The AVCs have access to $$$, invite you to lunches, etc., want you to confide in them regarding any problems you are having with certain Deans, then they turn the tables on you.

I feel very strongly about the immorality of bullying, and will continue posting on this subject. It’s shocking to hear all of your stories about wasted time and talent. One would think that universities as workplaces would wise up when they consider how much of people’s time and energy are consumed by bullies.

Thank you for listening and for being so empathic.

Freezing out a bully may not be an option for most people–if you can do it and get away with it, then that’s great. But, others may have to put on a smiley-face mask…

My strategy was three-fold: I got a private sector job that allowed me to walk away from the financial blackmail, I refuse to speak to her or even acknowledge her existence (works wonders for information-starving!), and have let colleagues/faculty know that IMHO if cannibalism ever becomes a path to career advancement, they should start taking head counts.

You don’t say if you’re still working in the same environment, but I hope you’re someplace far, far away from that guy, and that you’ve found other truly supportive friends (on the faculty of your college, and in your community.) EDIT–sorry, I see now that this story is from your first job. Good for you for escaping! And, while there is no excuse for being treated that way, as you say, there are lessons learned that benefit you now.

In short, I was junior (and a woman), and he was senior. We were both minority faculty in a college with very few minority faculty, and so we bonded on that at first. We became very close very quickly and spent much of our social time together from the day I started my job.

I eventually found out he was doing all of the things you listed above. He alienated me from other people in the department by telling me they were saying bad things about me. He told me about the dirty details of my hire and the fights the search committee had over it (and info about the other candidates, of course). He told me he was single-handedly responsible for having gotten me the job. He told me that jealous senior faculty were saying nasty things about me behind my back and sabotaging me.

Well, you can predict how this story ends. It turns out that he was the one spreading horrible rumors about me all along and stabbing me in the back. It turns out that not only was he not defending me in ways a senior faculty member should defend a junior one, he was actually the one who I needed protection from.

As traumatic as that “friendship” was for me, I believe it had the higher purpose of teaching me an important lesson so that I don’t make the same mistake again.

When I interviewed for my first tenure-track faculty position at a state university, the department chair abused his position by housing me in a funky bed & breakfast owned by his aunt. There was no sign, just a spare room in their old home, with cockroaches. Two or three other finalists were similarly housed.

When I took the job as an untenured assistant professor, two or three senior male faculty in the department were dating undergraduates (unknown to me), some in their classes. Three were divorced in a short period. One of them told me about it when I apologized for not introducing myself to his Aspouse@ at a department party.

When I said I thought faculty dating students in their classes was an unprofessional abuse of the power relationship between faculty and students, I was assigned by the department chair to teach a second consecutive semester on a campus 20 miles from my office, and was not invited to social gatherings of the department for several years.

I=d been told when hired that faculty would have to teach on that campus no more than once per year, but then was told Anobody else wants to do it.@ Later I found nobody else had been asked. I was, after all, the most junior member of the department. I understood I’d been sent to Siberia.

When the department chair accepted release time for being chair, and assigned himself a teaching overload for offering a regular course load, the administration negotiated a provision in the faculty collective bargaining agreement prohibiting such actions.

When it came time for me to apply for tenure and promotion, the same department chair, a tenured full Professor, denied me secretarial assistance to finish preparation of two books for which I had contracts, saying she was already committed to prepare a book for him.

When I questioned his priorities, he said I should spend my grant money paying his secretary to work after hours, although the grant was for travel and research expenses, not secretarial assistance.

When I asked the secretary if she wished to work for extra compensation after hours, she didn=t produce the work, saying she was too tired from working on the chair=s book. Ultimately I had to prepare both manuscripts on my old 80286 computer.

When we had a post-tenure review of the department chair, I found he had published less when promoted to full Professor than I had published in graduate school.

When I suggested the chair=s term should be limited to six years, the chair opposed it. He had already served eight years.

When a majority of my department agreed the chair should serve a limited number of terms, the term-limited chair accepted an administrative position outside the department. The six years he served in that position were some of the best of my career.

When a subsequent department chair misplaced all semester teaching evaluations for all faculty in the department, I was elected chair in his place.

When I created a departmental newsletter for students and mailed it to alumni, the former chair criticized the effort as a waste of paper and printing expense.

When I identified transfer equivalents for all departmental courses at the other campuses in the state university system, the advising office was ecstatic. Administration requests to previous chairs had produced nothing.

When a student organized complaints about his teaching by five other students in his class and I defused the situation, the former department chair pretended nothing happened.

When I created a university chapter of the national disciplinary honor society, the former chair said only Ayou be the advisor.@

When I defended one of his courses against a duplicative course offered in a campus interdisciplinary program, but taught by faculty at an unaccredited Acollege@ in England, the former department chair said Athanks, I guess.@

When I became chair of the department, there were no women or minorities in it. When I left the position six years later, the department included two women and one ethnic minority member in tenure track positions.

When I pointed out it was possible for students to graduate without ever taking an upper-level course, the department decided to require more lower-level courses.

When I proposed we could better serve the credential needs of students by creating certificate concentrations within the major, I was accused of seeking Aprivilege@ for my courses. No matter that my proposal for several concentrations included some in which I would offer only one or no courses, and would benefit others in the department more than I.

When my three terms as chair were done, the previous chair was back from his administrative assignment and was reelected unopposed. No other tenured faculty wanted it.

When I read the department chair=s vitae in a post-tenure review, it appeared he was principal author of publications which, when I found them in the library, identified him as second or third author. One of them appeared to be written entirely by someone else in a different discipline.

When I had met expectations for promotion to Professor, the peer committee tried to change those expectations during my post-tenure review the year before promotion.

When I said I would file a grievance against changing the standards for my promotion, the department chair orchestrated complaints by other faculty against me, falsely saying I had threatened to vote against the tenure and promotion of one, and to sue the others.

When I questioned the lackluster performance of a do-nothing department chair during his post-tenure review, he said being chair was merely a perk of his position, and he had done everything I had done as chair, before I had done it. Expressing a revisionist view of history, he tried to take credit for my accomplishments.

When I applied for promotion to Professor, votes for tenure and promotion of one faculty and sabbaticals for two others–including the chair–were strategically scheduled in the same meeting before my application was considered. They wanted my vote before deciding my fate.

When a departmental meeting was held to consider my promotion, the chair portrayed my publications in a false light (a violation of my Constitutional right to privacy, more serious than slander), ignoring external reviews by luminaries in my field and making false claims about disciplinary ethical standards, in an attempt to block my promotion. Apparently the chair did not care for faculty who published more than he did.

After a nasty struggle that threatened my career and the reputation of the university, involving a provost intent on stifling scholarship–and legal counsel–I was promoted. Later, the same scholarship received a national book award. No apologies were ever forthcoming from anyone.

When a new chair took office, she removed everything from department bulletin boards and announced she would determine what could be posted: without concept of free speech.

When I sent out email messages to selected colleagues at other universities announcing a new book publication, a vice president of IT (and chum of the stifling provost) accused me of illegal spamming. At this university one should keep ones scholarship secret, lest the reputation of the school increase.

When I=m asked by promising students if the academic life is as good as it seems at first glance, what am I to tell them?

If I had known it would be like this before I chose this profession, would I have made a different decision? Knowing all this, why would anyone chose the Aacademic life@ in higher education?

I might have been happier as a brick layer, or building the successful business I started as an undergraduate and gave up to go to graduate school. Certainly I would be wealthier now, but probably would not have published as many books and journal articles.

Now, nearing the end of my career, I find myself asking: AWhy did I do this?@ Is it so hard to find ethics, common sense, and collegiality in a university?

Myrvyn Emrys is a pseudonym used for obvious reasons by a faculty member employed at a large state university in New England.