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[observer3]

You have kindly endured my posts on the bullying HoD. This is a practical matter to emerge out of a few years of this.

A colleague wants to go up for promotion this year. Hu, like me, has been subject to several abusive e-mails and a few situations of scary shouting by the HoD. Both of us have saved the e-mails and we wrote up the shouting events soon after (I showed mine to a union rep who said it was a clear case of assault and I might have called the police). My solution has been to avoid the HoD in order to retain my sanity. My colleague, however, has continued to have acrimonious interactions with the HoD. But our situations are similar with regard to what happens for promotion. Neither of us think we will get fair treatment by this HoD. I have figured that waiting out his term is best; as have I think most similar people in my department. Probably everyone will apply for promotion as soon as his term is up, but this year I think just my one colleague is trying it.

With this background here is the question: to what extent does or should recorded past bullying behavior by a HoD affect one's means of pursuing promotion? Should my colleague try mediation? Should hu go around the HoD entirely? We do have a colleague who sort of did this and got promoted recently. While the HoD is trying to pretend he is being "great boss" right now to cover his a** with the uni higher ups none or at least very few of us junionrs believe he will support any of our promotions, due to a current power structure that suits him in the department. What my colleague does will inform my decisions on this. Advice would be great!

[inthediaspora]

In the University that I am in, the HoS (in my case instead of the HoD) is not part of the School promotion committee;  while you do need the HoS's support, the HR requires you to countersign against the comments and recommendations of the promotion committee with the right to respond to those comments.  Since you have a paper trail, it is in the best interests of HR not to take the HoD's comments seriously as there will be a scandal.  I am not sure that this might be the same in yr dept but you might try speaking to HR which alone deals with matters of promotion.

[observer3]

HR... ok, that's a great suggestion that I had not thought of.