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[clean]

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

My former grad school officemate just left a university that had "good toxins".  The mold that infested their buildings was "the good kind".

Toxic departments can be poluted by all sorts of things, both real and immagined, physical and other-worldly.

[ruralguy]

 I can think of some examples fom my own SLAC...oops,  I mean " A SLAC my friend is at ..."

Jealously leads to a lot of bad blood. I've seen chairs with minimum professinal skills make it very difficult for
the young and successful who are popular with students and have published multiple books.  They do things like, oh, write a negative recomemndation for tenure when the person has excellent evals, several awards from the college, etc. Its ridiculous.

I've seen deans and dept. members make it hard for someone's "trailing spouse" as a sort of punishment.

I've seen students make life difficult for a faculty members kid who might be going to the same college.

Not surprisingly, guess what, many of these folks aren't here anymore!

[sci_case]

for an extended, somewhat scholarly treatment of the topic (and what to do about it), see:

http://www.amazon.com/a**hole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446526568

[needmorecoffee]

Toxic is faculty members who have restraining orders against each other

Toxic is faculty members who tell you, on your campus visit when they take you out to breakfast, how much they hate the s***ty department that you may be joining and list the reasons why.

Toxic is colleagues who have not published anything in years, but by near-public acclamation are compiling a nationally competitive annual record of sexual harassment complaints, about which the dean and department chair can/will do nothing.

This is all mostly one colleague at a place I have since left, but trust me, there are such places.

[periodically]

Toxic can also be a place that seems peaceful, like a koi pond.

Until you realize that those aren't koi, but flesh-eating fish that will rip any "newcomer" to shreds.  Big red flag:  they have one person in a given area, but have run searches for that area every 1-2 years for the last 10.

[embitteredhistorian]

Toxic is faculty members who have restraining orders against each other

Toxic is faculty members who tell you, on your campus visit when they take you out to breakfast, how much they hate the s***ty department that you may be joining and list the reasons why.

Toxic is colleagues who have not published anything in years, but by near-public acclamation are compiling a nationally competitive annual record of sexual harassment complaints, about which the dean and department chair can/will do nothing.

This is all mostly one colleague at a place I have since left, but trust me, there are such places.

Holy crap. My favorite toxic faculty story is far from the worst I've experienced (a department chair getting his daughter a full PhD scholarship is probably the worst): about three days after starting at a university I had coffee with an assistant prof and a VAP, both female. The asst. said to the VAP, an old friend: "I'll never, ever hire a man." I guess she agrees with my Fox news-loving father--English lit. is women's work!

[dundee]

My current dept. is toxic to an extent, mostly due to internal fights and perceived slights that have brewed for a decade or two. I stay out of the fray, but the problem is that the people who are most opposed to change and set on maintaining the status quo are tenured, while the forward-thinking contingent are almost all junior faculty, who only make up about 15% of the department. I had no idea about the problems in the dept. before I arrived, since everyone was very cordial during the interviews and put on their best front. Unless one has an advisor who knows someone in the dept., I'm not sure how a new hire could avoid unknowingly entering a toxic dept.

[edwidge]

* 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?

Wait a minute...Are there actually departments in which faculty members are able to make requests?? We just get what we get, and the non-tenure system faculty are frequently prioritized above the tenure system faculty. 

[der_gadfly]

Unless one has an advisor who knows someone in the dept., I'm not sure how a new hire could avoid unknowingly entering a toxic dept.

Keep the eyes and ears open for subtle hints.

[the_honey_badger]

Unless one has an advisor who knows someone in the dept., I'm not sure how a new hire could avoid unknowingly entering a toxic dept.

Keep the eyes and ears open for subtle hints.

And, the not-so-subtle:  If someone fills you in on the "dirt" about someone or everyone on a campus interview?  Run for your life. They don't know you and so inappropriate levels of information or making you their "confidant" because you "click" is the sign of someone with whom you don't want long-term contact. You'd be surprised how often this is a signal of a seriously messed up culture.

[embitteredhistorian]

* 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?

Wait a minute...Are there actually departments in which faculty members are able to make requests?? We just get what we get, and the non-tenure system faculty are frequently prioritized above the tenure system faculty. 

At my current institution there is a sign-up sheet that is mostly first-come first-serve, but if too many people sign up for one time, preference goes to senior staff and newbies get their schedule shifted to one as similar to the one requested as possible.

It's a great system--the only thing that sucks is all UG classes must be on MWF.

[mdwlark]

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...

The asbestos is safer.   

[systeme_d_]

We're a small department, and we choose our own schedules.  We look out for our undergrad and grad students' (and each other's!) needs, and try really hard to schedule all classes so that they will be able to achieve the highest possible enrollments.

(Our overall enrollment is low. A high-enrollment typical undergrad class for me is 25 students.  Of course the intro class enrolls around 200.)

* 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?

Wait a minute...Are there actually departments in which faculty members are able to make requests?? We just get what we get, and the non-tenure system faculty are frequently prioritized above the tenure system faculty.  

At my current institution there is a sign-up sheet that is mostly first-come first-serve, but if too many people sign up for one time, preference goes to senior staff and newbies get their schedule shifted to one as similar to the one requested as possible.

It's a great system--the only thing that sucks is all UG classes must be on MWF.

[embitteredhistorian]

We're a small department, and we choose our own schedules.  We look out for our undergrad and grad students' (and each other's!) needs, and try really hard to schedule all classes so that they will be able to achieve the highest possible enrollments.

(Our overall enrollment is low. A high-enrollment typical undergrad class for me is 25 students.  Of course the intro class enrolls around 200.)

* 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?

Wait a minute...Are there actually departments in which faculty members are able to make requests?? We just get what we get, and the non-tenure system faculty are frequently prioritized above the tenure system faculty.  

At my current institution there is a sign-up sheet that is mostly first-come first-serve, but if too many people sign up for one time, preference goes to senior staff and newbies get their schedule shifted to one as similar to the one requested as possible.

It's a great system--the only thing that sucks is all UG classes must be on MWF.

Same here--we're a big department (about 15 faculty) in a small-ish school, but most classes are capped at 20 students. I guess choosing your own schedule would be difficult in a huge department.

[oldfullprof]

Toxic (Top Down) (Example: Mafia Tech)

-  Chair expects to make all decisions about everything
-  Chair expects to be free rider on faculty publications
-  Chair uses insulting language on students, and devises degradation ceremonials for them
-  Chair (MPH) insults PhD faculty routinely
-  Chair does all the talking in meetings
-  Chair's bullied acolyte (PhD) devises weird, unrealistic tenure expectations for the one untenured member.  Hu's publications are not credited.  Acolyte says books rank less than articles at this teaching college (same as a book chapter), and other semi-psychotic things that are distortions of what R-1s do.

Toxic (Factions) Example: (Snow Lake State)

-  Senior faculty scream insults down halls through open office doors
-  Junior faculty are expected to join up and are immediately snubbed by other faction
-  Anal (but unproductive) faction judges sloppy (but productive) faction on such issues as tables manners, whether they swear or not, clothing
-  Anal faction tries to turn every meeting into policy and procedurea writing sessions.  These meetings don't end on time
-  Sloppy faction historian briefs junior faculty on deep history (early 70s) of anal faction's malefactions