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State of the Profession: When Colleagues Collide
By Martin D. Snyder
Most of us recollect from our school days the antics of some faculty eccentric, a (for the most part) lovable curmudgeon who provided generations of students with colorful, amusing tales about life in the academy. Sometimes it was the odd flair for fashion (the socks that never matched, even when remembered). At times, it was a special aptitude for the barbed and devastating jibe (humorous when directed against someone else, especially a figure in authority). Then, too, there were the occasional gastronomic oddities (the cheese sandwich carried in the jacket pocket for more weeks than anyone really cared to know about). We all have good stories about such people. But as students, we never imagined what it might be like to work with them; as colleagues, we may find that our perspective and tolerance are not quite what they once were.
The Association has long recognized the responsibilities that professors have to their colleagues. The Statement on Professional Ethics (1966) notes that collegial obligations stem from common membership in the community of scholars, and that these obligations call upon faculty to refrain from discriminating against or harassing their colleagues, and to show due respect for their opinions. Campus curmudgeons are not exempted from these obligations, and faculty members have every right to expect that they can perform their academic responsibilities without the dread of regular, unpleasant encounters with difficult colleagues. As a professor corresponding with the AAUP national office once put it, "I frankly can’t imagine a worse fate than coming to work and avoiding a colleague because no one can get along with that person."
There is, of course, the issue of balance. How does one weigh a faculty member’s right to think unconventional thoughts, speak unconventional words, and behave in unconventional ways, against the right of colleagues to work in a civil and harmonious environment? The Association’s statement On Collegiality as a Criterion for Faculty Evaluation (1999) addresses this thorny issue. The statement acknowledges that collegiality in the sense of collaboration and constructive cooperation is an important aspect of faculty performance and not per se an unreasonable expectation. What the statement takes exception to is the current tendency to isolate collegiality as a separate evaluative criterion. It is, the statement asserts, "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."
When collegiality is used as a separate evaluative criterion, it poses several dangers: the exclusion of persons on the basis of their deviation from a conventional norm, the diminishment or destruction of academic freedom, and the chilling of faculty debate and discussion. It may be, however, that the greatest danger posed by collegiality as an evaluative norm is the ease with which this laudable idea can mask some very ugly behaviors.
Attempts to reduce the abstract notion of collegiality to a measurable set of criteria upon which to base an evaluation invariably generate a plethora of corporate jargon. Words like "loyal," "enthusiastic," "cooperative," and "team player," often become weapons to attack the faculty member who is independent-minded and critical of his colleagues and administration. Such terms may also become the bases upon which to justify discrimination against a colleague who just does not "fit." Women and members of minority groups are frequently the victims of this sort of twisted collegiality. Placed in positions where they are expected to "prove themselves," they may have to work longer, harder, and better than their majority-group colleagues, only to be compensated at a lower rate. Then they are accused of being pushy, aggressive, strident, and hostile. They make their colleagues uncomfortable. They are, it is alleged, uncollegial.
Collegiality is a complex issue. Hard to define with any real degree of precision, it is harder still to reduce to a set of measurable criteria. A perfectly commonsensical notion in the abstract, in the particular it is fraught with dangers for misuse and abuse. Like beauty, collegiality is in the eye of the beholder, and many a beholder has narrow, distorted, or impaired vision. Collegiality, at least as a distinct evaluative criterion, is not a notion whose time has come. Caveat professor!
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