Many scholars can attest to the trauma that comes with being a victim of harassment, bullying, or general incivility in the workplace. The phenomenon of the academic aggressor has been well documented, even if solutions are in short supply.
But how common is the problem? Is it the result of various bad apples or more serious structural rot? And can anything be done about it?
Alana Van Gundy, an associate professor of justice and community studies at Miami University in Ohio, set out to answer those questions. In a 30-page survey distributed late last year, she asked faculty members how often they’d witnessed or been the victim of a range of aggressive behaviors — starting with more subtle actions, like eye-rolling, and moving up the ladder to include shouting, intentional humiliation, and rumor-spreading.
Over 830 people in the United States, Canada, and Britain responded. Ms. Van Gundy is still analyzing the data, but she shared some of her early findings with The Chronicle. They include the following:
- Incivil behavior in the academic workplace is common. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they have been the target of faculty incivility; 77 percent said they have witnessed someone else being targeted.
- Reporting misbehavior doesn’t always yield results. Seventy-one percent of those targeted discussed or reported incivility or aggression to departmental colleagues, but half the time, they reported that the behavior continued.
- Tenure-on-tenure incivility is common. Although some faculty members have linked academic bullying to the rising use of adjunct professors, 76 percent of the perpetrators and nearly half of the victims in Ms. Van Gundy’s study were tenured. The study found that full professors were most likely to bully associate professors.
- Incivility transcends sex and gender. The perpetrators were about half male, half female.
- Aggressors tend to be repeat offenders. Sixty-four percent of perpetrators had been accused of incivility or bullying in the past, and nearly half of them had been accused five or more times.
Ms. Van Gundy spoke to The Chronicle about these findings and her initial interpretation of them. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q. What prompted this survey?
A. I’ve spent 15 years in academics. Over the years, I’ve viewed what I considered to be violations of good citizenship and collegiality. I was very interested in seeing the prevalence of that and what alleviation there is for people that are targeted.
Q. How do you ensure respondents don’t simply report incidents in which a colleague had a bad day or isn’t particularly friendly? How do you make sure what you’re getting at is really a problem?
A. We differentiate between incivility when it’s just one individual; bullying, which is across more than six months; and mobbing, which is two or more perpetrators. Within that we’re looking at scales, so: Is this a minor level of incivility?
We categorized these forms of incivility, bullying, and mobbing into five different forms: verbal, which is swearing and shouting; social, which is interruptions during meetings, exclusion from conversation, or humiliation during meetings; psychological, which includes the silent treatment; physical, which includes inappropriate touching and regressive body language; and professional impact.
Professional impact is when there’s a refusal to sign grants; individuals undermine your credibility as a professional; and intentional extreme deadlines or workloads that will literally impact whether or not you’re promoted, whether you’re retained, and how quickly you can advance, if at all.
Q. What was particularly surprising to you about your findings?
A. The most surprising was that 64 percent of the perpetrators were individuals that had been accused before, and of that, 44 percent were accused of bullying or incivility five or more times. This goes against the grain that this is a structural problem. The fact that these are repeat violators or repeat bullies means that this comes down to an individual level.
The other surprise was the public nature of this behavior. People are responding that there are high rates of intentional shame or harassment or embarrassment by copying people on emails, doing this in front of students, in meetings in front of other people, or at professional-organization meetings. So it’s very clear that the intent is to embarrass, to shame, or to harass an individual.
Q. Did any methods of reporting these incidents reveal themselves as more helpful than others? Could they be adopted by colleges that are hoping to fix these kinds problems?
A. We found about 10 percent of the individuals reported to Offices of Equity and Equal Opportunity or a Title IX coordinator. About 50 percent of those individuals found support for their claims.
About 9 percent of faculty reported to faculty grievance committees, and 48 percent found support. And about 8.5 reported to the union, and 72 percent of the claims were supported.
Q. What do you mean by “found support?”
A. When filing a grievance as faculty, committees or offices come back with a “support for claim” or “no support for claim” finding. With the former, action can be taken. With the latter, nothing is done. So when we asked that question, we were trying to see which agency found support for claims the most often.
Q. How has this incivility impacted people’s careers?
A. The people who reported being victims of either incivility, bullying, or mobbing have extremely high rates of depression and anxiety. They leave jobs early, and they make very difficult decisions.
Q. What’s the next step for this research?
A. It will be important to educate administrators, to look at the implementation of the formal mechanisms and whether or not they are reaching their intended goal.
Our findings are consistent with the 2012 survey on workplace bullying in the academy done by Leah Hollis. I think that this shows that over time, this needs to be longitudinally studied. Then we can find patterns or themes that will help us address this problem.
We have an enormous about amount of qualitative data that shows a really strong level of fear of reporting, fear of making their situation worse. That’s actually supported by our data that shows it does accelerate when you report it, or continue, at a minimum.
Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.
