My Head of Department is a Bully

Heads of Department (HoDs) run academic departments at UK Universities. They are usually professors, or at least senior academics. They normally serve a term of 4 or 5 years. Not all academics relish being HoD. Many (such as the author) do serve as HoD out of a sense of duty and responsibility, but others avoid it as a distraction from their research and teaching. The role of the HoD has become more onerous with the increasing managerialism in Universities. Much of the work is not very intellectually or emotionally satisfying — especially in a time of shrinking Higher Education budgets. So the Headship is often regarded as an important, but wearisome, chore.

Nonetheless, some academics do actively relish the opportunity to wear the crown and be the king. They are attracted by the substantial power, control and influence of the Headship. Also, a successful stint as HoD can open the doors to senior management positions such as Head of School or Pro-Vice Chancellor, which are extremely well paid. So sadly, the job does also attract its fair share of bullies, megalomaniacs and grifters.

Grants, office allocation, teaching duties and promotion are all levers that a bullying HoD can use. Let’s look at each in turn.

The HoD’s permission is needed even to submit a grant. This can be withheld out of spite and malice. Of course, this won’t be stated as the real reason. A HoD can easily invoke “risk” or “space” concerns. Even if a grant is successfully won, the HoD still has the power to refuse it. The grant holder has no appeal or redress against such an over-mighty HoD. This happened in the case we reported on earlier as “The Bullying of Hannelore“. Hannelore had successfully won funds to support her work as part of a 15 million pounds pan-European project. The HoD refused to accept it, initiating a process to make her redundant. His behaviour was actively supported — and praised — by Human Resources (HR)!

Another shocking story is reported in the “The Theft of Ideas from Young Researchers“. A Professor now in the US recalled: “A decade ago I started my career as a lecturer at Cambridge, and this happened to me. The HoD at the time turned around a week before the deadline and said he was not going to sign the grant application until I replaced myself with one of his friends as the Principal investigator. His friend had nothing to do with the project. I refused. The application was never made. I am now a full Professor in the United States. I can’t say that it would never happen here, but – it would be seen as a scandal. What shocks me now is how my colleagues in the UK would shrug it off when I told them – like it was something normal.” It should be a scandal in the UK as well.

Bullying HoDs run their departments by favouritism or cronyism. They punish their enemies and reward their friends. This has a demoralizing effect on staff in the department, who quickly sense that matters are not run fairly or even-handedly. In an ongoing case reported to the 21 Group, a Professor fell out with his HoD, because of academic jealousy. The Professor was by far the most successful grant-getter in the department. Office allocation is controlled by the HoD, who then denied any office space to the Professor’s entire research group. The research equipment is now in storage, the postdocs have been dispersed and all future research grant applications are blocked by the HoD. The professor is now on long-term sick leave as a consequence of this victimisation. An investigation by Human Resources has — inevitably enough — already exonerated the HoD!

The HoD can play an important role in who gets promotion. This is routinely exploited by abusive HoDs to force young lecturers or assistant professors to give up grants or to take on an unfair proportion of teaching. The 21 Group knows of multiple ongoing cases. Some are reported in the The Theft of Ideas from Young Researchers: “I met my head to discuss promotion and he was like: “ok kid you’re all young and smart. But here there is a queue. So you have to wait in line a couple more years”. But then he dangled that if I could gift him a million in funding (taking no credit for myself), then I could jump ahead / bump someone else. Even go straight to reader. It was completely transactional.”

Even more common than grant theft is the loading of teaching duties on aspirants for promotion: “When I applied for Reader three years ago, I was rejected on the grounds I hadn’t done enough teaching… My head then told me the same thing about being at the back of the line. But not to worry – I should take on the teaching load from senior profs (while they are swanning away on sabbaticals) and then I will get it next year … So, I did everything I was told. But also, lodged an appeal, stating how they are abusing the promotion system. And in the meanwhile, as instructed, applied again. Yet somehow, this time, my HoD found a way to score me lower than before. Despite having yet more publications, admin and teaching experience.“

These activities are the very definition of abuse of power and corruption. They illustrate how easily unscrupulous HoDs can exploit the position to advance themselves and their buddies, whilst punishing neutrals and destroying their enemies. Of course, not all HoDs do this. It’s a minority, but the behaviour is not uncommon.

Any HoD (good or bad) has to work very closely with the University’s Human Resources department, who routinely support them. Over the course of a HoD’s term, a strong working relationship usually builds up. Any complaint about a HoD’s misbehaviour must be directed to HR. In many Universities, there has never been a successful complaint against a HoD in recorded history. It is much more likely that HR will investigate and punish the complainant.

The 21 Group thanks everyone who has reported incidents of bullying and malfeasance at universities. It is important that these stories are told. Please use contact@21percent.org