Like probably every other academic in the United States, and especially like every administrator with authority over hiring, tenure, and promotion, I have been reflecting over the past few days on the tragedy at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I feel the shock and sorrow of the university, and mourn for all the victims, including the family of Amy Bishop. I have been reading commentary and news stories, and have been closely following several threads on the Chronicle Forums, particularly an extensive discussion of the role of university personnel policies in possibly fostering workplace violence.
I’ve also discussed the issue with several colleagues, including staff members at The Chronicle, and am trying to figure out how to find areas where understanding of events such as the Huntsville shootings might be possible. In my role as an administrator, I am also intensely interested in what steps, if any, make sense as ways to forestall similar incidents in the future.
There has been a lot of talk about the tenure process, including how to make it more transparent and humane, so it doesn’t foster festering distrust and resentment. There has also been much discussion about how to identify and possibly counsel potentially unstable faculty members in the light of academic customs, and this is the area I want to consider for a moment.
“Collegiality” is a very difficult concept. Poll a room full of faculty members, and about half of them will say it should have absolutely no role in formal evaluations for continuation, promotion, and tenure. The other half or so will say that collegiality is absolutely crucial to such decisions, since if people are impossible to work with, no matter how good they are at their jobs, they will poison the operations of the institution, make it difficult or impossible for colleagues to work effectively, and generally damage the educational enterprise.
I confess to being of two minds about collegiality. Early in my career, I was a vocal and pointed critic of my institution, and during my pretenure review was quite sharply warned about this behavior. Of course I believe that my concerns were correct, and that they needed to be articulated, but now I can also see how such criticisms can sometimes make life needlessly difficult for a faculty member. There is a fine line between sharp, collegial criticisms of an institution and what my then-boss called “carping” about issues of concern.
Many faculty members want to think they are the Patrick Henry or Jonathan Swift (“Fair liberty was all his cry”) of their institutions. Many are, by discipline and temperament, inclined to be critical of institutions and their functions. Many want, perhaps naïvely, to believe in the rationality of large groups of smart and highly educated people. Moreover, many academics work alone, have limited people skills, and do not particularly value qualities that help them get along well with others.
All of these are perfectly acceptable qualities in an academic who’s otherwise doing a good job with teaching, scholarship, and service. They are sometimes not helpful, but they shouldn’t be terribly destructive either. The challenge that arises, though, is figuring out how to separate people who are merely “difficult” from those whose psychological and emotional makeup shades over into something worse than “difficult.” The clearest cases of uncollegial behavior I’ve seen involved faculty members who appeared to have serious psychological problems, and I would posit that there is a clear link between these two things.
We need to have a different kind of discussion of collegiality, I think. Those who say such considerations should have no role whatever in hiring, retention, and promotion and tenure discussions ought to consider how careful analysis of faculty members’ interactions with their colleagues and the institution may indicate the possibility for serious trouble. Meanwhile, those who place a supreme value on collegiality need to remember the very sharp downsides of such a position, including its potential to be a tool of discrimination (“not like us”) and to prioritize “niceness” over brains, teaching ability, and scholarly or creative success. They also need to remember that criticism of the institution, if it’s thoughtful and constructive, is a positive element of faculty life, rather than a detriment to it. I once had a colleague say, “I just want everything to be pleasant,” which is absolutely the wrong position to take in such a discussion.
Collegiality is kind of the third rail of faculty personnel matters. A careful and honest analysis of the role it plays in hiring, tenure, and promotion might enable colleges and universities to identify potential problems before they become quite so large. However, any formal use of collegiality for evaluation must be confined by thoroughly articulated rules and processes to prevent it from destroying the educational enterprise. If I could figure out how to devise such a process, I’d happily share it with you.
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16 Responses to Collegiality, Tenure, and Tragedy
schultzjc - February 17, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Collegiality MUST be a significant factor in hiring, promotion and tenure. The process is designed to handle this by obscuring criteria, and that presents problems. But as a formerly-vocal pain-in-the-a** faculty member who now administers a research center, I’ve learned that individuals can be disruptive to a point that neutralizes their academic contributions. This kind of problem can be managed by adhering to workplace behavior standards that are commonplace in the business world. Interfering with the ability of others to do their jobs or lowering the quality of the work environment should not be tolerated, much less rewarded. But academics are reluctant to complain publicly about such behavior, and often have level of devotion to ‘freedom of expression’ that harms others and the organization’s ability to function. When this is ignored during advancement or hiring, it is likely to lead to trouble, as recent events suggest. The common point of balance between academic prowess and being a disruptive (or even dangerous) jerk needs to be moved from its present position.
lyndahar - February 17, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I agree with schulzjc that collegiality must be considered in personnel decisions. Collegiality should be made explicit and be explicitly defined. You might want to read Bob Sutton’s “The No Asshole Rule” for examples of the negative impacts of jerks.Of course, life is easier if all of the criteria for personnel decisions are explicitly defined. My campus sets forth expectations for tenure in a probationary plan for each tenure track faculty member. This approach really reduces the stress (but not the workload) of the probationary period.
kyle43 - February 17, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Honesty in providing references would go a lot further in preventing this type of horrific incident than re-engineering personnel policies. Better policies – sure – but we all need to be more honest when contacted by colleagues at other institutions to serve as references. Also, if a candidate does not give us permission to call “off-resume” we need to then NOT offer them the position. In this case, there are plenty of former colleagues and teachers that knew there were issues here.
susanday - February 17, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Expressing criticism of an institution (or a department) is not the opposite of collegiality. Yelling at staff, screaming during department debates, gossiping about colleagues, publicly demeaning students, these are all behaviors in opposition to collegiality. They are the behaviors that predict, at the very least, decades of departmental misery when a “scholar” who presumes the right to use them is tenured. To presume that those of us who demand collegiality and civility be traits of our potentially tenured colleagues are demanding an end to institution criticism is to completely miss the mark in this discussion.
david_r_evans - February 17, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Susan (#4), that’s kind of my point. My experience has been that a “go-along, get-along” demeanor is often conflated with the much larger and more important concept of “collegiality.” I think that if we were to articulate “collegiality” better, we could disentangle healthy and productive critical attitudes from the other kinds of behaviors you mention. But when academics insist on taking collegiality entirely off the table (and many do indeed do so), that prevents the kind of discussion needed to draw the distinctions you’re making.
marnall - February 17, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Bravo schultzjc! The touchstone on collegiality is what effect the individual’s behavior has on the work environment of others and the ability of the department to achieve its strategic objectives. Perhaps collegiality need not be a major consideration in promotion, which arguably is about the individual’s performance in the areas of teaching, research and service. However, tenure is another matter; few departments are large enough to ignore the impact of an individual on the department over the course of a career.
ksledge - February 18, 2010 at 8:31 am
I agree with #4 and #5. It is one thing to be critical of the dept or institution and to fight for policy changes. In my mind, if anything that shows you are paying attention and trying to improve things, even if you are a pain. It’s a completely different thing to be selfish, arrogant, bossy, and downright mean to colleagues and staff. To never volunteer to help, etc. Those behaviors should be considered in tenure review and they shoudl be counted against you. Those are behaviors that are truly counterproductive to others’ work.
drhypersonic - February 18, 2010 at 11:02 am
Collegiality is very important, undoubtedly. But what supervisors and colleagues need to be particularly sensitive to are issues of basic mental health of their staff. Having been an administrator, I had an occasion where I had to refer an employee to mental health counseling. It turned out the person was suicidal and obsessed with very violent fantasies that, fortunately weren’t “acted out.” Frankly, many academics are uncomfortable with confrontation, and are culturally indoctrinated to accept the notion of the “quirky” colleague. We all know–and heaven knows I have–our own set of personal quirks and oddities. But there is a difference between a person who, say, is obsessive about whether colleagues clean their coffee cups, and one who is withdrawn, obsessed with a perceived personal “injustice” or some grievance, or who has a record of violent lashing out. Nature has endowed us with a basic survival instinct, and all of us should heed it. As more and more is learned about Dr. Amy Bishop, it is quite clear that this was a preventable tragedy.
beaubaez - February 18, 2010 at 11:32 am
One of the problems for non-tenured faculty is lack of collegiality feedback. My institution requires anonymous 360 reviews among the faculty, providing important feedback on this issue. This allows a person to identify problems and correct them, rather than finding about the issues after a tenure denial.Second, my law school requires all candidates to go through an interview with our talent vendor, who helps us identify problems before the hiring occurs. It is expensive, but nothing compared to the $80k some studies indicate as a cost for a bad hire.
eccraig - February 18, 2010 at 11:56 am
Because we are all human and because we make decisions by committee in academia, it is inevitable that collegiality will be considered in such employment decisions, which means such decisions will always be based on popularity.
dn871263 - February 18, 2010 at 12:31 pm
The comments posted so far do not explicitly discuss academic freedom, which to me would be the central issue. If “collegiality” is a vague criterion that can be used against a candidate for tenure, it is a direct threat to the academic freedom of the faculty. It has been and will be used to get rid of colleagues for political reasons rather than performance reasons. I am in the half of faculty who would never wish to see “collegiality” mentioned as a criterion.At the same time, I see the very difficult position faculty are in when a person comes up for tenure whose behavior reduces everyone else’s productivity. The drama queen, the academic bully, the abusive loudmouth, the manipulative back-stabber, or the paranoid complainer can be with a department for decades and make it far less productive than it would have been. It could even lead to the department being decimated in a budget cut round.I think the key here would be to make sure that the criterion of “lowering the productivity of others” is used instead of the vague “collegiality” criterion. The burden of proof needs to be on those making the charge of lowering others’ productivity. Perhaps that way the matter could be resolved.
schultzjc - February 18, 2010 at 2:49 pm
In response to 10. eccraig: all advancement decisions of which I’m aware at least pretend that collegiality doesn’t play a role, and many take extensive steps to assure that. I recall a negative decision that involved a colleague with astounding academic accomplishments. Every time I inquired as to how this could be, the answer was that the decision was based “entirely on academic performance”. I was able to determine (years) later that this was not true – as was obvious to me. It seems that administrations find that egregious behavior is an embarassment and don’t want it seen as a deal-breaker. That encourages bad behavior and facilitates cowardice.In response to 11. dn871263. This message suggests some inexperience with larger groups of people. Experience indicates that unbelievably bizarre and disruptive behaviors that go well beyond the examples given are much more common than most of us think and are typical excused under the banner of academic freedom. Colleagues are usually unwilling to file the kind of report/complaint necessary to prove ‘reduced productivity’, again claiming it’s protected behavior. Overall, academicians need to be more open about what’s acceptible/offensive, and willing to admit that it’s important to them.
maxwellaustin - February 18, 2010 at 3:31 pm
The AAUP’s 1999 statement on the use of collegiality in tenure decisions strikes the right balance between social propriety and academic freedom: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/collegiality.htm
maridelatrini - February 18, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Mddavis- I think that it is really important that those in charge of hiring (and firing) professors take into consideration what Dr. Evans mentioned in this article about ” the challenge of figuring out how to separate people who are merely “difficult” from those whose psychological and emotional makeup shades over into something worse than “difficult.” I think that his comment is the key to avoid tragedies like the one at the UA in Huntsville. In my opinion it is important to pay attention to certain “clues” that can help to prevent a tragedy. For instance, those professors who never have a good rapport with their students and colleagues.Also it is important to pay attention to the abuse of authority of the professors inside and outside of the classroom. In many occassions the advisor, the chair or the other professors don’t pay attention to the complains of the students because “they are just students” but it could be a way to detect and prevent future tragedies. I hope these ideas can help some. Thank you!
hmprescott63 - February 19, 2010 at 12:17 pm
In my experience as department chair I often found that lack of collegiality went hand in hand with an unwillingness to contribute to the functioning of the department (e.g. not showing up for office hours, refusing to advise students or doing it poorly, blowing off department meetings and committee work). I also found that faculty who treat their colleagues with disrespect are just as bad if not worse with their students. A responsible department chair and tenure and promotion committee should call attention to these deficiencies in annual reviews, so if the candidate comes up short at the time of tenure, there are no surprises.
chroniclebarnacle - March 6, 2010 at 1:21 pm
OH schultzjc- you are SOOOOOOO right on! Most of the rest of you are too! Love reading this stuff!