Question (from “Minerva”): I’m a young assistant professor on the tenure track in a small department at Unhappy U. My chair (“Alvin”) and his wife (“Alice,” a lecturer in the department) have bullied me, undermined me in front of students, and said harassing things to me or in front of me.
My research concerns an aspect of sexuality, but Alice reported me for “sexual harassment” for using sexual words in class (I used the correct anatomical terms). She finds my work offensive, and has yelled at me for including students in my research. Alvin is spiteful and hostile, and has withheld information I need for progressing in my career. The dean has been sympathetic but also says there’s nothing he can do. Tenured colleagues in other departments offer listening ears but can’t or won’t do anything.
So I went on the job market (I’m in a hot field), got another job, and will be leaving.
At this point my social capital at Unhappy U doesn’t matter, so I’m happy to throw myself under the bus if filing a complaint could help my colleagues who are stuck there. As I’m the third or fourth woman leaving because of Alvin, I’d like to make this place better for women who come in after me. Is there any way to do that?
Answer: Ms. Mentor will let you in on a truth she has learned through long and irksome experience: You cannot change the world.
You can and should give the world many gifts. As a teacher, you can open students’ minds and change their lives. As an educated citizen, you can make a dent in the outside world. As a colleague, you can nurture and mentor. But you do not really have the power to make anyone do anything.
You cannot overturn the whole apple cart or settle everyone’s hash.
She salutes your generous impulse to try to make things better. But your institution seems to be run by bullies and cowards. The only competent go-getters are Alvin and Alice.
Ms. Mentor finds in her files many letters from martyrs who want to stay in a snake pit “and try to change things from within.” There are many people, some of them saintly, who fervently believe in their own powers as saviors: “If I just say and do the right things, they’ll come around.” That is a common belief among battered wives, and it’s a prison. If you blame yourself for the failings of others, you’re stuck.
So you are right to flee, to save yourself. But, you wonder, can you help others who are still in the department?
You can have a very candid exit interview. You can request one, if there isn’t a regular procedure. You can write a letter detailing what happened. You can write job-recommendation letters for others trying to flee.
You should keep a complete chronological record for yourself, in case you need to remember why you left. You may also have excellent material for an academic novel in which Alvin and Alice are satirized, thwarted, and disgraced. The ability to write is always consoling. (Keep your writings in a separate e-mail account under a pseudonym, of course. Keep copies at home, not in your office.)
But what else? Once you’ve left, you cannot file a grievance, since there’s no “institutional remedy” (a cure from within, such as a department transfer or a reprimand in Alvin’s file). You don’t have a legal case, since you haven’t been fired, demoted, or harassed in an illegal way.
Mean, nasty, corrosive, insulting conversation is free speech.
You can seek revenge in the classic way, through academic gossip mills—badmouthing Alvin and Alice to everyone you know; posting barely veiled commentary on Facebook and elsewhere; creating a blog just to trash them. But Ms. Mentor thinks such satisfactions are fleeting, and can eat you up. Your enemies still have space in your head, and they’re trashing your room.
If you dwell on your bitterness, colleagues at your new place may think you’re “uncollegial” as well as boring. Unless it’s really lurid, no one really wants to hear what went wrong at your old job. Even worse, the professional rumor mill could hear your complaining and get the idea that you were let go for being “uncollegial.” It will all work against you.
Ms. Mentor deeply sympathizes with your urge to help those who don’t have your escape route. She hopes that Alvin and Alice will retire soon, opening the department to sunshine and fresh air. Maybe a new, less pusillanimous dean will come in. Maybe there will be scandals, and scoundrels will be swept out.
Still, the only behavior you control is your own, and Ms. Mentor suggests you display your most winning persona for the first faculty meeting at your new job. Introduce yourself to everyone with enthusiasm, and with an upbeat tag line about your past place: “I’ve just come from Unhappy U., where they have a beautiful campus and I had many marvelous friends. But I wanted the opportunities here at Newfound U. I’m delighted to be here.” Ask your new colleagues what they like best about their teaching, their research, their city. Have lunch with everyone. Seek friends and mentors.
If you shun the role of the gloomy academic—the whining cynic, the brooding “All the world is wretched” soul—your colleagues will treasure you.
Meanwhile, in the privacy of your own home, keep up your Career Diary. Include your record of everything that happened at Unhappy U., and compare the scene at Newfound U. Write down everything said to you as a new hire: what’s expected of you, what your colleagues laud and complain about. Save every memo and piece of writing about your new job. Don’t complain about the past, but don’t be blindsided by the future.
“There are no second acts in American lives,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote. You are one of those rare, lucky, and talented individuals who gets to start again. Ms. Mentor exhorts you to cherish the time, while also heeding the advice from the great pitcher Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.”
Question: Is it normal to have a sinking feeling at the beginning of the semester, just because you know that your teaching will never reach the Platonic perfection you seek, and that your students will never be the dedicated seekers after truth that you deserve?
Answer: Yes.
Sage readers: Ms. Mentor sends special greetings and cheers (“Hip, hip, hooray! Jolly good!”) to those starting new jobs, graduate schools, or life adventures in the fall. She urges you to slough off your old skin, whatever it may be, and don your new and dazzling raiment.
Teaching is, of course, one of life’s rare opportunities to forget your past mistakes and resolve to do better this time.
As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes rants, queries, and gossip, and she invites reports from first faculty meetings. Are they still mysterious to newbies—or are the hidden agendas all too clear? Does the first speaker still fulminate futilely about salaries? Who shows the most generous spirit? Are there flashes of wit?
Ms. Mentor regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally, and never speedily, and she recommends regular perusal of The Chronicle’s forums. She cannot give legal or psychiatric advice. All communications are confidential, anonymity is guaranteed, and identifying details are smudged. No one will know if you’re a newbie, an oldie, a Boomer, a Millennial, a Gen-Xer, a stalwart, or a poltroon. Your secret is safe with Ms. Mentor.
Ms. Mentor, who never leaves her ivory tower, channels her mail via Emily Toth in the English department of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. Her most recent book is Ms. Mentor’s New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia (University of Pennsylvania Press). Her e-mail address is ms.mentor@chronicle.com.
