Homo Academicus

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THE REMEDY AND PREVENTION OF MOBBING IN HIGHER EDUCATION Two Case Studies Kenneth Westhues et al. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, about 250 pages. 2006 Available from the publisher and major online retailers

Therese Warden and Uhuru Watson, tenured professors at Medaille College in Buffalo, New York, were dismissed for turpitude in 2002. Herbert Richardson, tenured professor at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, was dismissed for gross misconduct in 1994. On account of abundant similarities and abundant differences between the cases at these two institutions, rigorous comparative study of them yields rich insight into the nature, sources, techniques, and consequences of workplace mobbing in academic institutions. Especially striking is the difference in outcome: the Medaille mobbings were corrected to significant degree in 2004, while the one at Toronto remains unresolved. Along with its substantive contribution to the scientific study of mobbing in academe, this book also spells out and illustrates a pragmatist, dialogic, conversational, democratic methodology for research in this field — and in social science more generally. It rejects detached, positivist, authoritarian, jargon-laden methods of inquiry in favor of the classic methods associated with William James, Jane Addams, George Herbert Mead, and others in the early Chicago School of Sociology. The book concludes with the ten-point strategy for prevention of mobbing in academe, a practical summary of the research program that began in 1991, at the University of Waterloo, Canada. THE REMEDY AND PREVENTION OF MOBBING IN HIGHER EDUCATION Table of Contents(almost finalized, February 2006) Introduction: Substance and Methodology Part One: The Warden/Watson Dismissals at Medaille 1. Overview: The Medaille Project 2. Initial paper, October 2002: "The Mobbings at Medaille College" 3. Second paper, March 2003: “The Medaille Mobbings, Part Two” 4. Third paper, July 2003: “The Medaille Crisis in Mid-2003” 5. January-February 2004: “Report on the Medaille Dismissals,” Committee A, AAUP Part Two: The Richardson Dismissal at Toronto 6. Overview: The Mellen Project 7. “Captains of Erudition: Use and Misuse of Administrative Power,” James Van Patten Response 8. “Canadian Gulag? Comparing the Elimination of Dissidents by Totalitarian Regimes and of Unwanted Professors by University Administrations,” Stan C. Weeber Response 9. “A Good Reason for Mobbing,” Jo A. Baldwin Response 10. “When the Bastards Grind You Under: Conflict Theory versus Social Exchange Theory,”Anson Shupe Response 11. “A Review of Literature on Tenure and Dismissal of Professors,” Barry W. Birnbaum Response 12. “Dreams and Reflections on a Sad Chapter in Canadian Academic History,” James Gollnick Response Conclusion: The Waterloo Strategy for Prevention of Mobbing in Higher Education * Current printing has a slightly different cover.