Queen Mary: nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Three timely Offline columns by Richard Horton describe a mindless managerial rampage spreading through Queen Mary University of London, UK. Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, has declared distinguished medical researchers to be at risk of redundancy.

Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences now follows suit. As we write, colleagues declared to be “at risk” just 2 weeks ago are summoned individually to closed audiences with the Head of School, attended by members of the ironically named “Human Resources” (HR) department. If targeted individuals fail to appease the inquisitor, they will be sacked. Other staff members are earmarked for demotion, with replacement “Teaching and Scholarship” contracts that will oblige them to desist from independent research.

But, one might ask, is it not high time to weed out slackers? It might help if one had any way of knowing who they are. Sadly, the “restructuring” hits exactly the wrong targets in many cases, and leaves unproductive academics unscathed. The reason is simple—the Head of School and HR have neither interest in, nor understanding of, individuals' research, still less their research potential. This slaughter of the talented relies entirely on a carefully designed set of retrospective counts of the uncountable. These are labelled research “metrics”.

Are we engaged in special pleading here? Actually, no. Our school has a reputation, envied worldwide, for research by individuals now for the chop. Their retrospective crimes, committed between 2008 and 2011, include too few publications as a “significant” author in high-impact journals, below-average external funding, and failure to meet metrics for allocation of PhD studentships. Where the baseline of research income derived from the Higher Education Funding Council for England has disappeared, no-one seems to know.

So, we are looking at the end of the road for unique and internationally leading-edge Queen Mary research. Among many outstanding projects we stand to lose are: sociogenomics of mole rats, the only eusocial mammals, and a model, incidentally, for the endocrinology of bullying; genetics of circadian rhythms and iron homoeostasis from experiments on fruit-flies; imaging of neural activity in zebrafish—a paradigm for vertebrate development; and heterogeneous catalytic oxidation and carbon—carbon coupling in inorganic chemical synthesis. The list is long.

Alas, there are no boxes to tick for advances in knowledge and understanding—no metrics for science itself. Over in the Medical and Dental School, the grand inquisitor is identified as the Dean for Research, whose own research credentials are, naturally, unavailable for scrutiny. Never mind, we now have the assurance from his colleague that “Each and every faculty member of the college was assessed in this process and from my own personal point of view it was done fairly…”

Who needs evidence in the face of such assurance? “Consequently, to pick him out for criticism in this disgraceful manner is quite iniquitous”. Yet the Dean managed to pick out others—for oblivion, not just criticism. And he got it wrong. The same double standard follows, now, in our School of Biological and Chemical Sciences. For example, one of the “metrics” for research output at professorial level is to have published at least two papers in journals with impact factors of 7 or more. This is ludicrous, of course—a triumph of vanity as sensible as selecting athletes on the basis of their brand of track suit.

But let us follow this “metric” for a moment. How does the Head of School fair? Zero, actually. He fails. Just consult Web of Science. Take care though, the result is classified information. HR's “data” are marked Private and Confidential.

Some things must be believed. To question them is heresy. We hope to report back on our Head's one-to-one interview with himself. After all, we have his word, and that of College senior management, that the restructuring is proceeding with complete fairness and transparency. Perhaps he'll use a mirror?

From: http://www.thelancet.com

Dismissal threat for metrics letter

Queen Mary, University of London has warned one of its academics that he faces an investigation that potentially could lead to dismissal, after he wrote a letter criticising its metrics-based redundancy programme and two senior managers.

Fanis Missirlis, a lecturer in cell biology, and a colleague put their names to a letter to The Lancet that was published online on 4 May. On 14 May, Dr Missirlis received a letter from a human resources officer at Queen Mary telling him that the college had "decided to commence a fact-finding investigation" into an allegation that in publishing the letter he "sought to bring the Head of School of Biological and Chemical Sciences (Matthew Evans) and the Dean for Research in the School of Medicine and Dentistry (Thomas MacDonald) into disrepute". If the allegations proceed to a full disciplinary hearing and are substantiated, they may constitute misconduct, the letter says, or even gross misconduct, "which could lead to dismissal".

Queen Mary's disciplinary code says managers will "investigate thoroughly any allegations of misconduct that come to their attention and decide if formal action is needed". The restructuring programmes in the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and the School of Medicine and Dentistry - which are using metrics intended to measure research performance to select candidates for redundancy - have provoked concern among academics at Queen Mary.

In the letter to The Lancet, Dr Missirlis - who has also written a letter to Times Higher Education on the subject - says the "retrospective crimes" of those selected for redundancy, "committed between 2008 and 2011, include too few publications as a 'significant' author in high-impact journals, below-average external funding, and failure to meet metrics for allocation of PhD studentships". He refers to the dean of research in the School of Medicine and Dentistry as the "grand inquisitor" in that school and says the dean's own research credentials "are, naturally, unavailable for scrutiny".

In the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Dr Missirlis says, "one of the 'metrics' for research output at professorial level is to have published at least two papers in journals with impact factors of 7 or more". He asks how the head of the school would fare on that basis.

Chris Pearson, director of human resources at Queen Mary, said: "Colleagues are free to publicly discuss their concerns over restructuring, and we have encouraged discussion and feedback ... We never discuss or comment on individual cases of staff who may or may not be involved in disciplinary matters."

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

University of Canberra case tests anti-bullying boundaries

IN 2008, James Warden was in the bosom of the University of Canberra. He helped stage its 40th anniversary celebrations, wrangled government money for a new Donald Horne Institute for Cultural Heritage and became its first director.

A year later, Mr Warden was no longer director. Last December, he was gone from the university. The falling out is documented in 17 pages of a statement of claim filed with the Federal Court, where Mr Warden is seeking damages. He has his first hearing date on Friday week.

Mr Warden, whose background is in history and cultural studies, says he is unsure why he came undone, but believes that his treatment at Canberra is not an isolated case. "The level of intimidation and persecution left me no option but to resign," he said. He thinks enthusiasm for his institute did not survive a change in middle management.

In September 2009, he said, he was abruptly removed as director and confronted with the first in a series of "throwaway" allegations. "They were a shopping list of complaints, none of which were documented," he said. According to Mr Warden's statement of claim, the university's allegations included "unspecified irregularities" in spending at the institute.

Mr Warden denies any such thing, pointing out that expenses had to be signed off by the dean and acquitted under an ACT government deed of grant. The university also claimed Mr Warden continued to hold out as institute director to undermine his replacement. "Not true," said Mr Warden. He said publications that were in print when he was director appeared after his removal. Introduced at a conference as director, he corrected the record.

The university began a formal investigation into his case and appointed a review committee. "It was minor administrative stuff that they had trumped up as serious misconduct," Mr Warden said. "I was lucky that I had a competent committee with integrity who looked at it and said, 'There's nothing here'."

At odds with the views of the committee, the university told Mr Warden he was "formally censured", according to his statement of claim. At one point in the drawn-out conflict the university directed him to see a psychiatrist. "He said, 'Nothing wrong, looks like an industrial issue'," Mr Warden said.

One of his legal claims is novel for higher education. His lawyers argue the university as a corporation engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct because it led him to believe it would abide by its anti-bullying policy. The university declined to comment on legal grounds.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au

Universities’ black and minority ethnic staff still encounter ‘significant disadvantage’

Efforts to promote race equality in higher education have petered out and had "little impact", a conference has heard.

Speaking at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Leeds on 13 April, Andrew Pilkington, professor of sociology at University of Northampton, said the impact of initiatives to encourage race equality in academic recruitment under the Labour government had been “short-lived”.

Efforts to ensure gender equality far outweighed those to eliminate racial discrimination, argued Professor Pilkington, whose books include Institutional Racism in the Academy: A Case Study.

Diversity issues had “fallen down the agenda” in the past decade, he added, while the government now paid only “lip service” to race equality matters.

He quoted from a 2003 report carried out by Gus John, visiting professor of education at the University of Strathclyde, which said that “results suggest that many universities were still struggling to come to terms with what the legislation requires and that they remain on a steep learning curve”.

“Evidence [pointed] to failures in data gathering and target setting, [which] suggests that many universities have not taken equal opportunities policies seriously”, he said.

“The changes afoot are much less remarkable than the continuities. The colour-blind initiatives had little impact at all in promoting race equality.”

More targeted initiatives stemming from the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 initially had an impact, but this proved to be short-lived. “What is more, the pressure is now off”, Professor Pilkington added.

Discourse on community cohesion had now become “marginalised to one concerned with race equality and ethnic diversity”, he said.

“In the light of this, it is scarcely surprising to discover that black and minority ethnic academic staff continue to experience significant disadvantage in higher education.”

On participation of black and ethnic minority students, he also noted that they were well represented in universities, but tended to study less “prestigious” subjects in lower-status institutions.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

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Note that the above appears in Times Higher Education and the option for readers to comment on this article is not available. In other words, no reader comments are welcome.

RMIT academics really not happy about having to be happy at work

Universities that compel academics to show a positive attitude risk an ''immediate backlash'', an industrial relations expert says.

RMIT University staff will fight against a new behavioural code that demands they promote positivity and show passion at work.

University of Adelaide law professor Andrew Stewart said it was reasonable for managers in other fields, such as sales, to expect positive behaviour from employees.

But he said the RMIT plan could threaten critical thinking, although he understood managers' frustrations with academics who complain endlessly about their work.

The RMIT staff will campaign against the code, despite a ruling by the workplace tribunal that the university was allowed to introduce it.

Fair Work Australia ruled last week that RMIT had not breached its workplace agreement with staff by introducing the new behavioural requirements. The National Tertiary Education Union has appealed against the decision, but a hearing date is yet to be set.

The ''behavioural capability framework'' requires thousands of RMIT staff members meet a list of expectations, depending on their level of employment.

It says some academic and professional staff must ''promote the positive rather than the negative'' and display passion for the job.

Staff would be required to achieve ''external benchmarks of performance excellence''.

The union's senior industrial officer, Linda Gale, said the framework contained vague and unreasonable expectations. ''Some of it is nonsensical. Some of it is impossible,'' Ms Gale said.

The union has advised staff who sign the framework to write an accompanying note saying they were forced to sign under duress.

Ms Gale said the code threatened the ability of academic and professional staff to carry out their work. ''We're talking about a university community. People are supposed to be sceptical and questioning. That's their job.''

RMIT chief operating officer Steve Somogyi said the university introduced the framework in response to the results of a staff survey conducted in 2010.

He said the survey had revealed a need to improve career development for staff.

Mr Somogyi denied the framework would limit academics' work. He said academics were free to pursue their field of study and promote their findings.

Staff members have until April 13 to sign off on the framework. They are due to begin negotiating a new collective agreement with the university in July.

Senior lecturer Michael Segon said the document contained some ''wonderful aspirational statements'', but was not specific enough and some of it was poorly written. ''It could be interpreted differently across the university,'' he said.

RMIT union branch president Melissa Slee said up to 700 staff members had signed a petition opposing the framework.

From: http://www.theage.com.au

Manchester Metropolitan University’s skeletons of institutional racism re-surface

On September 22nd, 2011 we reported on Dr D’Silva’s challenge against his unfair dismissal by MMU and his application for judicial review (see http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=claudius+d'silva ).

On 27th March, 2012 the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) will consider the following:

a. MMU’s attempt to derail Dr D’Silva’s judicial review by forcing the Employment Tribunal (ET) hearing first. If successful it would render the review meaningless.

b. An appeal against the ET decision made by Judge Sneath. Dr D’ Silva’s main ground of appeal is that Judge Sneath made an adverse finding against Dr D’Silva, that was based on evidence not before the court. This finding was used by MMU in his unfair dismissal hearing.

c. A review of the EAT decision which set aside overthrowing the landmark decision in his 2005 case of Institutional racial discrimination. This review is to be based on deception by MMU that they were not aware of the issues adjudicated by the Judge prior to her decision.

The Council of Ethnic Minority (http://sites.google.com/site/cemkumar/
manchestermetropolitanuniversityseniorma) and the Council for Academic Freedom and (www.cafas.org.uk) reported the scathing findings of the Manchester Employment Tribunal and its condemnation of the Institutional Racist Culture at MMU under the headship of the then Vice Chancellor, Dame Sandra Burslem.

In a landmark decision in cases no 2409906/03 – 2404779/04 the Manchester ET made findings of racial discrimination against the Vice-Chancellor Dame Sandra Burslem, Professor Barry Plumb Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Maureen O’Neal Pro- Vice Chancellor, Professor Leach Head of Chemistry & Materials, Mr Bill Hallam Human Resources Director, Mr. Peter Gibb Employee Relations Manager and Dr. Julia Dickinson Principal Lecturer in Chemistry. This decision was made in the absence of Dr D’Silva or his witnesses giving evidence to shift the burden of proof. Dr D’Silva at this time was on extended psychiatric leave due to harassment by the University’s management prior to and after his case.

The University’s Counsel, Mr Paul Gilroy.QC, a part time Chairman of the Birmingham Tribunal, despite being presented with no legal opposition and an open goal, failed to make the University’s case against racial discrimination.

Instead of accepting the ET’s black and white finding of racial discrimination, the University’s new Vice Chancellor, Professor John Brooks used the University funds (estimated at £1 million by his UCU representative) to prevent justice from being done by overturning the ET findings in favour of Dr D’Silva. In 2007 Mr Gilroy, MMU’s Counsel appealed the ET decision on the pretext that the case adjudicated by the ET was a different one from that pleaded by the Claimant in his grounds (ET1). Dr D’Silva’s solicitor and Counsel, defending the appeal before the EAT, were disadvantaged, since only Mr Gilroy knew the issues adjudicated by the judge, which they only disclosed recently via case management direction (CMD) documents which they deliberately omitted from the EAT Bundle prepared by them.

As an officer of the court, Mr Gilroy had a duty to ensure justice was done and seen to be done, which is not what he practiced – as can be seen from the case of Lingarten vs BMA in which complaints were raised against him in regard to the conduct of the Tribunal, which was biased in his favour. At the EAT appeal the case was heard by H.H. Judge Clarke, who had already adjudicated other MMU case, such as Rudzki vs MMU, EAT/640/99 with Mr Gilroy as Counsel. He dismissed his an appeal on the grounds that he was not entitled to a second opportunity to make his claim, but Judge Clarke, in Dr D”Silva’s case, tied his Counsel’s hand denying him a disclosure order regarding the issues adjudicated by the ET to prevent Counsel challenging MMU’s assertions. He thus gave MMU a second opportunity to make their case. Judge Clarke then overturned five of the findings that had been in favour of Dr D’Silva and, having dismantled his atomic bomb, of discrimination (removed the critical mass), remitted the sixth issue back to the ET to Judge O’Hara for a re-hearing.

However the judge O’Hara’s impartiality was compromized having being promoted to a full time member of the Manchester tribunal, having previously been used on the basis she was a part-time judge of the Leeds Tribunal, on the basis of bias present in the Manchester Tribunal. The hearing breached the EAT’s orders for the re-hearing and the issues adjudicated were different from those identified by Judge Garnon’s CMD document used in the original hearing used to make the findings of discrimination and the outcome obtained was the dismissal of all findings.

On the 4th May 2010 during disclosure of documents on Dr D’Silva’s new case, the respondents (MMU) provided Judge Garnon’s CMD document from the claimant’s 2005 case which had been withheld from three Counsels acting for Dr D’Silva in his different appeals which elaborated the issues identified by Judge Garnon and used by the Judge in making her findings against the University in its 1995 case. The respondent’s counsel, Mr Gilroy also revealed during an EAT appeal before Judge Richardson that he had spent five days discussing the issues of the case with the judge, having claimed before the EAT that he did not know the issues on which the judge had adjudicated.

The Courts have a duty to make sure justice is done and seen to be done and on the 27th March 2012 they will have to decide whether to allow Dr D’Silva’s review of the EAT decision based on the new evidence of gross deception, or accept the respondents’ defense that the claim is out of time.

Dr D’Silva relies on the Sally Clarke’s case in regard to gross injustice and misconduct. In her case, medical evidence was denied to the court, by the prosecution to progress their case. Time was not an issue then and should not be here.

Those interested in this case should attend the EAT at its new venue at 2-6 Salisbury Square London, EC4Y 8JX - 27th March, 2012

University of Ulster

The University of Ulster is damaging service to both students and the community through the widespread threat of compulsory redundancies.

The objective of this bullying and intimidation appears to be to:

• Coerce staff into accepting reductions in pay grade
• Pressure staff into accepting poor voluntary redundancy packages or early retirement
• Target individual staff without any clearly defined criteria for doing so

Sign the petition at: http://www.change.org

Westhues's checklist of mobbing indicators

Westhues devised the following list of mobbing indicators, with indicator number 12 probably being the most important:

1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
   
   
2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: “Did you hear what she did last week?”
   
   
3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
   
   
4. Collective focus on a critical incident that “shows what kind of man he really is”.
   
   
5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a lesson”.
   
   
6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.
   
   
7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
   
   
8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
   
   
9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
   
   
10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to “speak up for” or defend the target.
    
    
11. The adding up of the target’s real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.
    
    
12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
    
    
13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
    
    
14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
    
    
15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
    
    
16. Mobbers’ fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Westhues

Updates

Professor Kenneth Westhues has updated his website 'Workplace Mobbing in Academe':

• Nasty potential of consulting psychology: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/APA10.html
  
  
• Important new book from Oxford Press: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/DufSper1203.html
  
  
• Janice Harper scintillates: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/JaniceHarper.html
  
  
• The kind of novel a mobbed professor writes: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/Thibeault1203.html
  
  
• Timeless insight, plus: how a mobbing can be stopped short: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/Stoner1203.html
  
  
• Leymann's classic now in English: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/Leymann1203.html
  
  
• Mobbing mainpage: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobbing.htm

Workplace bullying on the rise at UNSW

WORKPLACE bullying is rife and on the rise at the University of NSW, according to a staff survey.

The vast majority of 552 people responded to the National Tertiary Education Union survey had experienced or witnessed bullying behaviours, the union found. Those included 68 per cent who said they had been bullied, and 83 per cent who had witnessed such behaviour.

Three quarters reported ‘‘someone being treated differently from other colleagues’’, two thirds said they knew of ‘‘arbitrary decision making with negative impacts on someone’’ and also of ‘‘misuse of power against a subordinate’’, while just under half listed ‘‘repeated shouting, swearing or threatening behaviour towards a staff member in public or private’’.

Of most concern, said Sarah Gregson, branch president of the NTEU, was that 70 per cent of respondents said the behaviour had not stopped, which she attributed to a culture of fear.

‘You would hope that universities are full of people who have the freedom to speak out and what we mainly found through this process is people are afraid to speak out. They know that there are an enormous number of ways that they be surreptitiously got at and so they keep their head down and try to do the best they can. It worries me very much that 70 per cent of people say that bullying is still ongoing.’’

One respondent wrote, ‘‘Fear and anxiety drive the lack of reporting and often because of the way bullying behaviour occurs, there isn’t tangible evidence of the behaviour, so it’s risky for the victim.’’

‘A university spokeswoman said there had not been a rise in reported cases.

‘‘Less than 10 complaints of bullying are reported through our complaint handling processes in any given year.

There has been no increase in the number of complaints received over recent years.’’

The report said the union had handled 18 cases of bullying and several of misconduct and performance management containing elements of bullying over the last two years, including one where the university acknowledged the manager was at fault but the victim left. The union acted on that person’s behalf to negotiate a separation agreement, Dr Gregson said.

Two thirds of the complainants were women but there was no question in the survey asking whether the perpetrator was male or female.

Dr Gregson said responses suggested that some of the bullies were women, and she said previous studies had shown that women were as likely as men to be bullies if they were in a position of power.

The NTEU presented the report to the university management this week. It includes recommendations such as the appointment of an independent bullying officer and the inclusion of clauses in enterprise agreements that ‘‘ensure management accountability, through external regulation and enforceable standards’’

There would be no decision about the recommendations until management had time to fully absorb the report, but the university remained committed to providing an equitable workplace, the spokeswoman said.

‘‘Mutual respect and collegiality is identified as a guiding principle for UNSW and any incidences of bullying that are reported are taken very seriously and addressed.’’

From: http://www.smh.com.au

Bully buster? VQR spurs UVA launch of 'respectful workplace'

A year-and-a-half after the suicide of the Virginia Quarterly Review's managing editor Kevin Morrissey launched a national debate about whether it was the scene of workplace bullying, UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan has launched the Respect@UVA program, a comprehensive workplace initiative designed to promote "kindness, dignity and respect."

But one workplace bullying expert thinks the reforms announced February 15 don't go far enough. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute, contends that bullying should be put in the context of real violence to avoid letting programs like this get "shackled by all its shortcomings."

In addition to educational resources, the UVA program includes a new complaint reporting system designed to allow employees to air grievances without fear of retaliation from their superiors, as well as a commitment to follow up within two business days.

"As president, I will hold myself accountable to the Commitment to a Caring Community," Sullivan says in statement, "and I will expect all leaders at all levels of the University to do the same. We will not tolerate retaliation against an employee who reports an incident."

As the Hook recently revealed, Morrissey expressed frustration about an alleged lack of oversight over his boss, VQR editor Ted Genoways, and reached out several times to UVA officials, including those in the President's office.

"In every instance," Morrissey wrote in one of his leaked emails, "either through advice given or interaction, the onus was placed on me to deal with the issue."

"It's very upsetting for me to have to think about how valiantly and doggedly Kevin struggled to be heard," says Morrissey's sister, Maria, "only to have everyone he spoke to ultimately say there was nothing they could do without the bully's cooperation."

Shortly after taking office in 2010, Sullivan established a Respectful Workplace Task Force, a group of 26 faculty and staff volunteers that, along with Human Resources vice president Susan Carkeek, created the new initiative.

"The task force members believe that to become best in class as a respectful workplace, we will need commitment from everyone working at all levels of the University," said Sullivan.

The program comes down particularly hard on managers, calling on them to serve as "role models of respectful behavior," bans retaliating in anger to complaints, and it even includes a questionnaire for managers to self-examine their management style entitled, "Could you be the bully?"

While Namie thinks the program is a step in the right direction, alleged shortcomings include the softer term "disrespect" to describe what is happening in an abusive workplace.

"Calling the problem what it is– psychological violence, abusive conduct, or bullying– fosters real outrage and systemic solutions," asserts Namie, claiming that while incivility and disrespect can cause stress and health problems, moderate to severe bullying has been linked to abusive conduct, deep despair, and even suicide.

"If they don't get it right the first time,"says Namie, "the program will not be re-visited and revised unless there's an on-campus murder or suicide, with notes left clearly indicating that abusive mistreatment was the root cause."

Maria Morrissey says she was struck by the fact that the program's examples of retaliation don't include abrasive emails or unjustified accusations of bad behavior against whistle-blowers, both of which were alleged aspects of the VQR situation.

"How will UVA deal with the supervisor who prefers to deal in less obvious forms of bullying and retaliation?" asks Morrissey.

She also wonders how the university– which now promises to ferret out bullying "regardless of position or status"– will deal with potentially untouchable supervisors such as big money fundraisers, literary and academic stars, or– in the case of VQR– a boss who formerly answered only to a busy university president.

"'Regardless of position or status' sounds lovely on paper," says Morrissey," but how will that really work in a hierarchy like a university?"

From: http://www.readthehook.com/102877/bully-buster-uva-launches-respectful-workplace-initiative

Over 50 University Staff members have sought advice about bullying

Figures obtained by FOI requests show that nearly 20 University staff members have left York in the last five years citing bullying or harassment as one of the reasons.

During the period 2007-2009, York was ranked as the second worst institution for staff members leaving because of bullying or harassment.

The statistics also state that 53 members of staff have sought advice over bullying or harassment at work.
The University has defended their record, stating: “There have been eight investigations over the past two calendar years, or four per year. We would of course prefer if an investigation was never necessary, but given that we have nearly 3,500 staff, this is not a significant number.”

The only institution to have a higher number of staff leave due to bullying or harassment at work during the period 2007-09 was the Open University, where 16 members of staff left compared to 13 at York.

FOIs were sent to 144 institutions and 118 replied with the relevant data, completing the top five were: Northampton with 11 staff members; LSE with eight; and Liverpool John Moores with seven.

Similarly, a University and College Union (UCU) national survey in 2008 asked a random sample of employees in Higher Education and found that 34 per cent of respondents claimed they had been bullied at work in the preceding six months.

The survey also reported that five per cent of respondents said they were aware of ‘now and then’ derogatory comments about them appearing on student websites, while 13 per cent said they had received derogatory, offensive or bullying e-mails from students.

The University defines harassment as including: suggestive sexual remarks, racist insults or jokes, verbal abuse or foul language, unfair allocation of work, exclusion, and unwelcome attention. It advises staff members to contact a Harassment Adviser or senior staff member amongst others.

A spokesperson for the University commented: “We actively encourage staff who are concerned about potential bullying and harassment to seek support from colleagues in HR and Equality & Diversity.

“The fact that a member of staff raises an issue does not necessarily mean that wrongdoing has taken place, and as the figures show, in most cases, the matter can be successfully dealt with informally.”

But the University suggested that comparing institutions on this issue may be difficult: “In general, the way information of this nature is collected and recorded is likely to be different from institution to institution and it is therefore doubtful that the data resulting from the FOI responses can be compared on a like-for-like basis.”

The UCU survey figures also show that 23 per cent of respondents, who had experienced bullying, made an official complaint to their institution.

Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU, addressed the results of the UCU 2008 survey stating: “Bullying at work can take many forms and all of them create stress for the victim. Everybody has the right to expect to work in a safe environment free from bullying.

“Good institutions are ones that are aware of the problem and are proactively trying to tackle it. Poor ones are those who refuse to accept there may be a problem or try to place the blame elsewhere.”

The UCU survey questioned 9,700 of its members about bullying and harassment in the workplace and found that in 19 institutions at least one in 10 respondents said that they were ‘always’ or ‘often’ bullied.

From: http://www.nouse.co.uk

Carl Baybut

The post below was just removed from the THE website.

I am interrupting the conversation to remind you that two years ago this coming Saturday Carl Baybut - an academic - took his own life. He hanged himself from a tree. Death was in part a release from the working conditions that Carl had had to endure at his university. After hundreds of postings on the thread which exposed Carl's hanging, THE blocked the thread. No explanation has ever been given as to why this action was taken. But it's not difficult to guess what the reasons were. The thread was sometimes used by other academics to share their experiences of alleged workplace bullying. Today on THE references to workplace bullying are routinely removed.



Silence is not the solution.

Anonymous

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More info at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

and: http://www.facebook.com

as well as: http://www.thisishampshire.net

Cardiff Business School

Something is going on at the Cardiff Business School but we have no details. The keywords are: workplace bullying allegations and tribunal. Please get in touch with us if you can provide more information.

Life is much larger than them

My doctoral adviser recruited me and then dumped me after 5 years. She used my master's thesis to further her career, but knowing the quid-pro-quo situation in grad school, I turned a blind eye towards her blatant stealing of other students' (sometimes undergrads) papers and theses as well as mine.

When the time came, she had to get rid of me because I knew too much about her dirty laundry. She falsified information about me and spread malicious rumors in the dept (and I suspect also to the people in my field). I was suddenly dumped by my entire dissertation committee (later found out that the chair of the dept ordered them to do so) and was basically kicked out of school without any official reason. The school backed her up and didn't even give me a proper graduate school committee hearing. Friends and family urged me to sue the school as well as my adviser, but foolishly wanting to survive academia, I decided not to. I was lucky enough to transfer to another school and finally earned my doctoral degree, but what makes me shudder till this day is the manner in which my adviser manipulated people around her to eliminate me. I later found out that the official reason she gave to the dept chair and faculty was that her high school daughter didn't like me. And based on this, the entire school mobilized in such a manner that can only be described as monstrous bullying.

But at the end of the day, there is a thing called karma. The adviser got rejected by her own daughter later in life, one of my committee members lost their child and another ended up fat and lonely. Looking back, the way they treated me was indicative of how they would treat other people. I don't know what makes certain academics the way they are, but I'm suspecting the long years of bullying they witnessed might have registered in their heads as 'normal'. From where I stand now, it seems like academics are the most pitiful creatures. Nobody would ever know who they are except for each other, but they would literally kill to hang on to that little piece of what they perceive as 'glory'. Life is much larger than them.

Anonymous

University worker claims that she was 'bullied and harassed' into retirement

A university computer assistant who was diagnosed with epilepsy claimed she was “bullied and harassed” by her line manager and pressured into applying for early retirement.

Jennifer Tucker, 61, appeared at a Bury St Edmunds employment tribunal yesterday where she is claiming she suffered age and disability discrimination by her employer St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Her part-time job was helping deal with computer problems for students and faculty members.

Ms Tucker, of John Clark Court, Cambridge, said she had started taking medication for her epilepsy in January 2010, when she received an appraisal form from her superior Stephanie Clarke. It contained seemingly damning remarks about her work, which had never been raised before.

She said: “I felt frightened, vulnerable and shocked. I had no memory of many things Stephanie was referring to and rather than raise these as untruths, I accepted.”

Ms Tucker, who had a brain operation in 2002 to clip an aneurysm, said in her statement to the tribunal that she took her first degree aged 46 and a post graduate diploma at 40.

She said a series of development meetings which followed her appraisal were oppressive and more like a trial.

She said: “I was being routinely criticised and demeaned, and my views and evidence ignored.

“I believe they used my condition knowingly to intimidate me in the hope that I would leave a job I could and did do well.”

Stephanie Clarke said in a statement to the tribunal that she had difficulty managing Ms Tucker, who was unwilling to accept that there was any shortfall in her performance. She said she had not known of Ms Tucker’s epilepsy until February 2010, although Ms Tucker claimed she told her much earlier.

She said: “The claimant can be rude to me and to other members of the college.”

Jane Stevens, the Master’s secretary, said she was astounded at her line manager’s comments about Ms Tucker. She said: “She was being bullied in the workplace but management refused to believe it or preferred not to accept her well documented complaints.”

The hearing continues.

From: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk

Please sign Open Letter to NC Supreme Court re: Ginsberg v. NCSU

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

At North Carolina State University (NCSU), shortly after Dr. Terri Ginsberg made supportive political comments at a screening of a Palestinian film in 2007, she went from being the favored candidate for a tenure-track position to being denied even an interview. Her efforts at redress were summarily rejected by NCSU and two courts. A jury should be permitted to decide whether NCSU's real reason for firing Dr. Ginsberg was its hostility to her political views, but this legal right has been denied. We urge the Supreme Court of North Carolina to review Dr. Ginsberg's case and to reverse the lower courts' decisions to dismiss it. On this basis, faculty at NCSU and elsewhere may finally exercise their legal right to academic speech on the topic of Palestine/Israel and, as such, to their full human rights as scholars, teachers, and intellectuals in the academic community.

To support this request to the NC Supreme Court, we invite academic faculty and students worldwide to sign our Open Letter as an e-petition at this URL:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/open-letter-to-nc-supreme-court-ginsberg-vs-ncsu.html

We expect to submit the Open Letter with all signatures received by February 7, though signatures received later would still be helpful.

You are also encouraged to send your own letter to:

Supreme Court of North Carolina
Clerk's Office
P.O. Box 2170
Raleigh, NC 27602-2170 USA

Thank you for your support,

British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) http://www.bricup.org.uk/
U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) http://www.usacbi.org
Center for Constitutional Rights http://ccrjustice.org
Jewish Voice for Peace-Westchester http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jewish-Voice-for-Peace-Westchester-Chapter/201574026528540?v=info
WESPAC Foundation http://wespac.org/
Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism (CODZ) http://www.codz.org

What is going on at the London College of Communication?

First there is the article in the Times Higher Education about 16 courses being shut down. The closures include four bachelor's degrees, one master's programme and 11 foundation courses, six of which have "top up" options that allow students to convert them into full honours degrees with an extra year of study.

Then the University and College Union plus others called on Professor Kemp to resign.

Now we hear that academic staff are too scared to talk as some of their best colleagues have lost their jobs by daring to voice their opinion. Bullying and intimidation tactics?

Abuse of Phd students

I was a Phd student in the US and went through a similar experience. It is like a hazing process that lasts 4-5 years. Perhaps they were just whipping us into shape, and maybe I learned from it, but at the time it did not feel good, and I'm not sure if it is the most effective learning environment. I witnessed heavy handed punishments for the slightest infractions, abusive and insulting emails and phone calls, mutinies against individuals, and a soviet era style code of silence in the face of this abuse. All faculty and administrators would stick together if a student complained, and there was no authority to report them to. Students would not even talk about the bullying because they were too scared. And there was nowhere to go because we were trapped for 4-5 years, dropping out would have meant wasting all that work it took to get this far, and you need them to graduate and sponsor your thesis, and transferring is not an option. They really do have the upper hand. And the males do seem to get it worse.

By Anonymous on PhD students suffer from bullying supervisors

Make it easier to whistleblow while you work

Whistleblowers need more support when reporting falsified or flawed research carried out by university colleagues, leading scientists have claimed.

Following the publication by the British Medical Journal of research suggesting that one in eight scientists and doctors in the UK has witnessed some sort of research fraud, a conference on scientific misconduct heard how junior academics were sometimes bullied into silence or had their contracts terminated if they spoke out.

At the meeting in London organised by the BMJ and the Committee on Publication Ethics (Cope), Peter Wilmshurst, a consultant cardiologist at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, said that "institutional corruption" had resulted in a culture that "penalised whistleblowers".

"I think the problem is that institutions refuse to deal with the problem," said Dr Wilmshurst, who was embroiled in a four-year legal battle between 2007 and 2011 when a now-defunct US medical company tried to sue him for libel after he criticised one of its products.

He cited several cases in which whistleblowers had been discredited and forced out of institutions while those guilty of falsification continued up the career ladder.

Nick Steneck, director of the research ethics and integrity programme at the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, said many complaints were dismissed too lightly by institutions.

"Some set a very high bar of what the allegation must be - most cases just get ignored," he said.

Observing a "disincentive to whistleblow", he added: "Why do we put junior people in a position where they have to blow the whistle? Most senior people are aware of [the misconduct] - they know and suspect the same things.

"We should have a better whistleblowing process for senior staff."

Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat science spokesman who lost his parliamentary seat in the 2010 general election, said that more independent oversight was needed because universities had a "vested interest" in suppressing cases of malpractice due to fears of reputational damage.

"The temptation to cover it up or not deal with it is enormous," Dr Harris said.

"But it only takes one high-profile case where a patient has suffered for the whole of UK medical research to be put under the spotlight, causing political confidence and the confidence of funders to drop."

Subtler types of research malpractice were, however, more damaging than those few outright cases of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism, said Sir Iain Chalmers, coordinator of the James Lind Initiative, which calls for better, more controlled drug trials.

The tendency of journals to publish only "successful" scientific studies with a positive result "created a bias in research, which leads to avoidable suffering and death", he said. Failure to publish those studies that "went up a blind alley" meant that future researchers might undertake similar projects, wasting time, money and even lives.

Sir Iain cited the near-fatal human drug trials conducted by the German pharmaceutical firm TeGenero in 2006, in which participants were left in intensive care as a result of adverse reactions to an anti-inflammatory drug.

This could have been avoided if research on a similar drug had been more widely shared, he said.

"There is a much more insidious influence from minor examples than the 'big bang' examples that reverberate around the world," said Michael Farthing, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex and a founding member of Cope.

However, despite concerns that some professors were "untouchable" in their departments, the idea of a US-style independent external regulator failed to find favour.

Graeme Catto, a former president of the General Medical Council, said the presence of a state regulator would allow institutions to "duck out of their responsibilities" and "would have to have a huge budget".

Professor Farthing said universities needed a more consistent approach to research misconduct, but argued that self-regulation and greater emphasis on prevention was the way forward.

Research Councils UK and Universities UK are working on a "concordat" to agree aspects of policy in this area but, two years on, nothing has been announced.

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

Whistle and we won't be able to come to you, or won't have to after all

Whistleblowers contacted England's funding council 18 times in the past two years, alerting it to allegations that included pressure being put on staff to lie during an audit and the manipulation of National Student Survey results.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England looked into all of the cases, but either decided that no further action was required on its part or was unable to respond to the whistleblowers to follow up the complaints.

Half of the tip-offs were made anonymously.

The Hefce records for January 2010 to October 2011, released to Times Higher Education under the Freedom of Information Act, show that only four complaints were made using the formal Public Interest Disclosure Act mechanism, which protects whistleblowers who speak out against wrongdoing in the workplace.

A third of the 18 complaints related to the University of Gloucestershire in 2010.

The institution had a turbulent year as it sought to recover from a £31.6 million debt. Its vice-chancellor departed and it lost a damaging employment tribunal to one of its managers, Jan Merrigan.

Hefce audited Gloucestershire's student number returns in 2010.

The Gloucestershire complaints that were submitted to Hefce, all made anonymously, included a request "for each member of the finance team to be interviewed alone during the forthcoming Hefce data audit".

A summary of Hefce's response states: "Audit team advised. Request has not been shared with the institution to ensure that the audit is not influenced."

There was also a complaint about alleged "variance in student number reporting and tuition fee recovery". Hefce said that this had "already been prioritised" in the audit.

Another Gloucestershire complaint alleged that "staff [were] told to lie during [the] forthcoming audit". Hefce's response states: "Audit team aware of the factors which may have prompted staff concerns."

Paul Drake, Gloucestershire's executive director of external relations, said the university was "aware of a number of the issues raised by anonymous individuals, but has not been able to respond to them individually as the authors are unknown".

He noted that "some of the concerns expressed date from a turbulent period of the university's past", adding that a "change agenda" had brought about "a more stable institution and positive financial surpluses".

Other complaints submitted to Hefce concerned the alleged "manipulation of the NSS" at two unnamed institutions. Hefce found that no action was required.

One of the formal Public Interest Disclosures concerned Coventry University, where there was a claim that a "company connected with the university" was "alleged to be returning falsified enrolments".

But Hefce said that "no evidence...[was] found during the audit which was instigated" and described the allegation as "unsubstantiated".

A spokesman for the funding council said that judgements were made "in all cases as to what action was necessary, either by Hefce or the institutions involved".

He added that "if necessary, the matter was investigated to give us the information we needed".

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

2011...

• Univ of Texas hires abusive boss sued for creating hostile work environment

• Bullying at Stirling University

• Bullied Macquarie University staff demand an apology

• Legal costs of university in St Andrews v Quigley

• Newcastle uni (Australia) bully claims: Academic says harassment led to illness

• What Killed Kevin Morrissey?

• Bullying at work: the impact of shame among university and college lecturers

• How to get rid of good professors

• University of Salford - Suspension of Staff

• Kingston University: £635,165 on six employment tribunals

• Fresh twist in Fredrics v Scott case

• Legal and other costs - the University of Leicester and others

• Who is the REAL Prof. Hassan Abdalla?

• Dr. Claudius D’Silva

76% white and male? That's today's UK professoriate

Figures showing that 76 per cent of UK professors are white men should prompt the sector to address its "inequalities", according to the head of higher education's equality body.

This year's Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Report 2011, from the Equality Challenge Unit, was the first to look at professors in terms of the "interplay of multiple identities", including both race and gender.

The report finds that in 2009-10, only 0.9 per cent of UK staff in professorial roles were black or minority ethnic (BME) women. But 3.4 per cent of staff in non-professorial roles were BME women. And 76.1 per cent of UK national staff in professorial roles were white males. The ECU said it did not have figures on the proportion of white males among all higher education staff.

The mean average salary of female staff was £31,116 compared with £39,021 for male staff, an overall pay gap of 20.3 per cent, the report notes.

David Ruebain, chief executive of the ECU, said: "The statistics do highlight a stark gap in representation at professorial level. We hope they will alert the sector to the need to act to address these inequalities."

He added that the "success of the Athena Swan programme", which aims to improve the careers of women working in science, engineering and technology departments, "has shown that change is needed at the systemic level to tackle these imbalances".

The ECU is currently running pilot programmes on race and gender with a number of universities, seeking to address cultural problems "such as barriers to professorial status and management positions", Mr Ruebain said.

Overall, 53.8 per cent of higher education staff were women. Yet at professorial level, just 19.1 per cent of staff were women.

An ECU spokeswoman explained that a provision in the Equality Act requiring employers to publish figures on their pay gaps has not been enacted by the government and noted that it "wouldn't apply" to institutions of higher education even if it were put in place. Proposals have been formed in Scotland.

The strongest equality duties are in Wales, the spokeswoman said, where universities must collect data on pay differences for all "protected characteristics" including race and gender and must "have due regard" to the need for equality objectives.

The ECU findings came as the National Union of Students published a separate report on disability hate incidents among higher and further education students across the UK. The report found that 8 per cent of disabled respondents "said that they had experienced at least one hate incident while studying at their current institution, which they believed was motivated by prejudice against their disability".

No Place for Hate recommends that universities "should consider setting a specific objective on tackling hate crime as part of their public sector equality duty"; "raise awareness of what constitutes a hate incident and the negative impact of this behaviour on the victim and others"; and establish strong support networks for disabled students.

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

University of Iowa settles few bullying cases

IOWA CITY, Iowa—
Even though workplace bullying has been identified as a major concern in recent years, University of Iowa officials responsible for informally resolving those disputes are successful in only one in every eight cases, according to data that sheds light on a campus office often shrouded in secrecy.

The Office of the Ombudsperson resolved 8 of 63 bullying complaints brought to its attention by students, faculty and staff between January 2010 and Oct. 5, 2011 and improved the situation in two others, according to data released to an Iowa City lawyer and shared with The Associated Press. The office failed to resolve 13 complaints, and the outcome was listed as "unknown," "unclear" or blank in most of the rest, according to the data, which the university released only after being threatened with a lawsuit.

The data highlights an office whose operations have largely been done in secret since its creation in 1985 and appears to undercut its claims that most employees are satisfied with the service they receive. The office is supposed to serve as "a confidential, neutral and independent dispute resolution service" for the school's 15,000 faculty and staff, according to the university operations manual, but has no authority to order changes if voluntary agreements can't be reached.

Bullying among students has become a major issue in schools following several tragedies involving gay teens, but the issue also is prevalent among adults in the workplace. More than one-third of U.S. workers say they have experienced bullying, the repeated mistreatment by bosses and co-workers that includes verbal abuse, threatening conduct and intimidation, according to a 2010 survey commissioned by the Workplace Bullying Institute, a group dedicated to combating the issue.

Staff Ombudsperson Cynthia Joyce declined comment on the data and referred questions to university spokesman Tom Moore. In response to written questions, he called bullying "one of the most intractable problems the office handles."

"There are many reasons why a case may not be resolved at the time of the office's last contact with a visitor with concerns about this problem," Moore wrote. "In particular, in the majority of workplace bullying cases, the visitor does not want any action taken by the office."

Critics say the data shows the office favors the university administration and does not do enough to help workers who are mistreated.

"The ombuds office at UI has a long and successful history of resolving conflicts. However, the current atmosphere there is toxic to bullying victims," said attorney Andrew Hosmanek, who has studied bullying in the workplace and shared the data with AP in hopes of changing what he considers an ineffective office. "Bullying victims should be aware that, according to this data, bringing a case directly to the ombuds office is very unlikely to end in a positive result."

Under the current set-up, he said employees may need to pursue a formal complaint, file a lawsuit or consult with a counselor or psychologist to change what he called a "bully culture that has arisen in parts of the UI."

In addition to the low rate of resolution, the data shows:

-- The office made a "low" effort in more than two-thirds of the cases. Moore said that may be because the office simply listened to concerns and helped workers decide on a course of action or that visitors decided to resolve their concerns independently by quitting or transferring jobs, for instance. In complex cases, the office may expend low effort if it is only one of several university offices working the problem, he added.

-- The office made a "high" effort in a single case, which ended by arranging a meeting with a department executive officer.

-- At least five of the complaints later went through a formal legal process, including a lawsuit, an appeal or a grievance.

-- The office redacted the details of each complaint except one: "Significant other of UI grad student is being mobbed at work." That complaint received a low effort by the office and the outcome was unknown.

Hosmanek filed a public records request seeking details on the office's handling of bullying complaints in October after the office's annual report claimed that 81 percent of its visitors left satisfied with the service they received. The report based that claim on a voluntary survey returned by 41 percent of the roughly 500 visitors to the office last year.

The report said complaints of disrespectful behavior, including bullying, have sharply increased in recent years and now involve one-quarter of the office's cases. Against that backdrop, Hosmanek said he wanted to see the data to gauge the office's effectiveness.

Moore claimed many visitors leave satisfied even if the office doesn't resolve their complaints.

University records custodian Steve Parrott at first rejected Hosmanek's data request, arguing the office's promise of confidentiality to those who complain was crucial to its operations. "The office performs no government function, maintains no official documents, and provides mediation services. Its records are confidential and privileged and therefore not subject to open records requests," Parrott wrote.

Hosmanek protested the response, arguing the office was subject to the public records law, served a public function, and did maintain records. Parrott acknowledged the office had records, but claimed they were exempt from disclosure because they were "confidential personnel records" under Iowa law.

After Hosmanek said he did not want names of employees or victims, only data, and threatened to seek legal remedies for an open records violation, Parrott told him there were 63 bullying complaints for that time period. The school eventually released heavily-redacted records from the office's database showing the effort expended in each case, the outcome and whether the dispute later went to a formal grievance or legal process.

"Although the University of Iowa Office of the Ombudsperson position remains that their records are confidential and not subject to disclosure," he wrote, "the Office was willing to share the enclosed documents to bring this matter to a close."

From: http://www.chicagotribune.com

Is a whiter-than-white academy blind to the racial inequality in its midst?

Universities are "oblivious" to racial inequalities and are failing to act on problems because they "see themselves as liberal and believe existing policies ensure fairness", it has been argued.

Andrew Pilkington, professor of sociology at the University of Northampton, stated in a lecture, "Institutional Racism in the Academy", that the "sheer whiteness" of universities often means that "they ignore adverse outcomes and don't see combating racial/ethnic inequalities as a priority".

When the Macpherson report on the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry was published in 1999, it famously spoke of a police investigation marred by "institutional racism". Jack Straw, the home secretary at the time, broadened the issue, suggesting that "any long-established, white-dominated organisation is liable to have procedures, practices and a culture that tend to...disadvantage non-white people".

In an attempt to remedy these problems, the government introduced colour-blind widening-participation strategies for students and equal-opportunity policies for university staff. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 identified a number of specific duties.

Professor Pilkington drew on research he had carried out for his recent book, Institutional Racism in the Academy: A Case Study, to assess how far universities have risen to the challenge.

The research compares an anonymous "Midshire" police force and a post-1992 university based in the same county. Although there was less racism in the university's "occupational culture", as reported by its black and minority ethnic (BME) employees, it shared with the police force "a taken-for-granted white norm" and was dominated by a white senior management.

The university's employment practices, lack of positive action and the low priority given to race equality also scored badly.

Although universities had undoubtedly addressed equality issues, if only in response to external pressures, Professor Pilkington suggested that "action was particularly evident in the period 2002-03", and had probably achieved more in relation to gender than ethnicity. Subsequent government agendas on themes such as "community cohesion" might also have shifted the spotlight from race.

There remained a great deal to be done and far fewer incentives for universities to devote time and energy to the area, he argued. In widening-participation programmes, "funding letters never mention race or ethnicity but invariably refer to social class or a proxy measure of it", he said, while "performance indicators are wholly class-based".

Pre-entry and access initiatives are given priority over equally vital "interventions once students have entered higher education", he added. And the specific needs of BME learners could drop off the agenda when incorporated into generic widening-participation policies.

Professor Pilkington concluded that "BME academic staff continue to experience significant disadvantage...10 years after the publication of the Macpherson report", while BME students continue to be less likely to be awarded good degrees.

Although adept at finding fault elsewhere, universities "remain oblivious of inequalities in our midst and the need to ensure that our own policies and procedures are evidence-based", he said.

From: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

A bullying culture at Sydney Uni?

A bullying culture at Sydney Uni? An understandably anonymous tipster claims bullying of staff and students at the University of Sydney is now so rampant that staff openly seek to garner the support of students in their fight against an "utterly stubborn" management.

They write: "Further, students have been driven to the point of suicide or even attempted suicide at the hands of bullying university staff and the stock university response is to engage its hired legal guns (the Office of General Counsel) to shut the complainants down. Further still, the university's perpetual cash cow, the Business School, is awash with bullying of Chinese students, first through the over-representation of such students in academic dishonesty matters, and again the discriminatory manner in which those students are dealt with when they make special consideration applications due to illness or misadventure. Chinese students are often publicly yelled at by lecturers in the Business School: 'You are in Australia now, do as we do!'"

Are things really that bad? We'd love to hear from more staff and faculty on life on campus. Drop us a line or comment anonymously. boss@crikey.com.au http://www.crikey.com.au/tipoff/

By Anonymous