An anonymous commenter on “Open Thread Wednesday” asked if we believe that chairs should intervene when faculty members treat one another badly.
In effect, I think the answer is yes: Rigor doesn’t demand that we berate or needlessly humiliate each other, or that we treat staff members with contempt and disrespect, or that we harangue our students. It’s a bit hard for me to understand why academic freedom would include the freedom to drive each other mad.
Here are some resources worth checking out:
- No Job Is Worth This is a good place to start. They’ve assembled a wide variety of resources, including some (hard to watch) videos about the impact of long-term workplace bullying. Their focus is not exclusively academic. (The colleague who’s done the most to draw this to my attention, Kathy Hermes, is featured in one of the videos.)
- C.K. Gunsalus has an excellent Inside Higher Ed piece unpacking the consequences of *failing* to intervene against bullies.
- The questionnaire at the end of this Chronicle story’s a bit alarming, until you recall that the key is consistent repetition of harmful behavior.
- Another collection of helpful resources and stories, from the New Workplace Institute.
- Student-on-student bullying is a problem in higher ed, too.
- Inevitably, there’s a Facebook group.
- Finally, the Workplace Bullying Institute is useful–including their “solutions for unions” page.
I would bet that almost anyone who’s been around higher ed for very long can think of stories involving egregious behavior on campus. (In all directions!) The Edmund Burke line about evil triumphing when good men say nothing is overused, but certainly seems applicable here.
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2 Responses to Bullying in Higher Ed
Peter - March 19, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I also think that graduate students have a hard time speaking up about this kind of issue because of the power, both real and perceived, that faculty have to screw up your future if you piss off the wrong one (which of course is going to be the one most likely to be bullying in the first place). I know that I stayed silent in my MA program when I saw egregiously bad behavior on the part of a faculty member toward one of the students in class. In fact, I don’t think any of us spoke up because this was a woman who we all knew to be someone who held grudges and could make a student’s life miserable.
Then again, if graduate students are able to take an ethical stand, when will they learn how to? Standing up against bullying behavior is a learned action and if you wait until you have tenure to begin, will you even have the skills to do so? (These are some of the questions that I have wrestled with in the years between finishing my Masters and returning, this coming fall, to school for my PhD.)
Thanks for posting this.
Rex - March 20, 2010 at 10:15 pm
The most difficult form of workplace bullying is the one that comes from above. This often involves victimisation for having spoken out or put a grievance. Senior management and HR typically close ranks against the individual so there is no prospect of a satisfactory resolution internally. Seeking recourse from the law is not satisfactory either; with the exception of special circumstances, workplace bullying is not unlawful. The problem of workplace bullying requires the attention of politicians and lawmakers.
We are collecting signatures in support of a petition against workplace bullying in higher education at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Justice-Bullying/.
Please sign this petition and let others know so that they can consider signing.