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[monocle]

I'm actually writing this for a friend (honestly!) who is too upset right now to blog about it. Friend (let's say, 'Joe') is an advanced asst-prof at an R1 who was merrily teaching a particular course and had been for the past 2 years. Joe's colleague decided that they would in fact prefer to be teaching this particular course and so set about writing a proposal that would wow the dean enough to allow them to take over the course from Joe by re-designing it. The colleague sent the proposal to the dean who reviewed it and decided that yes, the colleague could teach it for the upcoming spring semester. The new course schedule was then released to faculty and the dean and the colleague were happy. Unfortunately, noone bothered to mention the change to Joe who learnt of the change when the spring schedule was released to everyone. The colleague - who Joe thought was his friend - had deliberately kept his intentions secret and the dean also did not deem it important to bother to tell Joe of the change in person. I suspect that the dean had agreed to the change because the colleague was a friend of the dean and then did not have the courage (or professional decency) to tell Joe. Joe told me that all he needed was for someone to have talked to him about it first. He was incredibly upset at both the dean and the colleague. It affected his workload for the rest of the year and all of his hard work was discarded. His evals were good and there was no reason to take the course away (other than someone else wanting to take it). So Joe sent the dean an email stating that he felt the way the situation was handled was both 'un-professional and uncollegial' and that he had expected to be consulted on the change first. I read the email and thought it fair and worth stating. To which the dean quickly replied with a vitriolic attack, copied into several senior faculty, that heaped scorn on Joe and accused him of inappropriately attacking and impugning the character of the colleague. The dean demanded of Joe to refrain from publicly making derogatory comments about the colleague. I think Joe wants to hear some encouraging words really. He's a nice person and he currently feels dejected and worthless.

[untenured]

He should not feel dejected and worthless.  Your friend did nothing wrong.

So some weenie colleague stole a course.  This is not career shattering.  It is the person that makes the course and not the syllabus.  If this weenie is that much of a freak, I betcha a dollar that he is a disaster in the classroom.  Who knows, the dean might come crawling back to Joe in order to save the class.

There's not much Joe can do.  If Joe responds with class and does not whip out his sword, he comes out of the situation smelling all the better.  Joe is untenured so he has no power, unfortunately.

Joe must get thee on the market, publish thy little heart out, and do the minimum for his horrible employer.  With luck and a positive attitude he will find an academic home that will embrace him for the good colleague that he is.

Untenured

[csguy]

Joe's friend should learn about paragraphs.

The dean sounds like a real piece of work.

[monocle]

Joe's friend should learn about paragraphs.

Erm, yeah. You are right. That post was a bit hard on the eyes. Note to self for next time!

[dismal_sci]

I find it hard to believe that this story is about someone at an R1.  It might be great if we all had separate teaching interests so we never had to share our favorite course, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.  It would have been better if the other faculty had mentioned to Joe that he or she wanted to teach that course before going to the Dean.  (I also find it strange that a dean at an R1 makes course assignments.)

The OP writes: "It affected his workload for the rest of the year and all of his hard work was discarded. "  Sorry, this seems like too much boo-hoo from someone who should be quite busy with the usual research, teaching and service.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I find it hard to believe that this story is about someone at an R1.[...]I also find it strange that a dean at an R1 makes course assignments.)

I agree, and think there is either something monocle isn't telling us, or something he or his friend don't know.  At any major university I would expect a new course to pass across *many* eyes before being added to the catalogue, none of which eyes belong to the dean, and at least one of which is either the chair or another departmental officer with this job.  At my university the proposal goes from faculty member to departmental committee to full department faculty to associate chair to college course approval committee (and out for comment to all people offering potentially competing courses) to a Vice President's office to the registrar. - DvF

[malvolio]

At my school (not an RI, but still), all department members would be up in arms if a dean came in and changed course assignments without consulting us. While I don't believe a simple change has to go through the C&P committee, a new course certainly would (I'm not sure if the revamp would change Joe's course enough to count as new).

So if the situation really is as the OP describes, I have two thoughts. If his colleagues aren't upset simply by the way this was done, Joe obviously works in a top down, problematic place, and he needs to realize that and learn to deal with it.

If his colleagues are upset along with him, he needs to mobilize his chair, who should be approached with the point "If Dean Fiat can reassign my course all by himself, what's to stop him from doing it to any course and any faculty member in the college?" That alone should generate supportive outrage.

[oldfullprof]

Cumon, a lot of R-1s are full of competitive narcissists...some even lack [gasp] real quality.   We got 'em too.

[untenured]

The OP writes: "It affected his workload for the rest of the year and all of his hard work was discarded. "  Sorry, this seems like too much boo-hoo from someone who should be quite busy with the usual research, teaching and service.

Why is this too much boo-hoo?  Joe is a junior guy and probably does not have much experience creating courses.  Joe probably created the course from scratch and spent significant time making a good class.  Joe losing that course means he has to start all over again with yet another course.  Thus, "t affected his workload for the rest of the year and all of his hard work was discarded" sounds perfectly possible to me.

Monocle, there's not much Joe can do.  Joe is untenured.  Joe's got no juice in the system.  Looks like Dean will support obnoxious senior faculty over hard-working juniors.  Joe needs to decide if he can tolerate this over a long career.  If not, publish like mad and get out!

Untenured

[hiddendragon]

Really a sad situation, but life is unfair.  The race does not go to the swiftist, the most intelligent, or the deserving. There really are people who will screw anyone and everyone to get ahead. This "course stealing" situation is nothing new. Your friend learned a valuable lesson--which is to keep himself in the loop at all times and never be content to let down his guard.  If he allows this incident to affect him to the point where he can't work, it will only destroy him more. And, I'm saying this with full sympathy for him.  He needs to get past it.  He's already aired his feelings to the dean, which I think he has the right to do so irregardless of whether the dean likes it.

All I can say is, I share in the dissappointment.  For those who may have kept up with my infrequent postings, I recently helped to organize a conference for which I got no credit. Well, it now has been revealed to me why I was pulled to the event.  The conference included a course-sharing session where I shared a course I developed.  One of the two individuals who teamed up to not give me credit for my work is now happily using my syllabus.  Obviously, the whole fiasco of pulling me in to help organize the conference, making me feel like I'm part of their team was just to get a hold of my syllabus. But this just makes me pity this person all the more.  I'm sure she will go on to steal the works of others for the rest of her life and she will get by doing that, but she will never be top-notched.  She knows it. Meanwhile, I'm not gonna let this incident bother me other than to mark it down and bring it up later at an opportune time.  Sun-tzu says, "if you sit down by the river long enough, the body of  your enemy will come floating down."  Sometimes, there's little we can do but let karma take its effects.

[tenured_soon]

This has happened to one of my colleagues - twice.  They shrugged it off both times and went on to design better, more sought after courses. 

[georgia_guy]

The standard answer at the places I have worked would have been "nobody owns a course". Of course, this may vary widely by discipline.

Having said that, the dean dealt with the situation poorly. He should have discussed the change with Joe.

The colleague sounds like a rat. He too should have spoken to Joe, aerly in the process.

Joe should just roll with it. Once he's tenured, he can make a battle for his favorite classes. Until then, suck it up and consider it dues paying.

[dillon]

Am I the only one who read this and cringed when I got to the part about emailing the dean?

Never, ever, create that kind of "paper trail" with something negative.  IMHO, email is for routine or positive communication.  Serious questions and concerns should be addressed face-to-face.  I wonder if the situation would have played out the same if the faculty member went to see the dean directly? 

I've had similar situation and usually the other party falls all over themselves apologizing and promising to be more considerate in the future.  Or at least takes the opportunity to explain why things were done the way they were.  Email makes it all seem so confrontational.

[monocle]

Let me just clarify a few things - some of you picked out some of the cloaking happening here. The situation is real, but some of the aspects have been covered a little to protect against '1+1=oh, hey, I know these people'.

It is a research intensive school, though not one of the best, and with a doctoral program. The 'dean' is the guy at the top who has the power to hire, fire and make such final decisions with no recourse except to another much higher up. This person loves to send us all presidential-style emails and gives himself veto over all committee decisions. As he likes to state at the start of any meeting.

I too cringed at first at the thought of a shoot-from-the-hip email from Joe, but I was proud of him for making it known that it wasn't okay. The 'dean's' return email was 10 times more straight-from-the-hip (and sent 5 minutes later) which was what astounded me. I agree that all that was required was apologies all around and lots of 'oh, darn it, didn't we talk to you? heck, truly sorry for that'. Thanks everyone for the posts by the way.

[case_insensitive]

Joe's friend should learn about paragraphs.

That was my first thought.

My second thought was that an email to the dean in this situation, no matter how well written, is just a bad idea.

My third thought is don't expect logical, consistent and sensible behaviour from your dean unless you have compelling evidence that this is the norm with said dean.

My remaining thoughts were summarized nicely by untenured:  publish like mad and get out!