We were in the wrong place at the wrong time...

I and my friends were bullied at Southampton University. We had no intention on competing with these academics, these bullies, but their actions have affected the rest of our lives. 

Angela had a nervous breakdown and never completely recovered.  She can work but she’s wary of academics. When she’s asked for a transcript since she intended to apply to graduate school in US the university provided one that listed courses that she never took! 

Theresa was told by her MA supervisor that he’d given her thesis another academic since 'he needed to increase the number of publications' since her thesis was ‘good’. She removed her MA from her CV, never again worked in that sub-field, and did a PhD at her undergraduate institution. 

Lucy can only work as a temp since the University refuses to give her a transcript from her either undergraduate or graduate degree so that she can apply for graduate school in the US, where she now lives, on the grounds that universities in the UK do not provide American style transcripts. This statement is untrue since two British universities have readily supplied American style transcripts to Theresa and I. 

Lucy was sent a letter about her MA but both the name of the MA and the courses listed were different to the ones she’d taken. She objected to these differences and she was told that the letter had to suffice. Lucy cannot apply to graduate school to retrain with a letter since the University she applied to in the US requires a transcript. 

Bill left his funded PhD place in his department after being falsely accused of many things because he thought that it was pointless being paid to be bullied. 

The link below describes my experience:

http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2010/11/26/guest-writer-29-alicia-colson/

We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 
Dr. Alicia Colson

The bullies of academia and suicide

About 20 bullying victims at one of Australia's leading universities have attempted or considered suicide, an inquiry has been told.

One female academic became so traumatised she tried to kill herself in her campus office, she told the federal parliamentary committee into workplace bullying.

Microbiologist Dr Michelle Adams later told The Daily Telegraph she swallowed "tablets" in February last year during a long-running campaign to stop bullying at Newcastle University.

"I am now medically retired and ... under the medical care of both a psychiatrist and a psychologist," the 46-year-old mother of two said.

Dr Adams told the inquiry she suffered "almost 10 years of bullying, harassment and victimisation" after reporting academic misconduct in 2003.

"When one act of bullying involved the theft of ... tuberculosis from my research laboratory, at least one colleague was of the opinion that 'things go missing all the time',"she said.

"When I explained I was scared the attacks would escalate to violence I was told I was 'over-reacting'."

In a letter to NSW and federal MPs, Dr Adams said an anti-bullying group at the university had collected "evidence about 20 victims of the bullying have either attempted or considered suicide".

The issues at Newcastle follow revelations during the inquiry that staff relations at the University of NSW had become so dysfunctional some employees spend days "crying in the toilets".

More than two thirds of the academic and general staff at UNSW say they had been bullied at work and some claim to have been sexually assaulted. University authorities have been accused of failing to address the issue.

The anti-bullying group at Newcastle told the inquiry 175 current and former staff and students had responded to an online survey.

In March this year Dr Adams was awarded more than $60,000 by the Workers Compensation Commission.

The University of Newcastle last night said it had "worked with Dr Adams for a number of years ... to determine the factual basis for her allegations and concerns" but had not been able to put her mind at rest on any issue she raised.

New Vice-Chancellor Professor Caroline McMillen said the university was committed to a workplace free from bullying: "Our staff embrace the code of conduct and I have found they are deeply committed to equity and excellence."

From: http://www.news.com.au/national/the-bullies-of-academia-and-suicide/story-fndo4bst-1226436161459

Workplace bullying at the University of... Inquiry into workplace bullying, House of Representatives Committees, Australia

Under the Terms of Reference for this Inquiry:
The prevalence of workplace bullying and the experience of victims; and role of workplace cultures in preventing and responding to bullying I wish to draw to your attention:

• the entrenched systematic culture of bullying at the University

• the lack of support from the University following my initial allegation of bullying; and more importantly

• the enforced punitive punishment regime I experienced following my submission of a formal grievance that attempted to expose bullying within the workplace.

 Brief summary of submission:

I experienced 5 years of bullying within my discipline (2000-2005):

• Constant changing of my work tasks (courses deleted without consultation that resulted in the development of new courses outside of my specialization);

• Constant public humiliation (belittling of my expertise/ideas at staff meetings); • Excessive teaching workload resulting in 75hr plus working week that prevented me from engaging fully with my research commitments;

• Withholding of financial resources allocated to cross-faculty courses that I was responsible for;

• Overt ostracisation following my support for two post-graduate student whistleblowers that were treated badly by senior staff Lack of support and punitive punishment following my formal allegation of bullying (2005-2008)

• Refusal of the University to allow me to return to my academic duties following sick leave for major depression in early 2005 which I claimed had resulted from bullying

• The University’s refusal to accept medical certificates from my GP, my personal psychiatrist reports and the University funded psychiatrist’s reports stating my medical fitness to re-engage with my academic duties

• Placed under restrictive workplace conditions following my objection to the removal of a ‘stop workplace bullying’ poster from my office door

• Stigmatisation of my mental health injury that I had experienced in early 2005 through an University management enforced three year punishment regime of social, professional and physical isolation on campus; and

• The development of a discriminatory survey by Human Resources to justify their draconian and punitive punishment and subsequent forced early retirement.

Dear Honourable MPs,

First, I must state that in July 2008 under considerable duress I signed a confidentiality agreement (aligned with a ‘voluntary’ redundancy) stating that I would not discuss my employment with a third person or take legal action against the University. However, I will always regret being complicit in a cover up of malicious workplace behaviour at the University.

Unfortunately, I personally know of too many instances where the complainant and/or whistleblower has been destroyed by a culture that promotes and condones workplace bullying. That the University places higher credibility to traits of malevolence, malice, cowardice and self-protection rather than uphold values of excellence and integrity is shameful and should be exposed...

More at: http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=ee/bullying/subs.htm  - Submission Number 8

Australian Inquiry into workplace bullying - We need one in the UK too!

"The Committee encourages submissions to its inquiry from a wide range of individuals and organisations... More submissions will be added to the list when they are received and authorised for publication..."

Read some of the submissions, including one from the National Tertiary Education Union:

http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=ee/bullying/subs.htm

Time to have a similar inquiry into workplace bullying in the UK.

University of hard knocks

Staff relations at one of Australia's top universities have become so dysfunctional some employees spend working days "crying in the toilets". More than two thirds of the academic and general staff at the University of NSW - many in senior positions - said they had been bullied at work.

Some claimed to have been sexually assaulted. Many of the alleged bullies are women and university authorities have been accused of failing to address the issue, a federal parliamentary inquiry into workplace bullying has been told.

A submission to the inquiry prepared by the National Tertiary Education Union said a confidential survey of more than 550 UNSW staff uncovered complaints about "unfair treatment, public humiliation, arbitrary misuse of power and repeated shouting, swearing and threatening behaviour in their work units". Almost 40 respondents said they received or witnessed "unwanted sexual attention" while others reported "illegal discriminatory activity, pressure to retire and demeaning and discriminatory jokes".

One senior staff member was heard to comment on a colleague, saying she looked like "Princess Diana after the accident with the steering wheel through her face".

The submission said: "This was reported to senior management in the workplace but the respondent was unaware of any action taken.

"Some of the open-ended responses described incidences that amounted to physical and/or sexual assault.

"Another said that seeing colleagues crying in the toilets was a daily occurrence."

UNSW vice president of university services Neil Morris said yesterday university chiefs had met the NTEU to discuss the report on workplace bullying.

"While there are isolated cases of bullying -- as with any large organisation -- the university does not accept there is a culture or pattern of bullying at UNSW," Mr Morris said.

"None of our internal measures of bullying complaints or claims match the NTEU data and, in fact, are much lower."

Federal Tertiary Education Minister Senator Chris Evans did not respond to a request for comment.

NTEU branch president at UNSW Dr Sarah Gregson said in the submission she feared bullying was becoming an unacknowledged but deeply corrosive aspect of campus life: "The evidence we gathered suggested that, although UNSW has a bullying policy and other guidelines that outline acceptable workplace conduct, these policies are routinely ignored and harmful behaviour is often excused."

The submission said many staff feared speaking up about bullying, were demoralised and would like to leave UNSW.

"We were surprised at the number of relatively senior staff members who were also being bullied," it said.

The union has recommended a range of reforms.

From: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/university-of-hard-knocks/story-e6freuzi-1226429497231

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Also:

Bullying in Australian universities is widespread and should be investigated across the tertiary sector, says the academic responsible for a damning report into one of Sydney's top universities.

Sarah Gregson's Report into Workplace Bullying at UNSW, first reported in the Herald in March, uncovered a culture of bullying and intimidation at the university, and has now been submitted to a federal inquiry into workplace bullying. Dr Gregson, an academic at the university and the local branch representative of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), said she would be lobbying the union to extend her survey to other institutions.

''I've sent that report to a range of activists around the union and they say there's nothing in there that they're not very familiar with, so we just need to keep continue to keep campaigning … We'd like the parliamentary inquiry to recommend improved legislation in the area.''

In an email to staff yesterday the vice-president, university services at UNSW, Neil Morris, rejected Dr Gregson's report, saying there was no pattern of bullying and the research methods were not sound...

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/tertiary-bullying-needs-action-says-academic-20120719-22d52.html#ixzz21BlLhuoQ

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Imagine if there was in the UK a National Inquiry into Workplace Bullying just as the one taking place in Australia right now.  Imagine what it would uncover in UK universities... and why is UCU not asking for such an inquiry?

The Ten Recommended Administrative Measures

1. “Focus on the situation, issue, or behaviour, not the person.”

2. Replace quasi-judicial campus tribunals with administrative decision-making.

3. Unless evidence compels them, avoid forensic words like allegations and charges.

4. Keep the rules clear, fair, and simple; keep policy and procedure manuals short.

5. In the face of demands that a professor be punished, entertain not just the null hypothesis but the mobbing hypothesis.

6. Seek proximate, specific, depersonalized explanations for why some professor is on the outs, as opposed to distant, general, personal explanations.

7. Encourage mindfulness of all the bases on which academic mobbings occur.

8. Defend free expression and encourage dialogic outlets for it on campus.

9. Keep administration open and loose.

10. Answer internal mail.

From: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/waterloostrategy.htm#one

Terri Ginsberg

William Randolph Woodson
Chancellor North Carolina State University
Raleigh North Carolina

Dear Mr. Woodson,

The Seriously Free Speech Committee is a Vancouver (B.C., Canada)-based group mandated to defend freedom of speech specifically in relation to issues of Palestinian rights or the criticism of Israeli policies. We write in support of Dr. Terri Ginsberg, whose credentials for a tenure-track position at NCSU were discounted in 2007-8 because of her expressed or implied political views. We are aware that the university’s legal counsel advised offering Dr. Ginsberg a grievance hearing, but that your predecessor as chancellor, supported by your Board of Governors, denied her this opportunity to seek a remedy.

This miscarriage of justice—devastating for the victim—is especially deplorable in light of the apparent praise given recent “Arab spring” events at the start of your 2011-2012 report (available online). The censorship of principled teachers like Dr. Ginsberg can only be seen as complicity in the continuing oppression of an already oppressed people in the Middle East, the Palestinians, with whom Dr. Ginsberg apparently expressed sympathy.

We are aware that Dr. Ginsberg has sought remediation through the courts. While it is not within our purview to address the court, we urge you to correct your predecessor’s mistake: to grant Dr. Ginsberg the grievance hearing she deserved and to offer her a substantial financial settlement to offset the financial hardship she has suffered as a consequence of the university’s apparent refusal to open itself to the play of ideas that should define higher education.

Even better would be to offer her the tenure- track position for which her department evidently considered her well qualified until the question of her politics arose. This is not the way for any university to establish a sound academic reputation, and we hope that you will see your way clear to set right, as far as it lies in your power, the injustice committed against Dr. Ginsberg.

Yours sincerely,
Sheila Delany for SFSC

Recognising and managing stress in academic life

Several surveys into occupational well-being name academics as one of the most stressed professional groups. Join our live chat, Friday 15 June, to explore how to manage academic stress.

Enter the words "academic stress" into any search engine and most of the articles and resources shared focus on helping students while they are at university. I know full well that higher education can be an assault on the senses, and most students will need help with a whole range of issues at some point, but how much support is there for those who make up the other part of academia, the staff of an institution?

There's evidence that support for academic staff is needed. A 2008 report from the University and College Union (UCU) revealed that most universities were failing to meet the standards for psychosocial working conditions set out by the Health and Safety Executive...

More info and details at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network

The Perception of Postgraduate Students With Regard to Workplace Bullying

The main objective of the study includes the analysis of the experiences of postgraduate students regarding workplace bullying. These postgraduate students are employed in various business industries in South Africa. This study highlights the seriousness of workplace bullying. Actions need to be taken by all parties concerned to ensure that workplace bullying is adequately addressed in workplaces through policies and procedures, and by legislation. Until these changes are made, workplace bullying will continue to be a costly problem for employers and employees. An NAQ-R (Negative Act Questionnaire Revised) instrument is designed and employed to evaluate exposure to workplace bullying. The questionnaire elicits personal derogation (humiliation and personal criticism), work-related harassment (withholding of information and having one’s responsibilities removed), social isolation, physical violence, and intimidation and work overload. The research evidences that people do not recognise bullying when they experience it or do not realise when they are being bullied. The behaviour is hidden and trivial criticisms and isolating actions occur behind closed doors. In addition, professional people are too afraid to admit that they are being bullied. Interestingly, they are embarrassed, blame themselves and fear that the phenomenon would escalate.

 ...The self-righteous bully is a person who cannot accept that they could possibly be in the wrong. They are totally devoid of self-awareness and neither know nor care about the impact of their behaviour on other people. They are always right and others are always wrong. R. Namie and G. Namie (2009) described bullies as individuals who falsely believed they had more power than others did. Bullying seems not connected to gender (Peyton, 2003, p. 39). Peyton (2003) listed the following common characteristics of bullies:

(1) They are quicker to anger and sooner use force than others;
(2) They tend to have little empathy for the problems of the other person in the victim/bully relationship;
(3) They often have been exposed to models of aggressive behaviour themselves and chronically repeat the behaviour;
(4) They inappropriately perceive hostile intent in the actions of others;
(5) They focus on angry thoughts and are revengeful;
(6) They see aggression as the only way to preserve their self-image;
(7) They need to control others through verbal threats and physical actions;
(8) They exercise inconsistent discipline procedures at home;
(9) They perceive physical image as important for maintaining a feeling of power and control;
(10) They suffer physical and emotional abuse at home and have more family problems than usual;
(11) They create resentment and frustration in a peer group;
(12) They exhibit obsessive or rigid actions;
(13) They distort truth and reality and blame other people for errors;
(14) They are charming in public;
(15) They tend to be very insecure people and take credit for other people’s work;
(16) They do not want to hear the other side of the story.

The workplace bullying is a person with a history of aggressive behaviour. Their repetitive behaviour becomes habitual, which grows into a way of life, and in the case of the bully, it becomes the chosen method of relating to other human beings. This behaviour is harmful, destructive and often illegal (Lines, 2008).

...Some 25.6% of the respondents have experienced negative behaviour “now and then”, while 3.2% experienced negative acts of intimidation, rumours and gossiping behind their backs, facing insults and name calling on a weekly basis. Some 26.0% of the respondents have experienced physical and social isolation, prevented access to opportunities, being ignored and excluded, while 2.6% have experienced these negative acts weekly. Another 45.5% of the respondents experienced a threat to their professional status “now and then”, which included the withholding of information that negatively affected their performance, the removing of their responsibilities and to be replaced with unpleasant tasks as well as professional humiliation.

In total, 10.9% of the respondents have experienced these negative behaviours on a weekly basis. Excessive overwork, intimidation and tasks with unreasonable or impossible targets or deadlines are also negative behaviours experienced by most of the respondents. A third (33.5%) has experienced these negative acts “now and then”, while 6.5% have experienced it weekly. One of the worst negative behaviours of workplace bullying is physical violence which involves being shouted at, or being the target of spontaneous anger or rage. Some 21.3% of the respondents have experienced this behaviour “now and then”, while 0.6% has experienced it on a weekly basis.

One can perceive through the research done in the empirical study that people do not recognise bullying when they experience it or realise when they are being bullied as the behaviour is covert and trivial criticisms and isolating actions occur behind closed doors. What one person may consider to be bullying, another may not and this makes the management of the problem difficult. Bullying and harassment cases are not clear-cut and sometimes people are unsure whether the way they are being treated is acceptable or not. Another problem identified through research done is that many highly professional people are too afraid to admit to anyone outside or even to themselves that they are being bullied. They are too embarrassed and afraid that it would escalate or that it might even be their fault...

C. J. Botha, I. M. Herbst, A. Buys, Journal of US-China Public Administration, ISSN 1548-6591, October 2011, Vol. 8, No. 10, 1173-1195

Queen Mary: nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Three timely Offline columns by Richard Horton describe a mindless managerial rampage spreading through Queen Mary University of London, UK. Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, has declared distinguished medical researchers to be at risk of redundancy.

Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences now follows suit. As we write, colleagues declared to be “at risk” just 2 weeks ago are summoned individually to closed audiences with the Head of School, attended by members of the ironically named “Human Resources” (HR) department. If targeted individuals fail to appease the inquisitor, they will be sacked. Other staff members are earmarked for demotion, with replacement “Teaching and Scholarship” contracts that will oblige them to desist from independent research.

But, one might ask, is it not high time to weed out slackers? It might help if one had any way of knowing who they are. Sadly, the “restructuring” hits exactly the wrong targets in many cases, and leaves unproductive academics unscathed. The reason is simple—the Head of School and HR have neither interest in, nor understanding of, individuals' research, still less their research potential. This slaughter of the talented relies entirely on a carefully designed set of retrospective counts of the uncountable. These are labelled research “metrics”.

Are we engaged in special pleading here? Actually, no. Our school has a reputation, envied worldwide, for research by individuals now for the chop. Their retrospective crimes, committed between 2008 and 2011, include too few publications as a “significant” author in high-impact journals, below-average external funding, and failure to meet metrics for allocation of PhD studentships. Where the baseline of research income derived from the Higher Education Funding Council for England has disappeared, no-one seems to know.

So, we are looking at the end of the road for unique and internationally leading-edge Queen Mary research. Among many outstanding projects we stand to lose are: sociogenomics of mole rats, the only eusocial mammals, and a model, incidentally, for the endocrinology of bullying; genetics of circadian rhythms and iron homoeostasis from experiments on fruit-flies; imaging of neural activity in zebrafish—a paradigm for vertebrate development; and heterogeneous catalytic oxidation and carbon—carbon coupling in inorganic chemical synthesis. The list is long.

Alas, there are no boxes to tick for advances in knowledge and understanding—no metrics for science itself. Over in the Medical and Dental School, the grand inquisitor is identified as the Dean for Research, whose own research credentials are, naturally, unavailable for scrutiny. Never mind, we now have the assurance from his colleague that “Each and every faculty member of the college was assessed in this process and from my own personal point of view it was done fairly…”

Who needs evidence in the face of such assurance? “Consequently, to pick him out for criticism in this disgraceful manner is quite iniquitous”. Yet the Dean managed to pick out others—for oblivion, not just criticism. And he got it wrong. The same double standard follows, now, in our School of Biological and Chemical Sciences. For example, one of the “metrics” for research output at professorial level is to have published at least two papers in journals with impact factors of 7 or more. This is ludicrous, of course—a triumph of vanity as sensible as selecting athletes on the basis of their brand of track suit.

But let us follow this “metric” for a moment. How does the Head of School fair? Zero, actually. He fails. Just consult Web of Science. Take care though, the result is classified information. HR's “data” are marked Private and Confidential.

Some things must be believed. To question them is heresy. We hope to report back on our Head's one-to-one interview with himself. After all, we have his word, and that of College senior management, that the restructuring is proceeding with complete fairness and transparency. Perhaps he'll use a mirror?

From: http://www.thelancet.com