It has been getting quite out of hand here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/7/stop-the-bullying-at-the-university-of-memphis/

The perpetrators have even been harassing us via this freedom of speech petition.

Your help in getting the word out is appreciated!

I stayed an extra year in my previous position while the tenure review was underway. The result for me at the time was freedom from ambivalence about the move to the new position, which I began in fall, 2005. In 2006 I was recruited to another university that had an entire college devoted to my field and substantial development in both of my subfields. I was recruited unanimously by the division and this was approved by the Provost because of this unanimity in the division in favor of hiring me. I began mid-year in 2007, overlapping one semester at my previous institution so as to complete 2 full years there.

In 2006, while at my 2nd institution, I was enjoying a big surge in my research area and had transformed my health and fitness, partly due to a Wellness Program in which my 2nd institution had invested. As soon as I made my decision to accept the 3rd position, the bullying began at the 2nd position. To address this, I met with the Chair of the newly formed President’s Council on Women to discuss what was happening and I brought things forward to my supervisor in my exit interview and before. I also met with the university ombuds office. When I was negotiating whether to stay or go, this Council was only just being formed and had not done much outreach in the University.

When I arrived at my 3rd position, I discovered that, although I was an associate professor with tenure (my 2nd academic position with tenure and my 3rd with security of employment), there were no mechanisms of fairness in my division with regard to student load, scholarship resources, decision-making, peer review, etc. – only sharp elbows, bullying and a hidden, unacknowledged seniority system. Entering at the time of year when intense efforts are underway toward student recruitment adversely impacted my arrival. One female faculty member in the division (associate professor) became angry with me less than 3 weeks into my arrival and has barely spoken with me since. She also retaliated against me via a doctoral student of mine by denying the student an opportunity to petition for cause to make a change in one of her doctoral submissions and by rushing the issue to a committee she chairs without informing the student or me, as the student’s major professor, that this was happening. The Dean obfuscated the issues, and has since promoted her. She and another female faculty member, a full professor with tenure, apparently fought for years until I came. Faculty outside our division jokingly referred to them as Iran and Iraq, and then Israel came (meaning me).

Now I am up for promotion. This has really stirred the pot because there has been only the one full professor with tenure (female) in my division for quite a few years. Another full professor (male), who was hired at that level, has just been tenured after 7 years of being hazed into virtually absolute silence. Many meetings went by in the past 3 and 1/2 years in which this colleague spoke not a single word. This happened despite his being at the very top of the field. The professor with tenure constantly tries to make the case that strengths in the field equal weaknesses in teaching. Well, it turns out this fellow’s teaching is just fine—as good as anyone else’s if the student in question works hard. Now my teaching is under attack despite 14 years of clear successes. When any of my students, who enter the university with troubled or deficient background in the field, show continuing signs of confusion or weakness, this is increasingly being used as a cudgel to beat me with and as a wedge to sew doubt about me among my students, colleagues, and administrators—in an effort to prevent my promotion in order to retain hegemony. The division chair went up for promotion last year from associate to full and had his materials returned to him with the suggestion that he re-apply later. If this happens to me, I will file a grievance.

Another program director, who turned out to be an astounding bully (which showed increasingly as he approached retirement), also strongly advocated my initial recruitment because he had brought me in as a guest on two occasions. When I demonstrated independence of thought and research, and objected to his gruff, bossy treatment of me, including co-opting my travel resources, refusal to meet even a single request in exchange for this on an out-of-town trip with students, he stopped speaking to me and retained that stance through the end. He also, through proxies, introduced slander about the most qualified applicant in the search for his replacement, doing so much damage that he nearly destroyed the position itself. It now appears that the slander he was purveying was partly designed to keep eyes off of his own illicit actions.

One student described my hire as an attempt to “keep people on their pedestals”. My husband, a K-12 teacher after having been a university lecturer, recently retired early. His own very harsh experiences in education led him to believe that teachers far to often work to destroy each other and that one has little recourse but to endure it until one can retire. For 3 and 1/2 years I have used my tenure to stand up against this sort of thing and in so doing am almost always someone’s target. The Dean, who is a gentleman, was once fired from a Deanship because of the machinations of a very powerful bully. Once bitten, twice shy. To top things off, the Chancellor (male) just forced our very popular and effective President (female) to resign. This happened mid-semester. Her Provost (female) finished the year and is now also leaving on her own terms. The whole university is demoralized by this display of inappropriate power politics.

Despite all of this, it remains my firm belief that if people will determine to work as a team and support each others efforts, recognizing the concepts of enlightened self-interest and the principals of diversity and equity, successes can be achieved beyond one’s wildest dreams. As long as competition is so heightened at the localized level, the environment becomes stagnant and even individual successes (let alone divisional and departmental ones) will be few.

Professors who are bullied are “ganged up on” by other professors, almost always in their own department. Reasons are not so important as results.

Bullied professors become emotionally so stressed that they then become emotionally impaired, and that impairment is followed by various and sundry physical ailments and disabilities.

Bullied professors often just quit. Or they change jobs and give up tenure or tenure-track, maybe forever.

Other bullied professors have been known (reality; do the research) to commit suicide.

Now, ON TO ANOTHER SUB-TOPIC of bullied professors;

BULLIED PhD STUDENTS!
Most professors and former PhD students who may never have gotten to become professors, know that departments in some colleges and some universities where PhD students are “trained” are hotbeds of bullying.

Again, the reason is not so important as the results.

Bullying professors reap no personal effects, unless the feeling of power and “They got me [when I was a PhD student], and now it’s my turn to get the new candidates.”

For those PhD students who are bullied, though, the outcomes are vastly different, never positive, and generally so negative as to sour the victims forever on thoughts of their PhD student experience. Bullied PhD students experience the same levels of stress as bullied professors….or higher–higher, I contend, because while being bullied, they are in the situation of not knowing whether they ever will be allowed to actually complete their studies and completely earn a PhD degree.

Some PhD students actually do not ever finish their degrees. Some feel drummed out and just walk away, never to return.

Others quit and try to find ways to move on with their lives and overcome their newly gained emotional and physical illnesses.

Finally, others–sorry to report–do finish and actually go on to do what I mentioned above in this text: They consider “I was bullied, and I made it. Now it’s the newcomer candidates’ turn, and I will do my share in passing along the tradition under which I came up.”

How sad is that.

Bullying begets: More bullying, new bullies, and illness and ruined lives and careers…and even suicide.

Never underestimate the power of professors over PhD students!

————–

I have found that telling someone they are being abusive is very effective-
You don’t have to say they are being abusive to you, just mumble something about abusive remarks and it will stop them in their tracks-

They will regroup and come at you again so be prepared-

-Life is not meant to be lived under the glare of abuse no matter who it is they need to be ‘equalized’

I have found it is important to watch how much you seek approval as well-
Learn to seek only your own approval and no one can touch you-
A bit cold but necessary at first- then reintegrate people into your life if you like-
As the guru on Youtube says-

‘You are not a pet animal that needs to be patted on the head to be cheered-
This is a world of illusion-
Know that you are God- do your best and then forget about it-’

How can higher administration ignore a department hemorrhaging several faculty members annually, many of them experienced teachers and scholars!? Some of the tricks of this witch’s trade include:
1) Telling everyone that the Dean had electronic listening devices installed around the department, in the telephones, and could listen in on us.
2) Forcing faculty members to list her as an author on journal articles they had written, where she had contributed nothing to the research and had no expertise whatsoever in the area of investigation.
3) Browbeating faculty to “get grants” when she showed no leadership in doing so herself. Historiann’s comment about these people being “hall monitors” instead of scholars was dead-on!
4) Once grants were awarded to some faculty, she attempted to control the budget, prevent the PI from purchasing items they needed, and in fact took some of the money for her own purposes which had nothing to do with the grant. Although I already had an approved budget, she made me write a new “justification” every time I needed to order something that cost more than 25 cents.
5) Blabbed confidential information about interviewees, as well as about non-favored faculty members to their more-favored colleagues. On several occasions (when I was initially in-favor), I had to inform her that her divulging private information about my colleagues was very uncomfortable for me, and to please stop. That was the beginning of the end.
6) Browbeat administrative assistant staff to eavesdrop on faculty conversations and report back to her.
7) Kicked unfavored faculty scholars out of their nicer offices, into small, cramped offices or even into a different crappy building.
8) Refused any faculty writing to be done outside of the department. If I went to the Library to work, she sent a staff member to spy and check to see if I was really there.
9) Claimed that all a faculty member’s prior teaching materials or research data brought with them from prior institutions were now the property of her department.
10) Faculty or staff who gave notice of resignation were/are harassed until the final day, when she calls Campus Police to escort them out of the building.
11) I could go on, but don’t wish to depress you further.

Glad to Have Escaped

Thanks for the post and comments.

My experience in this area has been extensive. Some recommendations:
Wise Up!
1. There have always been bullies and always will be. They come in all sizes, shapes and levels of the academic totem pole. That doesn’t mean that you have to accept it. Some bullies are very bright. Many are what I call “stealth bullies.” They’re covert, sneaky, manipulative, critical, controlling, verbally abuses, emotionally intimidating and backstabbing with a smile.
2. Use legal protection if you can, but don’t count on it. Most of the bullying passes under the legal radar. And laws still have to be applied by people. Many people won’t. Be grateful when you get help, but don’t count on it and don’t be stopped if you’re on your own.
3. Change the discussion from “why bullies do it and the nuances of how,” into a discussion of how to stop bullies in their tracks.
4. Learn to fight; teach your friends and children to deal with the real world. You won’t win every fight, but when you fight back you’ll stop a higher percentage of bullies. You will need to be brave, courageous, determined, persevering and resilient.
5. Recognize and label bullies as bullies. If you have any doubt, learn the early warning signs. Recognizing and labeling them will reinforce your identification of who’s the problem – they are.
6. Recognizing and labeling can take you out of “helpless, victim mentality.” Stop asking, “What did I do wrong” or “What did I do to deserve it.” A bully is a bully is a bully.
7. Ignore the idea of, “Don’t stoop to their level.” Do stoop to using language they understand. Raise the stakes on them if you can.
8. Administrators are just like principals of elementary, junior high, middle and high schools. Some act, but many look the other way; they tolerate, condone, protect or encourage bullies. You will have to force those administrators to act.

Stand up!
1. Stop analyzing all the different forms of bullying, stop examining statistics, stop analyzing why they do it. You know more than enough already. Just look at the comments here and in the original New York Times article. Don’t let predators get you.
2. Act to protect and defend yourself and your friends and colleagues in your specific situation. Act as rapidly as you can; don’t wait until you have absolute proof. Bullies don’t take passivity (begging, pleading, minimizing, ignoring) as kindness, caring or you taking the high moral ground. Bullies take passivity as an invitation to hit you harder.
3. Shine a light on it. Get allies; gang up on bullies. Isolate them if you can. Undermine their position and power.
4. Don’t react with emotional outbursts; stay professional. Get evidence and document. Look for loss of productivity (decreasing publications, grants and awards, or increasing turnover). Look for “smoking guns.” If the bully has power, look to increase your leverage. Administrators hate publicity and scandal. Use their fear as leverage.
5. Don’t get sucked into a rehabilitation model. Stop bullies first. Kick them off your island or isolate them in a very tiny room with other bullies. Then you can become their therapist (if that’s what you get paid for).
6. Don’t stay in a hostile workplace you can’t change. Be prepared to leave and make your exit interview public.

I see more bullies in academia, government offices, non-profits and public service organizations.

Disclosure: Since I left academia (after about 23 years), I’ve become a coach and consultant, and have written articles and books, and produced CDs about stopping bullies at work and in personal life. My web site and blog are at: http://www.BulliesBeGone.com.

To Professor Zero: You’re absolutely right. I see co-workers and subordinates bullying just as much as supervisors, tenured profs, department chairs, etc. Iv’e written a lot of columns about them. See the DEnver Business Journal, for example.

Good luck,
Ben