The Complexity of Academic Bullying

To the Editor:

Academic bullying is a more-complex subject than Piper Fogg’s “Academic Bullies” (The Chronicle Review, September 12) makes it seem. I wish her article had reflected the advances in scholarship reported at the 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying in Montreal last June, where researchers from 30 countries shared their latest insights.

An up-to-date overview would not have had the title “Academic Bullies.” It would not have defined the problem as some number of pathological professors, the “bullies” or “bad apples.” It would have recognized that personalizing conflict by positing bad guys on one side and victims and good guys on the other rarely fits the facts and usually makes things worse. New York school psychologist and psychotherapist Israel Kalman has correctly pointed out that antibullying campaigns based on so simplistic a view are witch hunts and do more harm than good.

Carlo Caponecchia and Anne Wyatt, from the University of New South Wales, called the talk they gave in Montreal “Victimising the ‘Bully': Problems with the ‘Workplace Psychopaths’ Approach.” Purdue University psychologist Kipling D. Williams described his experiments on the devastating effects of ostracism. Many other presenters at the conference were similarly critical of approaches to conflict that involve demonization of one or another of those involved.

The research literature on workplace mobbing, which John Gravois accurately summarized in “Mob Rule” (The Chronicle, April 14, 2006), can be seen as a corrective to the oversimplification apparent in Fogg’s article. Australian researcher Linda Shallcross, in her presentation in Montreal, described accusations of bullying as common and effective techniques for mobbing a targeted colleague.

In keeping with the best research, the University of Waterloo’s human-resources department has adopted five basic principles for the university workplace. They are inscribed on a large sign posted in every department on campus. First on the list is, “Focus on the situation, issue, or behavior, not the person.” This principle is worth remembering whenever one is tempted to label a colleague or administrator a bully.

Kenneth Westhues Professor of Sociology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario

http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 55, Issue 7, Page B23