You’ve heard me yammer until my puss turns blue about the need to restore collegiality in Congress. Well, the folks who “represent” us in Washington aren’t listening to little ol’ me. In fact, it’s getting worse one congressional committee hearing at a time. Congress keeps summoning Donald Trump administration officials to Capitol Hill to tell the public what they know about this and/or that…

It is virtually impossible to visualize this, given the intense partisan toxicity that exists in government at many levels, but there once was a time when Texas’s diverse congressional delegation was held up as the gold standard for bipartisan collegiality. That was a long time ago. Congressional Quarterly, the Bible for many reporters who cover Congress for their media organizations, once…

by Jeffrey L. Buller

This article first appeared in Academic Leader, vol. 28, num. 8, August 2012. Reprinted with permission. For more information about Academic Leader, click here.

Two concerns are often raised when department chairs attempt to address breaches of collegiality through the faculty evaluation process. The first is whether they’re permitted to do so at all, since very few faculty handbooks list collegialityas a criterion for reviews. The second is whether evaluation is an effective means of dealing with these challenges, since collegiality is often regarded as something highly subjective and not measurable or verifiable in any consistent way. The first of these concerns can be dealt with rather quickly, while the second will require a much more extended discussion.

In the United States, courts have ruled consistently that it is appropriate to consider collegiality in personnel decisions, even when an institution’s policies do not specifically list it as a criterion. See, for example, Cipriano (2011) 153–163. So deans and chairs are at liberty to take collegiality into account whenever they regard its presence as a positive factor in a faculty member’s performance or its absence as a detriment. But since it’s relatively uncommon for colleges and universities to describe collegiality in their policies and procedures, the second concern can actually become more difficult. After all, how do you evaluate something that is undefined, apparently nebulous in nature, and not even referred to on most forms used as part of a faculty evaluation?

Identify specific behaviors, not opinions or personality traits

Perhaps the best way of dealing with this challenge is to identify the specific behaviors that, in the professional setting where you work, may be regarded as contributing to or diminishing collegiality. In other words, it’s not enough to say that a person is irritable or argumentative. People are entitled to their own personalities, even when those personalities annoy us or are far different from our own. However, people are not entitled to engage in behavior that makes the work of your program more difficult. Everyone can be in a bad mood occasionally; they can even be in a bad mood every single day. But if their mood causes them to engage in activities that affect the quality of your program, you not only have the right, you have the duty to address it. What you’re trying to change is not the person’s mood, attitude, or personality itself, but rather specific behaviors that are resulting from that mood, attitude, or personality.

If you’re in doubt about how to tell the difference, ask yourself the following three questions:

1. What is the specific problem that I am observing?

2. What are the specific actions or behaviors of the faculty member that are causing those problems?

3. What are the specific steps I need the faculty member to take in order to eliminate or reduce those problems?

Let’s explore how these questions might function in an actual situation. Imagine that you’re responsible for evaluating faculty members in a programthat includes Dr. Curmudgeon, a professor who always seems to be irritable and treats colleagues and students with contempt. You’ve received a lot ofcomplaints about Dr. Curmudgeon, and you yourself have been on the receiving endof this faculty member’s foul temper. So you decide to do something about it the next time you’re evaluating Dr. Curmudgeon. Near the end of your written review, you include the following paragraph:

Finally, I feel that I must address the issue of your frequent irritability. It’s getting to the point where I dread your presence at meetings, and a number of your colleagues have mentioned that they feel they must “walk on eggshells” whenever you’re around. If you continue in this manner, it seems unlikely that many of those in your department will vote in your favor the next time you undergo post-tenure review, and I find myself reluctant to assign you junior faculty members to mentor because your temperament is so consistently unpleasant.

You dispatch this evaluation to Dr. Curmudgeon, a grievance is filed against you, and you’re shocked to find that the appeals committee rules that your evaluation was completely inappropriate. What you did wrong was to base your evaluation, not on any specific actions that caused adocumented harm to your program, but on Dr. Curmudgeon’s personality and how it made you and others in the department feel. Your feelings ofannoyance matter neither more nor less than do Dr. Curmudgeon’s feelings of irritability. What you’ve done is confuse a pet peeve with a valid indication of a faculty member’s performance, and that mistake could invalidate your entire evaluation.

What you should have done instead is to focus on those three questions raised earlier.

1. What is the specific problem that I am observing? Are students dropping Dr. Curmudgeon’s courses at a significantly higher rate than those of his peers and indicating to you that the professor’s behavior is the cause? Has the advising load of other members of the department increased disproportionately because Dr. Curmudgeon does not believe that any student is good enough to work with him? Have committees failed to meet deadlines because they can’t obtain a quorum when they know that Dr. Curmudgeon is likely to attend?

2. What are the specific actions or behaviors of the faculty member that are causing those problems? Do students report when they drop the class that Dr. Curmudgeon called their questions “stupid” and made demeaning remarks to them? Have advisees reported that Dr. Curmudgeon belittled them because of the way they dressed or the books they read in their own time? Do members of Dr. Curmudgeon’s department say that there has been a chilling effect on discussions because no one is willing to be the next person publicly ridiculed?

3. What are the specific steps I need the faculty member to take in order to eliminate or reduce those problems? Can you establish guidelines for what Dr. Curmudgeon needs to do as a result of the problems you’ve documented? You may need to say something like, “Look. It doesn’t matter to me at all how you feel about me, your colleagues, and your students. But it does matter to me how you treat us. In order for our program to  grow and receive increased funding, I need every member of the department to treat every other member with professionalism and respect. From now on, when you disagree with someone, I’ll expect you to direct at your students like the future colleagues that some of them will develop to be, not as objects of your scorn and humiliation. Those actions are hindering your pedagogical effectiveness.”

Use the evaluation process to begin a continued dialogue on the type of behaviors that are acceptable in your professional setting

In order to make the evaluation process more constructive and forward-looking, reviewers should spend more time talking about what the faculty member should do than about what he or she should not do. Even in the caseof Dr. Curmudgeon, it’s not particularly effective to end the conversation by talking only about what went wrong. But it’s far easier to accentuate the positive if you’ve already held a unit-wide conversation about what collegiality is and come to a consensus about the type of behavior you expect of one another. See Buller (2012) 218–219, 237–238. For instance, if your discussions have led to the creation of a conduct code or statement of departmental values, you’ll have a context in which to offer positive advice. “Remember what we said when we discussed collegiality and professionalism at our retreat last August,” you might say. “Working together constructively means acting on the assumption that we all care about our program equally. So, when you badger the newer faculty as ‘self-centered and lazy,’ you’re stifling the sort of debate we need in order to make our discipline successful.”

Of course, the danger with setting behavioral guidelines that are too specific is that passive-aggressive faculty members may attempt to use those statements against us. “Our departmental code says we have to restrict our disagreements to the issues instead of the person,” someone might claim. “Show me where it says that we can’t roll our eyes when we do so.” In these cases, you may find it valuable review with the faculty member what the intent of the code was and how benefits accrue from a collegial work environment. It’s impossible to develop a statement of principles so comprehensive that it addresses every possible contingency, so it may be necessary at times to discuss what the principles are designed to achieve, rather than the specific phrasing of the principles themselves.

While matters of collegiality can never be addressed solely through the process of faculty evaluation, periodic reviews do provide administrators with an opportunity to deal with clear breaches of professional conduct, recommend alternative behaviors for the future, and underscore the significance of treating one another with respect and mutual support. Since the fundamental mission of a program is to provide a high level of instruction, scholarship, and service, it becomes difficult or impossible to achieve that goal when faculty members indulge in non-collegial behavior. It’s for that reason that unprofessional actions may appropriately be addressed as part of a faculty evaluation.

References

Buller, J. L. The Essential Department Chair: A Comprehensive Desk Reference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012.

Cipriano, R. E. Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.

by Robert E. Cipriano

This essay first appeared in Academic Leader Vol. 28, Num. 8, August 2012. It is reprinted with permission. For more information on Academic Leader, click here.

What we strive for in the academy is a healthy and respectful sharing of thoughts, ideas, and concepts where people feel free to express their divergent and oftentimes conflicting views. In fact, many historians consider thisconcept to be one of the hallmarks of higher education. We most certainly do not want affable Babbitts mimicking everything a senior faculty member subscribes to or thinks. What we do want is dissent—more specifically, positivedissent. One of the dominant characteristics of higher education is that professors have opportunities to express their ideas openly and not be afraid of castigation in the form of petty reprisals of a personal nature.

Discussions may be passionate and may become heated. But discussions should never become mean, nasty, or spiteful. Professionals may disagree andexpress their thoughts ardently, but never vin- dictively or personally. It is clear that constructive arguments over ideas—but not personal arguments over ideas— drive greater performance and creativity.

Our society seems to be in short supply of civility these days. Sadly, this is also true for the world of higher education. A campus climate that valuescollegiality and civility is among the most important contributions a university can make. Facilitating a culture of collegiality can be the synergetic agent of good relationships among members of a department (Cipriano 2011). It is important for the chair—who is often placed in the untenable position of resolving conflicts—as well as other faculty members in the department to deal with and, as stridently and quickly as necessary, address the malefactors on the staff.

I have been privileged to have been invited to many campuses to speak with department chairs and deans about the chair’s role in facilitating acollegial department. When questioning the chairs and deans in attendance at various universities, typically 80 to 100 percent indicate that they have had at least one noncollegial or uncivil faculty member in their department. Ihave spoken with many chairs, deans, and provosts who recount horror stories of how one venomous person spewing nastiness and malice in avindictive manner caused a department to be dissolved.

An overview of what the U.S. courts have ruled regarding collegiality

Although there are many critics, the courts have continued to uphold the use of collegiality as a factor in tenure and other personnel decisions.Lack of civility or collegiality can be used as a basis to terminate a full-time faculty member. The courts have acknowledged all of the following in rendering their decisions relative to collegiality (Connell and Savage 2001):

1. An ability to cooperate is relevant because faculty do not operate in isolation. Decisions on things such as curricula, class scheduling, and advisingare made as a group.

2. Collegiality is important for universities to fulfill their missions.

3. Universities do not have to specify collegiality as a specific criterion for personnel decisions.

4. The courts have long deferred to university decisions regarding who should teach. They have continued to do so when issues of collegiality and termination of tenured faculty have been involved.

5. Because of the subjective nature of collegiality, courts should not substitute their judgment for that of faculty and administration.

6. Because universities make a substantial commitment to the individual, they should have wide discretion.

7. The courts have concluded that collegiality, even when not specified as a separate evaluation criterion, is a relevant consideration in assessing teaching, research, and service.

The most persistent arguments raised by faculty members who were denied tenure because of a lack of collegiality are (1) breach of contract (notpart of the university’s written tenure policy) and (2) the First Amendment (repression of free speech).

Breach of contract argument

The most constant argument put forth by faculty who were denied tenure because of a lack of collegiality is that the university’s consideration of his or her personality, collegiality, or“fitting in” during the tenure evaluation violated either the employment contract or the institution’s tenure policy as part of the criteria for tenure. The U.S.courts have ruled that this does not violate tenure policy (University of Baltimore v. PeriIz, 1993). The Maryland Court of Special Appeals indicated that col- legiality is a valid consideration for tenure, even though it is not expressly listedamong the university’s criteria for tenure. The reason for this ruling is that collegiality is implied within the criteria that are specified (that is, teaching and service).

First Amendment argument

Arguments raised by faculty who were denied tenure state that the refusal to grant tenure based on collegiality issues represents a callous attempt to suppress lawful speech. Further, the First Amendment clearly prohibits public officials (that is, the university) from retaliating against those who engage in unpopular or offensive speech. This is considered to be germane in the university setting in view of the fact that the Supreme Court has made clear that First Amendment freedom must be vigilantly protected. However, thecourts have continued to uphold the use of collegiality as a factor in tenure a nd other higher education employment decisions in which First Amendment claims are raised.

Based on the above, it is clear that the courts have clearly and consistently spoken: they will not protect vitriolic faculty!

The chair’s role in facilitating a collegial department

The job description of a department chair is ill-defined and ambiguous. In fact, most universities do not have a job description specifically for chairs. At best, many universities compile a laundry list of job duties and responsi- bilities that chairs are expected to perform. Suffice it to say that the chair’s role ischanging. In fact, the chair’s role has morphed into a large and varied multiplicity of skills, not the least of which is managing and leading a civil, respectful, and collegial department.The road to a successful reign of chairing a department is highly reliant, if not totally dependent, on having the internal constituencies perform in a civil manner that optimally advances the mission of the department.

It is instructive to note that 75 percent of the chairs I have surveyed indicate they will go back on faculty when their term as chair ends. Department chairs are typically tenured faculty members who are appointed or elected into a position with no formal training (that is, 96 percent have received no education or training) in how to succeed in this leadership position.

So what exactly can a chair do to promote collegiality in his or her department in a practical way?

1. Discuss collegiality at a department meeting. The discussion should be transparent and have a goal of building consensus. Discussion points can focus on what collegiality is and is not, why collegiality is important and how non-collegial behavior can ruin a department, and what represents objective collegial behavior.

2. Understand that people do not respond to your techniques—people respond to your values.

3. Invest in people. This can be operationalized by the following:

Help people achieve their goals.

Develop a genuine interest in every faculty member.

Treat people with respect and dignity—always.

Remember that relationships built on trust and fed by personal integrity are the foundation.

Recognize that poor behavior by others does not require you to respond in kind.

Model characteristics you wish the faculty and staff to exhibit.

Acknowledge that leadership is more a function of people’s relationships than the position.

•Recognize people publicly for their achievements.

As members of a university, we should strive for nothing less than civility and respect in our daily encounters with our colleagues. Anything less will besmirch the noble role we hold so dearly as academicians.

References

Cipriano, R.E. Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Connell, M.A. and F. G. Savage. “Does Collegiality Count?” Academe 87, no. 6 (2001), 37–41.

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