Workplace bullying in academia

Bullying is the longstanding violence, physical or psychological, conducted by an individual or group and directed against an individual who is not able to defend himself in the actual situation, with a conscious desire to hurt, threaten, or frighten that individual or put him under stress.[6]

Workplace bullying ranges into the following categories.[7]

• Threat to professional status, such as, public professional humiliation, accusation of lack of effort and belittling.
• Threat to social status, such as, teasing and name calling.
• Isolation, such as, withholding information and preventing access to opportunities, such as training workshops, attendance and deadlines.
• Overwork, such as setting impossible deadlines and making unnecessary disruptions.
• Destabilization, for example, setting meaningless tasks, not giving credit where credit is due, removal from positions of authority.

Several aspects of academia lend themselves to the practice and discourage its reporting and mitigation. Its leadership is usually drawn from the ranks of faculty, most of whom have not received the management training that could enable an effective response to such situations. The perpetrators may possess tenure—a high-status and protected position—or the victims may belong to the increasing number of adjunct professors, who are often part-time employees.

The generally decentralized nature of academic institutions can make it difficult for victims to seek recourse, and appeals to outside authority have been described as "the kiss of death."[8][9][10] Therefore, academics who are subject to bullying in workplace are often cautious about reporting any problems. Social media has recently been used to expose or allege bullying in academia anonymously.[11]

Although tenure and post-tenure review lead to interdepartmental evaluation, and all three culminate in an administrative decision, bullying is commonly a function of administrative input before or during the early stages of intradepartmental review. Recent publications by Nature emphasize the need for improving institutional reporting systems for academic bullying.[12][13]

The bullying in this workplace has been described as somewhat more subtle than usual.[9] Its recipients may be the target of unwanted physical contact, violence, obscene or loud language during meetings, be disparaged among their colleagues in venues they are not aware of, and face difficulties when seeking promotion.[9][16] It may also be manifested by undue demands for compliance with regulations.[17]

A 2008 study of the topic, conducted on the basis of a survey at a Canadian university, concluded that the practice had several unproductive costs, including increased employee turnover.[18]

Victims of academic mobbing may suffer from "stress, depression and suicidal thoughts" as well as posttraumatic stress disorder. The psychological scars have been described as potentially worse than with sexual harassment, and they may not heal for many years.

Similarly to studies in general workplace bullying, incidence varies a lot depending on where and what definition of bullying is used. There is up to one quarter or one third of academics who declare they have been bullied in the past year. This is considerably higher compared to other workplaces, with 10-14% workers declaring having experienced bullying in the past year in the United States, but less than in healthcare, where a studies in 17 Greek hospitals reported that half of the doctors and nurses reported they had experienced bullying. Around 40% say they have witnessed or heard about bullying behaviors happening to someone else. One of the largest studies of bullying in universities, surveying 14,000 higher-education staff over 92 institutions in the United Kingdom, found the rate of bullying varied widely across institutions, from 2% to 19% of the staff at each university reporting being always or often bullied.[19]

In 2008 the United Kingdom's University and College Union released the results of a survey taken among its 9,700 members.[20] 51% of respondents said they had never been bullied, 16.7% that they had occasionally experienced it, and 6.7% that they were "always" or "often" subjected to bullying.[20] The results varied by member institutions, with respondents from the University of East London reporting the highest incidence.[20]

The Times Higher Education commissioned a survey in 2005 and received 843 responses.[16] Over 40% reported they had been bullied, with 33% reporting "unwanted physical contact" and 10% reporting physical violence; about 75% reported they were aware that co-workers had been bullied.[16] The incidence rate found in this survey was higher than that usually found via internal polling (12 to 24 percent).[16]

Author C. K. Gunsalus describes the problem as "low incidence, high severity", analogous to research misconduct.[8] She identifies the aggressors' misuse of the concepts of academic freedom and collegiality as a commonly used strategy.[8]

University bullying policies and processes are open to misuse, however, and the AAUP notes that faculty who dissent on academic governance issues or who complain about workplace inequities may become the target for retaliatory bullying complaints aimed to silence unpopular views.[21]

In a 2005 British study, around 35% of medical students reported having been bullied. Around one in four of the 1,000 students questioned said they had been bullied by a doctor, while one in six had been bullied by a nurse. Manifestations of bullying included:[22]

• being humiliated by teachers in front of patients
• been victimised for not having come from a "medical family"
• being put under pressure to carry out a procedure without supervision.

Recently, the Lancet journal proposed a need for establishment of a global committee on academic behaviour ethics to consider academic bullying reports in a robust, fair, and unbiased manner.[23]

• Twale D Civility, Incivility, Bullying, and Mobbing in Academe
• Karim N Bullying in Universities: It exists The Independent on Sunday 15 January 2010
• Westhues K Workplace Mobbing in Academe
• Albrecht Anti-Mobbing Help for Scientists