of murder and imprisoned on that account does not deny his talent as an engineer or professor, nor should it be seen as retrospective justification of the earlier ill-treatment of him. But no fanatic ganging up at all is implied by the elimination not just from the university but from a free society of a man who has committed multiple murders. (For further discussion of the Fabrikant case, see Eliminating Professors, Chapter 10.)

(2) The firing of Lana Nguyen at the University of Regina in 2001. The Regina administration was prepared to let Nguyen resign quietly (a common indicator of non-mobbing) until news of her offense was leaked to the press. Only then did it commission the public inquiry by Stuart McKinnon and Constance Rooke, which laid out the facts of the case in detail. Essentially, Nguyen was an imposter. Holding only an undergraduate degree, she had laid claim to the PhD earned by her ex-husband and used it to land a position on Regina's engineering faculty. Students had protested en masse against her teaching. Her lawyer argued that male faculty, administrators, and/or students had ganged up on her. There may or may not have been some truth in that allegation, but the fact remains that she committed a clear offense, major falsification of credentials, and was not at all qualified to teach in an engineering faculty. Ganged up on or not, she deserved to lose her job. (For further discussion of the Nguyen case, see The Envy of Excellence, pp. 210, 228.)

(3) Eric Poehlman's resignation from the Universities of Vermont in 2001 and of Montreal in 2005. According to a press release in 2005, from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Poehlman admitted that he falsified and fabricated data in articles and grant applications about his medical research. A student working with him had discovered the fraud and reported it to university authorities. While under investigation at Vermont in 2001, Poehlman moved to an endowed chair at Montreal. Investigations continued by both the University of Vermont and the U.S. government, which had funded his research. As investigators unearthed ever more conclusive evidence of his fraud and as criminal charges came to be laid, Poehlman decided to admit guilt and settle with the U.S. government. He resigned from the University of Montreal in January of 2005. This case appears from press reports as one involving a clear, academically fatal offense by a professor highly regarded by administrators and colleagues at both Vermont and Montreal. It does not at all appear to qualify as a mobbing case.

(4) The dismissal of history professor Leo Johnson from the University of Waterloo in 1983. Having worked with Johnson and read some of his work, I can personally attest to his talent and assiduity as an historian and teacher. Being a Marxist, he was not popular with the Waterloo administration, and he had never completed his Ph.D., but he survived on the faculty well enough until 1982, when he was charged and then pled guilty to nine counts of indecently assaulting young girls, and one count of having sexual intercourse with a girl under 14 years of age. He was sentenced to two years in prison. The university faced the choice of granting him unpaid leave to serve his prison term or firing him. Following the policy and procedures then in place, the university chose the latter. Then and now, I believe this was the right decision. Criminal conviction should not automatically result in a professor's dismissal. It depends on the crime. Sexual predation on children seems to me, as to most people, an offense more than serious enough to warrant elimination from a university position. (For further discussion of the Johnson case, see The Envy of Excellence, p. 36.)

http://www.kwesthues.com/defensible.htm

The many faces of Prof. Hassan Abdalla...

The one on the right...

Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university

 Abstract

This article investigates processes of neoliberalization of the academy. It argues that neoliberalism entails shifts from exchange to competition, from equality to inequality,and turns academics into human capital. It suggests that auditing systems are key mechanisms of neoliberalization that produce unhealthylevels of anxiety and stress in the academy. This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the neoliberal production of anxiety in academic faculty members in universities in Northern Europe. The paper focuses on neoliberalization as it is instantiated through audit and ranking systems designed to produce academia as a space of economic efficiency and intensifying competition. We suggest that powerful forms of competition and ranking of academic performance have been developed in Northern Europe. These systems are differentiated and differentiating,and they serve to both index and facilitate the neoliberalization of the academy. Moreover, these audit and ranking systems produce an ongoing sense of anxiety among academic workers. We argue that neoliberalismin the academy is part of a wider system of anxiety production arising as part of the so-called soft governance of everything, including life itself, in contemporary late liberalism.

Introduction

...Why might we care about this? Perhaps the recent death of Professor Stefan Grimm of Imperial College, London, provides a particularly graphic example of the impact that rising levels of anxiety and stress are having in the academy. It also illustrates how that stress is linked directly to systems of “performance assessment.” Professor Grimm was found dead in his home in September of 2014 after complaining that he was to be fired by Imperial College for failure to meet professorial grant “income targets” of £200,000 per annum as a Principal Investigator (PI) (Colquhoun 2014; Parr 2014a, 2014b, 2015). One month after his death— which was ruled to be a suicide by asphyxiation—an email was sent from Professor Grimm’s Gmail account to colleagues at Imperial College that outlined what he deemed to be his poor treatment. This email stated:

On May 30th 13 my boss came into my office together with his PA and ask[ed] 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...

There are, of course, other signs of the rising levels of anxiety and stress amongst university faculty. The Guardian newspaper, for example, has put together a collection of more than 40 articles under the title Mental Health: The University in Crisis and with the by-line: “Mental health issues have become a growing problem among students and academics. This series will uncover a hidden side to university life ” (The Guardian n.d.). The New York Times recently published an article about the rise of suicide deaths on campus, linking many of these deaths to the “ culture of perfection ” that predominates in university settings, especially among academic faculty members (Scelfo 2015). This is not surprising given existing levels of work-related psychological stress in the academy...

Complete paper at: https://goo.gl/wkOczp

Tenure Denied - Dartmouth College

At Dartmouth, an Asian-American professor receives unanimous English department backing and is rejected at higher levels. The same happened to a black historian at the college. Many see a disturbing pattern. Tenure denials happen all the time, and they’re most often accepted by fellow professors and students as an unpleasant byproduct of the tenure system. But sometimes such denials rock an institution.

That’s what’s happening now at Dartmouth College, regarding the failed bid of Aimee Bahng, an assistant professor of English who faculty members and students alike say deserves a permanent position on campus. Beyond Bahng, concerned professors say the case speaks to bigger questions about commitments to minority faculty members, interdisciplinary research and shared governance at Dartmouth and beyond.

“The issue of faculty governance at Dartmouth is a heated one, and it extends to broader issues than [this] tenure case -- though that has been a trigger for many of the broader discussions we're having now -- and though it is widely perceived as unjust and shortsighted,” said Annelise Orleck, a professor of history at Dartmouth who criticized the tenure decision at a recent town hall about the findings of a campus climate survey. Several hundred faculty members, students and staff reportedly were in attendance.

In addition to the town hall, professors and students have taken their protest to Twitter under the hashtags #fight4facultyofcolor and #dontdoDartmouth; the latter features students and academics advising would-be applicants to avoid the institution. Public details on Bahng’s bid are few, and she did not respond to a request for comment. But fellow faculty members confirmed that she was unanimously approved by the department's tenure committee. Her bid fell short higher up in review chain, which includes the associate dean, the dean of the faculty and the arts and sciences faculty’s Committee Advisory to the President.

Dartmouth says it’s bound by confidentiality surrounding the tenure process, but that unanimous department decisions don’t always lead to tenure. And that’s true -- the departmental tenure committee merely makes a recommendation. Yet at many institutions, it’s rare for a unanimous faculty vote to be overturned. Orleck and others on campus say Bahng’s case is similar to several others in recent years, in which department votes for tenure and unanimous recommendations for tenure by outside reviewers are overruled by deans or the Committee Advisory to the President.

A number allegedly have been faculty members of color who were respected by their colleagues and students. One such case is that of Derrick White, now a visiting associate professor of history. White did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but his name and failed tenure bid last year -- despite the unanimous vote of his departmental peers and outside reviewers -- have been mentioned in many of the conversations about Bahng.

 In short, the most recent case appears to be something of the last straw on a campus that’s already facing criticism for what many see as a lack of commitment to diversity...

More info: https://goo.gl/BlkVP6

Useless UNISON...

I have been a UNISON member for just under 10 years. I ended up being disciplined and even though the process is still ongoing I believe and has been so for nearly two years, the rep clearly has not read any of the papers. When I put this to him in Jan 2016 and expressed my frustration that despite me explaining verbally to him and providing him with all the information he has requested he still doesn't understand. I am in a bullying situation and UNISION say that I have not followed advice so have refused representation...

Anonymous

UCU is not much better...

Charles Mitchell

http://www.paintinginitaly.com/charles-mitchel-painting-tutor

Bullying happens in academia

I REFER to the letter “Dealing with bullies at work” (The Star, April 15). One such place where bullying often occurs but unknown to most is academia, although university administrators may deny this. The hard truth is bullying in the form of mobbing, camouflaged aggression and harassment exists within academia.

Academics are surprised to experience hazing as those with genuine and good qualifications but from less prestigious universities are continually treated as second-class academics at best by those who graduated from elite universities. Those from lesser-known colleges are often ridiculed even if they can hold their own ideas and defend them. Their fault is the lower rank of their alma mater.

Academics are also bullied by administrators who get them to show support for certain individuals when well-known personalities visit the campus.

Compulsory attendance is a definite method to fill the hall, and a full hall augurs well for the administrators and makes the prominent visitors feel welcomed and comfortable. The postponement of classes to attend these functions doesn’t matter to the administrators. What matters is the acceptable turnout in the hall to please the guests and put the administrators in a good light.

This method is also used to fill the hall to listen to top management outlining the future plan of the university. Attendance is recorded electronically and an academic’s presence or absence will be easily detected. His/her absence is taken to mean that he/she does not have the shared vision of the top management.

This will be used to deny him/her leave, travelling and subsistence allowances when opportunities come to attend and to present papers at a conference.

The difficulty in finding time for replacement classes is the problem of the academics even though it was initiated by the administrators. To solve the problem, academics would do a “speed up” or summary of the lessons or considered the period as cancelled and the topic done.

Presenting papers at conferences abroad is an opportunity for academics to promote their institutions, travel abroad and share their findings and ideas with other academics. But procedures as prescribed by the universities are like invisible barriers discouraging the academics from going.

Attending international conferences locally or abroad is challenging. The acceptance of a paper is testament to its quality as confirmed by a conference’s committee after being scrutinised for its worthiness. Despite this, it is still subjected to approval by the faculty’s or the university’s committees.

A junior academic and those from lesser-known universities may find their papers being rejected perhaps out of envy or jealousy by senior academics who sit on the committees.

To overcome the obstacle and out of fear his/her application may not be approved, he/she may endorse the administrators and/or those seniors as co-writers. Thus, instead of 100% credit as author, he/she has to share it with the “co-authors”. Worse he/she may feel obliged to name the administrators or senior academics as the lead authors. This is tantamount to blackmail and corruption although no money is involved.

Why join the academia? The answer normally centres on love for teaching, writing and research. But over and above these, an academic has to be involved in several activities and hold administrative posts to help his/her faculty.

Though the involvement is voluntary in nature, many academics will admit that they have to comply with the wishes of the administrators. Their high marks in teaching, writing and research will be deemed useless if there is hardly any non-academic contribution.

Those returning with PhDs, hoping that their specialisation will contribute to a university’s academic advancement through research and writing, are also not spared. What surprises them – and is a loss to a university – is their placement as administrators rather than as academics. This defeats the purpose of having a specialist.

In this age of electronic communication, to gain access and quick response, many heads of department set up their own complaint blog online or on Facebook to get feedback from students. Some students have no qualms ganging up on academics. They want excuses to explain their own poor performance and grades and may not hesitate to undermine the genuine efforts of the academics and hold them to ransom. As an analogy, football referees will testify that those who are quick to voice their dissatisfaction are normally from the losing team.

No one deserves to be humiliated, undermined, insulted, shunned, marginalised, ganged up on or even spoken to harshly in any workplace. Academics are no exception.

DR ARZMI YAACOB
Retired academic
Subang Jaya

http://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/letters/2016/04/26/bullying-happens-in-academia/ 

Ian Farren