{"id":981,"date":"2024-06-18T07:10:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T06:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=981"},"modified":"2024-06-18T10:20:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T09:20:32","slug":"two-professors-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=981","title":{"rendered":"Two Professors Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the last 2 years, two Professors have been dismissed at Leiden University because of serious bullying or coercive behaviour. They are Prof Tim de Zeeuw<\/a> (astronomy) and Prof Corinne Hofman<\/a> (archaeology)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of Prof Hofman, Leiden University itself\u00a0broke the news<\/a>\u00a0that \u2018a professor and their partner had engaged in years of intimidation, discrimination, manipulation, and shouting, laughing at and mocking staff, PhD candidates and students, among other things’.<\/em> The misconduct took place between 1990 and 2023 and that there were 19 complainants, both current and former staff & students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of Prof de Zeeuw, Leiden University concluded <\/a>that there was ‘a systematic pattern of slander, abuse of power, gender discrimination, public humiliation and the constant threat of damage to the complainants\u2019 professional careers.<\/em> The Professor also made \u2018sexually-charged\u2019 comments and, in one instance, the committee found that he had made \u2018unwanted physical approaches\u2019 to an employee<\/em>. Again there were multiple complainants and the abuse happened over decades. The process was started by complaints from 4 graduate students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Professors were very distinguished. Prof Corinne Hofman is a Fellow of the British Academy (still is, it seems, but then the UK is very tolerant of abusive Professors). Prof Tim de Zeeuw is a former Director-General of the European Southern Observatory and the winner of many scientific awards & prizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all very remarkable<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the bullying or abuse. That is unfortunately commonplace in academia. What is very remarkable is that Leiden University have acted to dismiss two very distinguished Professors. It would never happen in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has happened because of the structure of Leiden University, which is organized very differently to UK Universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Leiden University, the Head of Department reports to the Dean of Faculty. Leiden University has seven faculties in the arts, sciences and social science. The Deans report to the Management Board. The Management Board reports to the Executive Board (composed of 3 people, chaired by Prof Annette Ottow). The Executive Board reports to the Board of Governors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chair and members of the Board of Governors (only one of whom is nominated by the University) are appointed, suspended and dismissed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.<\/strong> The Board of Governors has an independent position at the University. It is accountable to the Minister<\/strong>, not to the University<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decisions to dismiss the two Professors were taken by the Executive Board, backed by the Board of Governors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

UK Universities are organised very differently. There is no analogue of the Board of Governors that provides independent scrutiny of decision making by the Executive. The power structure in UK universities stops at the Executive Board (which has powers roughly corresponding to the Vice Chancellor and his\/her team).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is just so much easier to hush up wrongdoing in UK Universities. There is little or no external scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last 2 years, two Professors have been dismissed at Leiden University because of serious bullying or coercive behaviour. They are Prof Tim de Zeeuw (astronomy) and Prof Corinne Hofman (archaeology) In the case of Prof Hofman, Leiden University itself\u00a0broke the news\u00a0that \u2018a professor and their partner had engaged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}