Mean and Nasty Academics
“Tenure is supposed to protect scholars from outside control, but it does a lousy job of protecting them from one another.”
-- Kenneth Westhues, quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education
 I
was surprised to experience hazing as a graduate
student, not once, but continually and by multiple
professors... I watched how some of the other
women faculty members in the department
were treated, and they were second-class citizens
at best. (Twale and De Luca, 2008, p.84)
A tenured full female prof gets up to
talk, and an untenured junior faculty man
tells her that her ideas are not really
important, that it may be a concern of
hers but not ours. And the entire
faculty went along with it, including the
women... Be invisible. We weren't
supposed to say anything, even the strong
women who could hold their own. Women
sensed they were in a powerless position.
[Ibid, p.85]
 As an academic coach, I could add many
more examples of graduate students and
professors of all ranks being victimized
by mean, nasty, harsh, underhanded, passive
aggressive or bullying behavior at the
hands of other academics.
The only reason I don't give you
details of what my clients have told me
over the years is that I need to protect
the identity of the victims. However,
I'm not giving anything away if I
tell you that I have heard numerous examples
of departments ganging up on one individual,
of professors being shunned, of tenured
professors harassing other tenured professors,
and of incredibly harsh treatment of graduate
students by their advisors or other professors.
Bullying and emotional abuse don't
only exist in academia (see Mobbing:
Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace). But
Darla Twale and Barbara De Luca, the authors
of Faculty
Incivility: The Rise of the Academic
Bully Culture and What to Do About It, suggest
that there has been an increase in "bullying,
mobbing, camouflaged aggression, and harassment" (p.
xii) within academia.
In working with people who have been the
victims of bullying, I find that one of
their first needs is reassurance that they
did not do anything to deserve such treatment. So
let me say that No one, ever,
under any circumstances, deserves
to be humiliated, undermined, insulted,
shunned, marginalized, ganged up on, or
even spoken to harshly. If it has
happened to you, you did not cause it to
happen. And you are not alone.
What Can I Do About Bullying?
There is no space here to review the reasons
that academics can be so cruel to one another. Instead,
I'll focus on what you can do about
it. The following suggestions are
summarized from the Twale and De Luca book;
additional comments from me are in brackets.
- Avoid becoming part of an abusive department. Before
you attend graduate school or accept
a job, do your homework. Look
at faculty turnover rates, policies and
guidelines regarding harassment, and
level of enforcement of such policies
as seen in grievance filings and resolutions. [Note
for prospective faculty: Talk to all
the current and past faculty members
that you can.] [Note for graduate students:
Look at graduation rates and time to
degree for both your prospective department
and advisor, and talk to as many more
advanced graduate students as you can
to find out the "hall file" on
any prospective advisor or department
that you are considering.]
- If you are the victim of any kind of
abuse:
- Document all communication concerning
the abuse and take notes on all occurrences.
- Share with a close friend and/or
colleague to get their take on the
situation.
- Assess the situation coolly and continue
to observe and collect information
in order to see who is involved and
how widespread the problem is.
- Don't react precipitously or
impulsively.
- Don't react in kind. [Note:
if you are equally rude, you won't
come out looking better than the perpetrator.]
- Show appropriate assertiveness. [Note:
the way to do this could be the subject
of a book, so get help with this if
you don't know how.]
- Get institutional support. The
authors suggest that professors contact
a local chapter of the American Association
of University Professors. [Graduate
students should contact their Director
of Graduate Studies, the chairperson
of their department, or their dean.]
- [Note: educate yourself about
bullying - see links in the right-hand
column.]
- [Note: If necessary, get help from
a therapist or academic coach that
is knowledgeable about this kind of
situation.]
Luckily, academia has many wonderful people
in it, who are horrified by the notion
of abuse, and who would not stand for it
if they were made aware of it. By
exposing such behavior to the light of
day, we can increase awareness and help
increase the likelihood that administrators
will intervene in cases of academic bullying.
Have you personally experienced an incident
or situation in which you were bullied,
abused or mobbed (ganged up on) within
an academic setting? If you were,
and you'd like to share it (with
names and identities changed) in order
to help the readers of this newsletter
better understand what can occur in academia,
please write me at gina@academicladder.com.
Warmly,
Gina
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