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[maggs]

Hi All,

I'm a Newbie and still in the full flush of first year bliss, so when I hear others disparage their departments as toxic, I wonder what that means.  What kinds of things do Chairs do that make the department unpleasant for the faculty?  About what and why do faculty bicker with each other?  I was speaking with a tenured faculty member at a University where I earned my Masters and Hu described that department as horrible, giving me a look as if I should know what that meant.  The Chair had retired early and the interim chair would be chosen from a different department on campus because of the internal departmental problems.  I feel horribly naive to even be asking these questions, but I would like to know what problems there could be so I can be forearmed.

Muchos Gracias! M

[neil9]

Mmm. I am no expert on this topic. But a toxic department is one with many tenured professors who have the time and security to make others' life miserable.

My previous place had the potential to become toxic but it did not. It is harder for my new place though as everyone is under a lot of pressure to get grants and papers. We barely keep our own heads above water and have no time to fight any dirty wars among ourselves.

[mad_doctor]

It's like art.  You can't really describe it, and everybody seems to have their own definition, but you definitely know it when you see it.

[maggs]

I guess that is what I'm worried about. (Beauty in the eye of the beholder)  That problems are obvious to everyone else, but I'm so happy to have a "dream job" that I'm not seeing the pitfalls that are looming directly ahead.  Or, maybe, there aren't any pitfalls at all in my situation and everything is as rosy as it seems. How do I tell? -M

[systeme_d_]

Maggs, I think you might be worrying about something that is simply not there.

If you were in a problem department, there would be factions.  Somebody would still be mad at somebody else for something they did in 1982.  Somebody would be trash-talking someone, and someone else would be sabotaging another. 

The reason you likely had no idea about the problems in your MA program is that you were a student.  Students usually have no clue about internecine problems, nor should they.  (In some extremely unfortunate cases, grad students do get pulled into the mess, and you should thank your lucky stars that was not the case at your former program.)

It's your first year.  Enjoy.  Work hard.  Teach well.  Publish, if you're in that kind of position.  When you start serving on departmental committees, you'll get the lay of the land.  In the meantime, don't go looking for potential problems.

[glowdart]

Oh, there are signs, but they vary depending on who you are and where you are. 

* Does the department resemble a cross between a sandbox and a wildlife special?

* Do the faculty badmouth each other to the students?
* Do the faculty badmouth or lie about each other to the administration, publicly?
* Do the faculty tell students not to take classes with certain other faculty members?
* Do faculty members regularly personally attack each other on the campus-wide listserv?
* Does the department bully attack a junior person and slander them with no evidence and no recourse? 

* Does the chair only give the chair's friends their requested schedules and routinely NOT give the other faculty their schedules, despite actual needs (single parent needs to pick up kid after school and cannot teach after 4:00 but always gets 4:30 and 6:00 pm classes five days a week) and with no other rhyme or reason?
* Does the administration take your grant money and "reallocate" it?
* Does the chair over-ride your ever decision in the classroom, change grades, grant appeals without hearing evidence, overturn plagiarism charges or otherwise meddle in your life?
* Does the chair regularly "lose" the paperwork of only a few people?

* Do factions control grants/awards and always manage to award them to their friends, who were conveniently nominated by last year's award winners, who are also friends?  Does no one outside the clique ever win?
* Does a cabal of senior faculty always choose one junior person to torment, and do the rest of the senior faculty and administrators not only know that this has happened annually for 20 years, but also do nothing about it?
* Or worse, does another cabal then step in to "save" the junior under attack only to then turn on them and join the senior cabal at mid-tenure time because cabal #2 needs cabal #1 to support their sabbatical bids?

* Do the junior faculty do all of the big heavy service lifting and the senior faculty only show up twice a week?
* Do the junior faculty who have been doing all of the service lifting then find their names removed from major proposals as the senior faculty take credit for their work?
* Do the junior faculty always end up in the crappy shared threesome offices even though the senior retired faculty who are on campus one day a week each get to retain their corner offices with private bathrooms? 
* Is half the junior faculty regularly on the job market (and leaving)? 

* Do faculty sleep with the students and then leave them for the next young thing and tell the entire department about their trysts?  Does the rest of the faculty do nothing and/or wait with bated breath for the latest updates?
* Do the faculty invite only certain students over for bacchanalia and then always award those students high grades regardless of their work, while simultaneously giving low grades to those who are not among the chosen few?  Do these grades stand in stark contrast to the rest of the grades earned by these students?

[maggs]

Thanks for the (dirty)laundry list, glowdart.  I hope that is not a discription of your current situation. I am breathing a sigh of relief.  I'm not seeing any of those signs in my department.  So I'm either blind or very lucky.  I think I'll choose to believe I'm lucky and very grateful. -Maggs

[francie_]

It's like art.  You can't really describe it, and everybody seems to have their own definition, but you definitely know it when you see it.

I think you mean "pornography" rather than "art", Mad Doctor, in which case the analogy is even more spot-on.

[the_honey_badger]

Thanks for the (dirty)laundry list, glowdart.  I hope that is not a discription of your current situation. I am breathing a sigh of relief.  I'm not seeing any of those signs in my department.  So I'm either blind or very lucky.  I think I'll choose to believe I'm lucky and very grateful. -Maggs

Glowdart gave the most comprehensive list I've ever seen. Some of the worst places have only 4 or 5 of the worst of those which is plenty to poison the atmosphere.  My experience is that you can't miss most of those unless you are both fortunate enough to be ignored by factions and have *decided* to be wilfully blind about what others are enduring. If you boil most of those down "bad mouthing" and outright "slander" are hallmarks.  The only thing I can say, if you are truly interested in not becoming part of it or blind to it is that when you hear persistently that X is "a bad scholar," "a bad teacher," "a bad human being" is to question the truth of that to yourself with the evidence. 

A case in point: When I came to Tenure Track U, I heard endlessly that Prof. "Smith" was worthless as a scholar and had no respect from colleagues and peers in the field. I mentioned that she just had an article in *the* journal in our discipline.  "Oh, even they print a bad article sometimes," was the response. When her book won a major prize in the next couple of years?  Suddenly the woman with "no respect" from scholars was transformed into someone who "has friends on those committees. It isn't like those prizes mean anything."  Or, so sayeth those who never even won the local Elks Club raffle...  No matter what this colleague did, the knives were out. 

Beware of the place where most of what you ever hear is *bad* news about colleagues---that's a toxic hell hole.

[shastymcnasty]

There's one more type of "toxic" department that rarely gets mentioned.  It's the one where everyone is super nice and friendly, but some are less than competent, and no one wants to acknowledge so because everyone is super nice and friendly.  Sometimes a little departmental tension is worth putting up with in order to correct an obvious problem. 

[traductio]

Oh, there are signs, but they vary depending on who you are and where you are. 

* Does the department resemble a cross between a sandbox and a wildlife special?

* Do the faculty badmouth each other to the students?
* Do the faculty badmouth or lie about each other to the administration, publicly?
* Do the faculty tell students not to take classes with certain other faculty members?
* Do faculty members regularly personally attack each other on the campus-wide listserv?
* Does the department bully attack a junior person and slander them with no evidence and no recourse? 

* Does the chair only give the chair's friends their requested schedules and routinely NOT give the other faculty their schedules, despite actual needs (single parent needs to pick up kid after school and cannot teach after 4:00 but always gets 4:30 and 6:00 pm classes five days a week) and with no other rhyme or reason?
* Does the administration take your grant money and "reallocate" it?
* Does the chair over-ride your ever decision in the classroom, change grades, grant appeals without hearing evidence, overturn plagiarism charges or otherwise meddle in your life?
* Does the chair regularly "lose" the paperwork of only a few people?

* Do factions control grants/awards and always manage to award them to their friends, who were conveniently nominated by last year's award winners, who are also friends?  Does no one outside the clique ever win?
* Does a cabal of senior faculty always choose one junior person to torment, and do the rest of the senior faculty and administrators not only know that this has happened annually for 20 years, but also do nothing about it?
* Or worse, does another cabal then step in to "save" the junior under attack only to then turn on them and join the senior cabal at mid-tenure time because cabal #2 needs cabal #1 to support their sabbatical bids?

* Do the junior faculty do all of the big heavy service lifting and the senior faculty only show up twice a week?
* Do the junior faculty who have been doing all of the service lifting then find their names removed from major proposals as the senior faculty take credit for their work?
* Do the junior faculty always end up in the crappy shared threesome offices even though the senior retired faculty who are on campus one day a week each get to retain their corner offices with private bathrooms? 
* Is half the junior faculty regularly on the job market (and leaving)? 

* Do faculty sleep with the students and then leave them for the next young thing and tell the entire department about their trysts?  Does the rest of the faculty do nothing and/or wait with bated breath for the latest updates?
* Do the faculty invite only certain students over for bacchanalia and then always award those students high grades regardless of their work, while simultaneously giving low grades to those who are not among the chosen few?  Do these grades stand in stark contrast to the rest of the grades earned by these students?

I am in a foul and bitter mood today because I work here. Except for the last two bullet points (so far as I know, and if not, eww!), you've described my department. End of rant.

At any rate, OP, if you have to ask whether you're in a toxic department, odds are pretty good that you aren't, and I take solace in knowing that there are departments out there that actually work!

[mad_doctor]

It's like art.  You can't really describe it, and everybody seems to have their own definition, but you definitely know it when you see it.

I think you mean "pornography" rather than "art", Mad Doctor, in which case the analogy is even more spot-on.

Agreed - sorry about that, realfrancie.

[zoelouise]

Happy departments are all alike; every toxic department is toxic in its own way.

[glowdart]

Thanks for the (dirty)laundry list, glowdart.  I hope that is not a discription of your current situation. I am breathing a sigh of relief.  I'm not seeing any of those signs in my department.  So I'm either blind or very lucky.  I think I'll choose to believe I'm lucky and very grateful. -Maggs

Oh, no, not the current place.  But I have seen (and read about here) many a toxic work environment. 

[realbusacad]

At my institution, toxic refers to the fact the campus is mainly built of asbestos....

Also the fact senior staff routinely lie, tred on, stab-in-the-back, screw over and generally abuse junior faculty as a route to self-agrandizement...