Troublesome Faculty: What can fellow faculty do? A tool box for “fed-up” faculty. . .
Many faculty members find that after a period of time a colleague can become difficult
to work with and/or obstreperous. Although these faculty members often have strengths in
teaching and research, they are difficult to work with and create work place conflict for their
peers and subordinates. This document is intended to provide resources and suggestions to
fellow faculty who desire to make short and long term changes in their working environment.
The suggestions listed are not exhaustive, but intended as a guide.
I.
Discuss the issues/confront the faculty with their behavior. Often with
interpersonal conflicts, people are hesitant to confront or engage someone about
their troublesome or problematic behavior. However, difficult faculty members
should be given the opportunity to know the issues and attempt to work on them.
Comments or statements about negative interactions may come from leadership or
a senior colleague, but junior colleagues also may be called on the “manage-up” and
reflect back the comments and/or troublesome discourse. This may be difficult
because the conflict is out in the open, but at least everyone is being honest about
what is going on.
II.
Engage human resources. Your human resources staff may have suggestions and/or
ideas about how to handle fellow faculty. In addition, having a third party
consider/review the problematic behavior may reveal something that you’re not
aware of. For example, human resources may identify that the comments someone
is making are discriminatory, border on harassment, or may even be a violation of a
workplace violence policy.
III.
Contact the Ombuds Office. The Ombuds Office often has good suggestions in how
to confront and deal with problematic behavior. The Ombuds Office have Faculty
Ombuds who are particularly familiar with the difficulties encountered.
IV.
Document the troublesome behavior or comments. Reducing comments to writing
is important and sometimes “reflecting back” what was actually said will improve
someone’s behavior. It is also important to document so that information can be
reviewed by your chair or human resources. It is difficult for human resources or a
chair to assist when the information is generalized, non-specific, or undocumented.
This is not to encourage or suggest that you keep a file on your co-workers, but
recognize that specific examples are needed so others can get engaged. Comments
that fellow faculty are mean or rude are not helpful unless they are supported by
specific examples and behaviors.
V.
Engage your Chair or Supervisors with the specifics about the troublesome behavior
or comments. Presumably a Department Chair or supervisor is aware of the issues
being created by a difficult faculty, but they may not. It is important to notify the
Chair, provide them specific examples of troublesome or problematic behavior, and
ask the Chair to intervene.
VI.
Take affirmative steps as a faculty group to ask leadership to take sanctions,
censure, or reprimand fellow faculty. Although unusual, faculty within a department
may be able to request that a Chair or Dean restrict or limit a troublesome faculty.
This may include limiting committee membership, or censuring or publically
reprimanding a troublesome faculty for their inappropriate behavior. Faculty need
to be aware of and respect other faculty’s First Amendment rights to engage in
protected discourse and this includes not seeking to punish or penalize faculty
speech that may be difficult or objectionable. Therefore, before pursuing these
actions faculty should contact University Counsel and discuss the options with
leadership. Regardless of First Amendment protections, no faculty is permitted to
engage in inappropriate behavior or speech that is demeaning, threatening, or
hostile to faculty and staff.
VII.
Modify primary unit criteria to include specific references to professionalism in
teaching, service, and research/creative activities. Without modification to Regents
Law, faculty could not include collegiality as separate or specific criteria for tenure
and promotion. The AAUP and many others have criticized attempts to include
collegiality or professionalism as specific criteria tenure. However, the AAUP does
not dispute that presumed in these criteria is the idea of
collegiality/professionalism:
Few, if any, responsible faculty members would deny that collegiality, in the sense of
collaboration and constructive cooperation, identifies important aspects of a faculty
member’s overall performance. A faculty member may legitimately be called upon
to participate in the development of curricula and standards for the evaluation of
teaching, as well as in peer review of the teaching of colleagues. Much research,
depending on the nature of the particular discipline, is by its nature collaborative
and requires teamwork as well as the ability to engage in independent investigation.
And committee service of a more general description, relating to the life of the
institution as a whole, is a logical outgrowth of the Association’s view that a faculty
member is an “officer” of the college or university in which he or she fulfills
professional duties. Understood in this way, collegiality is not a distinct capacity to
be assessed independently of the traditional triumvirate of teaching, scholarship,
and service. It is rather a quality whose value is expressed in the successful
execution of these three functions. Evaluation in these three areas will encompass
the contributions that the virtue of collegiality may pertinently add to a faculty
member’s career.1
Examples from other institutions include discussion of collegiality as factor within
teaching, research, and service as well as generalized statements that
professionalism or collegiality is implicit in everything a faculty does.
Here are some proposed guidelines that a primary unit might want to consider when
developing its primary unit criteria:
Collegiality/professionalism is not a distinct capacity to be assessed independently of
the traditional triumvirate of scholarship, teaching, and service. It is rather a quality
whose value is expressed in the successful execution of these three functions.
Collegiality/Professionalism means that faculty members cooperate with one
another in sharing the common burdens related to discharging their responsibilities
of teaching, scholarship or creative work, and service, and do so in a conscientious
and professional manner.
The concept of collegiality/professionalism, however, should be distinguished from
congeniality; to be congenial is parallel with sociability and agreeableness, while
collegiality/professionalism is a positive and productive association with colleagues.
A person need not be congenial to be collegial/professional. Moreover, collegiality
among associates involves appreciation of and respect for differences in expertise,
ideas, and background, in addition to mutual trust.
VIII.
1
The final section could include specific examples related to teaching,
research/creative activities, and service (yet to be developed)
On Collegiality as a Criterion for Faculty Evaluation, The statement that follows was approved by the
Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and adopted by the Association’s Council in
November 1999.