Bullying in Academia Must Stop

I have been reading Nicholas Kristof's excellent columns in The New York Times, including the ones that he has written about bullying. He has also posted a link to essays that teenagers have written on their experiences with bullying.

Sad to say that, even in the bastions of the "ivory" towers of academia and higher education, bullying exists.

It exists where "rules of the game" are changed after students matriculate, including those for doctoral students, especially when females are involved.

It exists where females' initiatives are discounted and ridiculed.

It exists where, time and time again, those most qualified are never given chances or opportunities for appointments to administrative posts, if desired.

It exists where achievements are not acknowledged or are belittled by one's academic administrators.

It exists where and when  activities and newsletters are removed from academic websites since "this is not a departmental activity," despite such documents having been on the website for over half a decade.

It exists when and where females' comments and suggestions are summarily rejected in public emails.

It exists where females are publicly, through an email, "immediately" fired from an administrative post, without prior notification, with the sole justification afterwards being that a junior male colleague needed to up his record of service for promotion and tenure.

It exists where one's request for maternity leave, in some form or fashion, is not responded to, until a few days before she gives birth, and then a few weeks after she is teaching her class from her home.

It exists where females have been asked to teach extra courses without any added compensation and have felt "obligated" to do so.

It exists where only the "chosen few" get to teach extra courses online at much added compensation.

I could go on, but will stop here.

The ivory tower is crumbling.

All the above have happened to me, some very recently,  and I am a Chaired Professor at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst and valued sufficiently by the College of Engineering to also have appointments in two different departments there.

And one wonders why  are there so few females going into technical fields and rising through the ranks of academia?

At least we have our research to support us and our students and collaborators as well as friends and family members. Ultimately, it will be the research that you did and the positive influence that you have had on others that you will leave as your mark.

So, write those essays, write those papers, and write those books. Do the best work that you are capable of and mentor others and when the accolades come, and they will, if you work hard, know that you have made a difference.

Also, in whatever manner that you can, do speak out and I am doing so with this blogpost.

Just a week ago, I received a survey on bullying to fill out anonymously at UMass Amherst. Perhaps someone is starting to notice.

The Tarnishing of the Ivory Tower

Now that graduations are over with and before another set of conferences begins, one can reflect on the academic year that has passed.

At times I wish that the ivory tower was, indeed, ivory to reflect an integrity that one expects of academics.

However, I continue to observe that, at various colleges and universities, it is increasingly not those who have worked the hardest and the most diligently that get the promotions and rewards, but, rather, it is those with the right "political" networks.

I am seeing more administrative appointments without searches; deserving faculty, whose promotions are delayed or stymied or outrightly denied because of egregious falsehoods, disregard to policy manuals, and errors that propagate up the chain of decision-making, and a deemphasis of diversity and equal opportunity.

I know of a teaching award winning faculty member, who is also a member of a minority, who was told to postpone his promotion and tenure decision year so that others could go through the process before him.

I am seeing more searches in which the finalists have no female representation even in areas in which females are well-represented.

I am witnessing rude public firings of directors by other administrators for no reason than to include substitutes that match more closely the one who did the firing.

I am seeing academic positions that are getting filled not by the best as according to the job description but by friends of those in so-called leadership positions.

I know of a female faculty member whose required course was made unrequired midyear and program graduation requirements altered to suit recently hired faculty with students not even being informed.

It appears that, in cases, it is the case that higher-level administrators are tacitly approving the misbehaviors and bullying of others by the lower level administrators.

As a colleague of mine told me recently at one of our graduation ceremonies, and I concurred, individuals know the paths that they have taken to reach their destinations/positions and they have to live with the choices made. I sometimes feel that some may just lack a conscience.

It takes a leader with courage to right the wrongs and I wonder where are the administrators who are up to this task?! Sometimes too much delegation without proper oversight and communications can completely destabilize what a school or college has taken years to build.