2016 Highlights...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: Effects of Psychological Harassment: 'Individual Effects Many studies show that psychological harassment has extremely negative effects for individuals...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: Mr Elkadi...: "...As someone with an inherent knowledge of Elkadi, having had him as a head of school I can confirm his management practices can be...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: A living nightmare - 'Prof' Platon Alexiou...: This man presents himself as a real 'Professor' - In fact he has not written a single scientific paper... This man presents himself...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: The Australian National University... [With links....: A little over a year ago the Canberra Times, the local newspaper in Australia’s capital city,  ran a story...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: Bullying and Discrimination at University of Leice...: My name is Max Casu; I was a mature Ph.D. student at the UoL. Unfortunately all my excitements about the above Ph.D. turned into...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: The many faces of Prof. Hassan Abdalla...: The one on the right...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: Ulster's Academic Genocide - Year Zero With Vc "Ba...: Readers of this site will be familiar with the bullying that's befallen Deakin University. Here in the UK, Ulster University recently...

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: 'Professor' David Vaughan...: What allegation was made against 'Professor' David Vaughan, and why did police go to his house?

Bullying of Academics in Higher Education: Ian Farren

Ex-Stanford professor: I was pushed out after reporting sexual harassment

Stephen Hinton wouldn’t leave her alone. After Michelle Karnes politely rejected the Stanford professor and former dean, according to her complaint, he didn’t back down.

It was July 2012, and he allegedly told Karnes, then an untenured professor, that he had a “crush” on her and was “tormented” by his feelings. She said she made clear she didn’t want further contact. But Hinton – a powerful faculty member who had hired her – allegedly continued to confront her at the gym, telling her he wasn’t “stalking”, but wanted to talk.

“I just wanted to crawl out of my skin, I was so uncomfortable,” Karnes, 42, said in an interview. “I was really scared.”

A university investigation of Karnes’ sexual harassment complaint concluded that Hinton, who is 20 years older, had made an “unwanted sexual advance”, but it’s unclear if the professor faced any consequences. On the contrary, Karnes says that administrators retaliated against her for speaking up and pushed her out of Stanford.

Hinton vigorously denied the allegations, claiming they had a “platonic, reciprocal relationship” and pointing out that a university investigation concluded his conduct did not constitute sexual harassment.

From Karnes’ perspective, however, the university went to great lengths to protect a senior faculty member and silence his accuser, prioritizing the institution’s reputation over her wellbeing.

Her story comes on the heels of numerous sexual misconduct controversies at Stanford, one of America’s most prestigious universities, and as women in academia across the US have increasingly spoken up about assault, harassment and discrimination.


Karnes’ story boosts the claims of Stanford students and faculty who argue that the institution has policies and a broader culture that systematically fail to acknowledge the problem, leading administrators to punish victims while not holding perpetrators accountable...

More info at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/19/ex-stanford-professor-i-was-pushed-out-after-reporting-sexual-harassment

Imperial College review reveals 'bullying behaviour'

The pursuit of excellence at one of the UK’s top universities has helped to create a culture of bullying, discrimination and fear, according to a report.

The report, based on a year-long research project at Imperial College London, heard that staff at the institution are too scared to speak out about problems, leaving them vulnerable, unheard or undermined.

Imperial’s provost, James Stirling, said that the institution must do better and was committed to gender equality.

The institution commissioned researchers from the University of Sussex’s Centre for Gender Studies to look at gender equality at the institution because of events at student Varsity rugby matches last year.

The university apologised to the women’s rugby team after they were left playing to an empty stadium when the coaches ferrying spectators back to campus were allowed to leave early.
The team had alleged that they were treated unfairly compared with the men’s team and that a member of staff was overheard saying that they did not care “how those fat girls” got home, although an investigation found no evidence of the verbal abuse.

The research project collected data from almost 250 staff and students through in-depth interviews, focus groups, an open text survey and an anonymous blog. The researchers also used documentary analysis and observations at the college.

The full report has not been made public but an 11-page review document was circulated among staff by email on 9 December and has been published on Imperial's website.

It says the research found that Imperial's focus on excellence "had served the College well in many ways" but "this dominant focus had a negative impact on wellbeing and social equity".

“There were many examples given to the researchers of bullying and discriminatory behaviour…Bullying also intersected with categories such as class, gender (and gender identity), race, disability and sexual orientation,” says the review document.

Many of those questioned linked bullying and discrimination with the “'elite’ white masculinity” of the majority of the staff population, according to the report. “Examples of misogynistic and homophobic conduct were given and one interviewee expressed concern that the ‘ingrained misogyny’ at Imperial was so deep that it had become normal,” it adds.

The report also found that staff felt senior management would turn a blind eye to the poor behaviour of people deemed valuable to the university.

Despite a no-tolerance stance on harassment and bullying and support initiatives for those affected, the research found that staff and students did not speak up about issues. Participants said they did not speak out because they feared nothing would be done, that they would lose their jobs or that it would make matters worse.

“'Speaking up’ also intersected with equalities issues, and women in particular reported being silenced in various ways,” according to the review.

Many of those who took part in the research said that the sector-wide gender initiative Athena SWAN was seen as little more than a “box ticking exercise” that had “provided a veneer” to hide inequality at the university.

“There was a feeling from some participants that the College did not promote equality and diversity at all…The researchers noted that it is difficult to promote equality and diversity within an institution which is ‘so profoundly gendered, classed and raced’,” says the document.

Participants reported a lack of community spirit at the university and said that departments were played off against each other. Staff and students also said that they felt that asking for support was viewed as “shameful, weak and evidence of failure”.

In a news article about the report published on Imperial’s website, Professor Stirling said: “We strongly believe that Imperial is only a world-class institution because of our talented, diverse community. We want everyone at the College to feel supported, respected, and able to excel. That is why we are committed to ensuring gender equality and eradicating sexist behaviour wherever we can, at all levels.

“These findings remind us that we cannot stand still. We must do better,” he said, adding that the process may not be easy.

“I am confident that by working together we can create as supportive and inclusive an environment as we can, since that is what all our staff and students deserve,” he said.

Last year, Imperial carried out a review of its use of performance metrics after the suicide in 2014 of Stefan Grimm, a professor of toxicology at the institution who had been told he was “struggling to fulfil the metrics” of a professorial post.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/imperial-college-review-reveals-bullying-behaviour

19 Former Psychiatry Faculty Sue Dartmouth Over Layoffs

Nineteen former faculty members of the psychiatry department at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine have filed a lawsuit alleging that the college violated their employment contracts and college policy that entitled them to severance payments when it laid them off.

Diana Lawrence, a college spokeswoman, said officials had no comment on the lawsuit.

The dispute is the latest to arise in the wake of the college’s moves to erase what officials had estimated was an annual deficit approaching $30 million at Geisel.

As part of what officials described as a restructuring, Geisel’s entire psychiatry department was transferred to Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Most of the department’s clinical research faculty and staff were let go by the college and hired by the medical center.

“Responsibility for the employment, finances, and operational support for clinical research programs, as well as the clinical practice of psychiatry” was transferred to D-H on July 1, according to the college’s audited financial statement.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in Grafton Superior Court by Norwich attorney Geoffrey Vitt, says that in April 2016, Geisel informed the plaintiffs and most other faculty in the psychiatry department that their positions were being eliminated.

“Some, but not all, affected employees” were offered jobs at D-H, the lawsuit says.

D-H is a health system with ties to Dartmouth but has its own financial and governance structures.

Employees who left Dartmouth and went to work at D-H found “material differences in the compensation and benefits” at the health system, the lawsuit alleges.

About 250 employees of Geisel’s psychiatry department and clinical research units got jobs at D-H, according to D-H’s audited financial statement for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

That year, Dartmouth posted a $112 million loss from operations that included a $53.5 million charge for “restructuring expenses” at Geisel for such items as severance pay, endowment transfers, rents and the services of consultants, according to the financial statement.

That cost could rise if the former Dartmouth psychiatry faculty members prevail in their lawsuit.

The former employees who signed on to the lawsuit, including 12 physicians and three full professors, had a combined 211 years of employment at the college, according to their complaint.

Those hired before June 20, 2011, are entitled to two weeks of pay for each year of service, up to 52 weeks, according to the lawsuit, which cites a Dartmouth “separation of employment” policy. The roster of plaintiffs in the lawsuit includes 12 faculty members with service ranging from nine to 27 years. That same policy entitles more recently hired employees to at least two weeks of pay, or to one week of pay for each year of service, up to 26 weeks, the lawsuit says.

The policy guarantees all of those laid off a cash payment equal to the college’s contribution over three months to their health plans, the lawsuit says.

“Nothing in the layoff policies excludes PhD or MD-level employees,” the lawsuit says.

http://www.vnews.com/Members-of-Psychiatry-Faculty-Moved-to-Dartmouth-Hitchcock-Sue-Dartmouth-6499142

The Australian National University... [With links...]

A little over a year ago the Canberra Times, the local newspaper in Australia’s capital city, ran a story announcing that the insurance premiums paid by the Australian National University (ANU) had risen from around $4 million to $11 million per annum over the last three years.

A statutory authority of the Federal Government, Comcare provides workplace insurance for several government agencies, including the ANU. While the premiums it charges them have on average doubled over this period, the ANU has been singled out for a particularly dramatic increase.

Why might this have occurred? The advice on Comcare’s website is unequivocal. It states that the “rate for each employer provides an indication of the employer's effectiveness in preventing injury or illness and in helping employees return to work quickly and safely after a work-related injury or illness.”

When pressed for its own explanation, the ANU however argued that the insurer was merely trying to recoup recent operational losses.

A detailed, forensic, rebuttal of ANU’s reasoning would require access to the kind of sensitive financial and operational information that Universities and Insurers alike are these days loathe to release. But if we take Comcare’s advice at face value and conclude that the increase must be explained, at least in part, by a decline in work safety at the ANU, what might be its source?

University employees are, as a matter of course, at risk of injuris that arise from such activities as repetitive strain, operating laboratory equipment, or work-related travel. Such injuries when they occur, however, are generally well reported and workplace responses can be both swift and effective. Neither seems to be the case here.

The obvious source of this dramatic growth, then, is psychological injury, in particular that arising from alleged workplace bullying and abuse. Certainly, the particular prevalence of such behaviours at the ANU has been brought to the attention of both the current and previous Vice Chancellors, and many recent instances have resulted in successful Comcare claims.

This should be a matter of considerable institutional and public concern. Bullied staff can lose much more than their job and career path. They can also be left with long-term psychological disability. No organisation, let alone an organisation supported by public funds, and with an explicit public good as its underlying remit, should consider the prevalence of such a state of affairs as acceptable.

Staff at the ANU are especially vulnerable to toxic work practices because, unlike other Australian Universities, they do not have recourse to an ombudsman or similar ‘disinterested’ arbitrators when there are allegations of internal wrong-doing.

It is all too easy for senior management and HR staff to become judge, jury, and executioner when confronted with issues of staff behaviour. Senior Management also has access to funds to pay out difficult cases, funds that almost invariably come with associated ‘gagging clauses’ to ensure that the possibility of underlying managerial and cultural problems remain hidden from further scrutiny.

It is especially concerning, then, to learn that the University has now been taking the advice of its Council and actively encouraging claimants to avoid Comcare altogether. They are being asked instead to approach their industry superannuation fund for disability cover, effectively bypassing Comcare’s powers of scrutiny as well as transferring the financial burden back to the employees themselves. At the same time ANU is also now seeking to remove itself altogether from the Comcare scheme and self insure.

This raises the real spectre of the proverbial turkey being in control of Christmas. There is a growing perception at the ANU of a nexus between staff who raise matters of legitimate concern and staff subsequently being confronted with unsafe managerial behaviours. It suggests that behaviours injurious to the health of employees are not merely the result of the actions of a few ‘bad eggs’, but are in fact becoming a normalised tool of University industrial relations. As former ANU academic, David West, recently wrote:

The modern university most rewards those who demonstrate both loyalty to superiors and effective control of subordinates. Good managers are those who gets things done, which tends to mean that they are not hampered by either sensitivity for others’ feelings or democratic scruples. They are assessed according to results rather than the methods they employ, by ends rather than means. It is little surprise, then, that managers are sometimes tempted to resort to a more intense regime of control. The rhetoric of instruction and compliance has largely replaced the more collaborative discourse of request and consent.

More traditional academic cultures of management by consensus, on the other hand, requires Universities to select leaders skilled in internal communication and conflict resolution, and to foster not just mission statements but also broader corporate cultures that are premised on values of honesty, competency, and shared vision.

Long abandoned governance structures that used to give academic staff a controlling stake in deciding who led them, from Head of Department right through to Vice-Chancellor may have had their critics, but at least they helped encourage such cultures to survive, if not flourish.

What has tended to arise in their place, as researchers in the US have found, is based on a much more negative perception of employee capacity, responsibility and core motivation. Trust in staff is replaced by demands for constant scrutiny. Managerial appointments are now routinely made from above without genuine staff consultation, and they are secured by the emergence of massive salary divide between this new class of academic leaders and the staff they manage. 

A culture of “mobbing” can all too easily follow wherein apparently ‘non-compliant’ academics can quickly find that they can easily be stripped of the capacity to function in, let alone, enjoy, their workplace.

To be sure, it is not just the institution as a whole or the individual victims who suffer from this growing toxicity. We are all the worse for it. The burden of pay-outs, legal and medical costs, and, indeed, insurance premium blowouts that inevitably follows is eventually carried by a combination of increased student fees (or poorer student services) and the general taxpayer. 

Most concerning, however, is the possibility that such an industrial culture serves also to undermine the capacity of universities to nurture free thought in our society. In the light of recent political events, that role has never seemed more important.

Workplace bullying and abuse of staff is a symptom, therefore, of a much deeper malaise. Our universities urgently need to apply some of their once hard-won, and much-vaunted, critical thinking skills to the way they run themselves. And it is time for senior leadership at the ANU in particular to make safe and easy for the academic and professional staff they manage to do so.

Ulster's Academic Genocide - Year Zero With Vc "Baddy" Nixon...

Readers of this site will be familiar with the bullying that's befallen Deakin University. Here in the UK, Ulster University recently imported one of the Australian university systems foremost bullies when they appointed a new VC who had been the scourge of his staff at the University of Tasmania. Professor Nixon had bullied and muscled his career advance in Dublin, but by the time he reached Hobart, his willingness to sack staff, irrespective of their scholarly worth, made him notorious. Now the axe has fallen on his new empire at Ulster University.

Nixon Darling...

VC "Baddy" Nixon recently warned his Ulster staff across 4 campuses that under "UU’s Strategic Plan – Five & Fifty", "no-one's job is safe". Having closed Maths and Modern Languages, he now targeted the academically distinguished but cash-poor Department of Irish. All this despite a petition signed by 161 academics from 18 countries exposing the damage to Ulster's international reputation, and another 500 letters from professors forming a "dossier of protest" from international academia. Ironically Celtic at Ulster was awarded 5* grading in the Research Assessment Exercise but it just cannot make any money for the VC, and therefore they must be slashed....

The VC says that no staff can regard their job as secure in modern academia and cites urgent financial cuts for the decision. Ulster University's union officials say these cuts are neither financially or academically justified. Substantial cost savings have already been made with the loss of 148 posts earlier in the year, yet the University is sacking more internationally renowned lecturers while simultaneously recruiting new property managers on 6 figure salaries. This big growth in managerial culture is part of "Baddy's" scheme to make the university the biggest landlord in Belfast since rent-books are far more profitable in the north than scholarly papers!

His grave miscalculation is that to rent real-estate you first have to get planning permission and build houses. Ulster has been turned down time after time because their "new build" plans are so wacky! Ulster's VC regards his empire as more property portfolio than academic centre. Consequently, he would like to slash his way through academic departments and run the university as a big real-estate agency. This is a kind of academic genocide, akin to the acts of philistines.

The local branch of the University College Union say that morale is at an all-time low, and that Nixon's regime is like a "year zero" of some mad dictator. Managing 4 diverse campuses, it is also clear that Nixon has resorted to a bullying managerial style to seek to hold the centre together. Faced with a multi-million expansion plan which has gone "belly upwards" and successive building planning refusals, the VC is desperate to save funds to try to keep his business operational. If he cannot get more property "green lights" his entire empire will soon be as financially as it is intellectually bankrupt!

Magee Baby...

Meanwhile, the College Union and Ulster University's Staff Victims Association, have sought to receive financial compensation for the dozens of staff forced out of their posts with the most meagre of financial settlements, and many others who were wrongfully dismissed but lack the means to fight their cases. At the heart of this decimation of academic staff is Nixon's enforcer, Director of Human Resources, "Mad Bonnie" Magee. It was "Mad Bonnie" who was famously described by an employment Judge as "as crooked as you are arrogant" but as Nixon's henchman, "Mad Bonnie" continues to make Ulster staff lives a misery. There was a hope that the police having discovered his prior criminal convictions, and interviewed him for perversion of the course of justice, "Mad Bonnie" would finally get his own P45.

Unfortunately, like his predecessor, VC "Tricky Dicky", Nixon knows the value of keeping an "ex-con" as his henchman. It takes one to know one, especially when Nixon himself has attracted the interest of the Ozzy police in Tassie. So Ulster have come to regard Nixon and Magee as their own nasty beastly academic "Pol Pots". The Ulster University experience raises broader issues for everyone seeking to oppose bullying in our academic community. Universities "export" bullies across international boundaries, and bullying senior bosses will often "jump before they are themselves sacked". It is rumoured that VC Nixon left Hobart to evade disciplinary action for the suicide of a bullied Arts school professor.

At Ulster, a member of the Celtic department had recently to be rescued from the university's Tower Building in a presumed suicide attempt following the "wipe-out" of that department. He had to be talked down from the roof of the tower block where he had taken a deadly cocktail of prescription anti-depressants and alcohol. In the recent past, the suicide of a prominent member of Ulster's business faculty was blamed on senior management. Ulster under Nixon now has one of the highest sickness absence levels of any university in the British Isles. It has been top of the academic union's "stress at work" warnings for decades. A growing phenomena, of academic "genocide" uprears its ugly head in our university system and "thugs" such as VC Nixon and their "hench men" such as HR Chief "Mad Bonnie" Magee are representatives of a "new order" of senior managers.

A united and sustained opposition by academic staff to this kind of academic bullying in the form of petitions and letters to parliament has never been more important. We must strive to find better and more effective ways in which these bullies are swiftly brought to account, the equivalent of the sort of international tribunals which have investigated gross violations of rights in civil society across the world. They need to be exposed at every step of their nasty way! Write to your MLA and your MP. Get them exposed at the House of Lords. Report them to the European Court of Human Rights! Get your story of bullying into the newspapers!

It is our duty and also our own imperative to expose bullying and malfeasance in public office in our universities and colleges. If we do not do it, believe me, bullying managers will come for us. In the immortal words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, who opposed Nazism:

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist....Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist...Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew....Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Deakin University gags staff over harassment case

[Mr Elkadi... and even more on Mr Elkadi]

A "culture of silence" allows academics who display unacceptable behaviour to move between universities without their new employers being aware of their history, a whistleblower says.

Dr Melanie Thomson said her former employer, Deakin University, imposed a gag order on staff preventing them from talking about complaints against a scientist who has since moved on to a more senior position at another university.

At one stage, a female colleague who complained about the scientist resorted to placing a line of tape on the floor around her desk, and telling him to stay behind it.

Dr Thomson, a former lecturer in the school of medicine at Deakin University, said the scientist admitted to her that a complaint had also been made about him at his previous workplace.

She said the gag order imposed by Deakin forced her into a "morally bankrupt" position and prevented her from telling any future employer about the complaints.

"It put me in an awkward position of basically having to lie, or omit the truth," Dr Thomson said.

Dr Thomson has now decided to go public with her concerns, because she holds fears for the "mental health of all the staff" at his new place of work, and believes this kind of gag order is "unethical" in the way that it prevents future employers being warned about unacceptable behaviour.

"He may have become a model citizen," said Dr Thomson, but he "may be a serial perpetrator of bullying and harassment".

The gag order was part of a settlement reached between Deakin University and the scientist last year, which saw him leave the university after an investigation into bullying and harassment complaints.

In a statement sent to Background Briefing, the vice chancellor of Deakin, Professor Jane den Hollander, said that the university did not comment on "individual staffing matters ... and internal decisions and outcomes are not within the public domain".

Troubling behaviour

Deakin University was forced to deal with mounting complaints about the scientist during his time at the institution.

Two female colleagues within his department filed formal complaints. These scientists declined to speak to Background Briefing for this story.

Even as an investigation into the formal complaints was being set up, a new concern was brought to the attention of the head of the school of medicine, Jon Watson.

In an email to the human resources division of Deakin last year, Professor Watson noted he had just received yet another complaint about the scientist's behaviour, in addition to "the multiple previous complaints we have dealt with over the last year, and the two complaints [the HR division] are currently dealing with".

Concerns were raised not only by colleagues from his own department, but also by "various different departments of the university", according to Dr Thomson.

The two female colleagues who complained about the scientist were relocated away from him during the investigation.

Following the conclusion of the formal investigation, staff were told that the scientist had been suspended without pay from the university with immediate effect.

Striking a bargain

Just days later, Dr Thomson was told that the university had reached a settlement with the scientist.

She was warned in an email from the HR division that "one of the terms of the settlement is that the university take reasonable steps to ensure its employees do not disparage or comment negatively" about the scientist.

It is unclear why the university agreed to this deal, but Dr Thomson said the scientist had threatened legal action against the university.

Dr Thomson believed the university wanted to avoid bad publicity.

"The university is always interested in protecting their own reputation, and so if there is an incident of this type that is going on, they want to achieve an outcome which removes the perpetrator but does not affect and tarnish their reputation," she said.

Professor den Hollander rejected this.

"We strongly object to any suggestion that Deakin University has in any way 'contributed to a "culture of silence" around perpetrators of harassment and bullying' and/or that the university prioritises its own reputation over the safety and well-being of its staff," she said.
Speaking out

Dr Thomson has long been outspoken about the barriers facing women in science.

Much earlier in her career, she said she herself was a victim of sexual harassment.

"I, frankly, am sick of it. I'm sick of seeing it, and I've experienced it ... pretty much everywhere I've been as an observer and also directly as a victim myself," she said.

"I've seen that time and time again, people that are well known to be harassers and bullies get ahead and maintain their publication record, whereas the people they have affected end up leaving research.

"The taboo is so strong not to speak. But if not me, who? And if not now, when?"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-22/deakin-university-gags-staff-over-harassment-case/8043152

A living nightmare - 'Prof' Platon Alexiou...

This man presents himself as a real 'Professor' - In fact he has not written a single scientific paper... This man presents himself as knowledgeable about curriculum evaluation matters - In fact he has no clue... But worse is to come... He bullies and blackmails his faculty repetitively, he lies, distorts facts and threatens his faculty on a regular basis and with the complete tolerance of his senior managers... Dr Platon Alexiou is a living nightmare.

None of the above claimed outputs appear in Google Scholar. Not surprisingly, no titles and dates are provided for the selected publications.

http://www.platonalexiou.gr/

-----------------

The serial bully displays behaviour congruent with many of the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Characterised by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity and self-importance, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, people with narcissistic personality disorder overestimate their abilities and inflate their accomplishments, often appearing boastful and pretentious, whilst correspondingly underestimating and devaluing the achievements and accomplishments of others.

Often the narcissist will fraudulently claim to have qualifications or experience or affiliations or associations which they don't have or aren't entitled to. Belief in superiority, inflating their self-esteem to match that of senior or important people with whom they associate or identify, insisting on having the "top" professionals or being affiliated with the "best" institutions, but criticising the same people who disappoint them are also common features of narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissists react angrily to criticism and when rejected, the narcissist will often denounce the profession which has rejected them (usually for lack of competence or misdeed) but simultaneously and paradoxically represent themselves as belonging to the profession they are vilifying.

Fragile self-esteem, a need for constant attention and admiration, fishing for compliments (often with great charm), an expectation of superior entitlement, expecting others to defer to them, and a lack of sensitivity especially when others do not react in the expected manner, are also hallmarks of the disorder. Greed, expecting to receive before and above the needs of others, overworking those around them, and forming romantic (sic) or sexual relationships for the purpose of advancing their purpose or career, abusing special privileges and squandering extra resources also feature.

People with narcissistic personality disorder also have difficulty recognizing the needs and feelings of others, and are dismissive, contemptuous and impatient when others share or discuss their concerns or problems. They are also oblivious to the hurtfulness of their behaviour or remarks, show an emotional coldness and a lack of reciprocal interest, exhibit envy (especially when others are accorded recognition), have an arrogant, disdainful and patronizing attitude, and are quick to blame and criticise others when their needs and expectations are not met.

http://bullyonline.org/old/workbully/npd.htm

Mr Elkadi...

"...As someone with an inherent knowledge of Elkadi, having had him as a head of school I can confirm his management practices can be described as nothing less that Machiavellian. Elkadi is a psychopathic narcissist who has only his own interest at stake. Typically narcissists cover up a deep underlying guilt of shame and humiliation stemming from an early life. 

Elkadi's father was I believe the VC at an Egyptian University and has and is still living in the shadow of his father. This is part of the shame and humiliation he has, as he has not met the expectation of achieving such status. Narcissists typically attempt to stamp their authority on unsuspecting employees by venting there frustrations of having been bullied at school in a prior life and thus ventilate revenge as a form of pay back. 

His strategy is a five year plan at any University. The first two years is about divide and conquer, and implementing plans that only serve to satisfy his own personal KPI's. At about the third year mark he has taken complete control away from those that threaten him and micro managers all and sundry before him. Sound familiar so far at Selford, even though he has been there only two years?. By the forth year cracks in his management begin to open up...

Personal KPI's not being met and being held accountable by senior management. At this juncture Elkadi becomes more aggressive and defensive. By about the fifth year his past catches up and he eventually leaves to find a new University to prey on and cause collateral damage to. This is the same pattern of behaviors exhibited at Ulster and Deakin Universities. 

I feel sorry for all those dedicated and hardworking staff at Salford. Poor bastards. You can't beat a narcissist, generally the only thing you can do is "suck it up" or leave..."

Anonymous