Sample Selection: Defining Attributes of Mobbing
Sample Selection: Chapter 2, The Mobbings at Medaille College
|
From a letter to the American Association of University Professors from Joseph Bascuas, President, Medaille College, June 1, 2005 One year ago, the current administration of the College entered into just and mutually agreeable settlements with Drs. Watson and Warden. We did so to correct decisions that were made using (perhaps even misusing) the inadequate processes and procedures available at the time. I recommended those settlements because I had come to believe that Drs. Watson and Warden had not been afforded fair treatment and because to settle with them was the right thing to do. |
Contributors:
AAUP Committe A (initial draft by Robert K. Moore, Sociology and Criminal Justice, Saint Joseph's University, and Sandi Cooper, History, College of Staten Island, CCNY)
Jo A. Baldwin, English, Mississippi Valley State University
Barry W. Birnbaum, Education, Northeastern Illinois University
James Gollnick, Religious Studies, St. Paul's College, University of Waterloo
Anson Shupe, Sociology, Indiana University and Purdue University, Fort Wayne
James J. Van Patten, Education, University of Arkansas and Florida Atlantic University
Stan C. Weeber, Sociology, McNeese State University
Kenneth Westhues, Sociology, University of Waterloo
 * |
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. Table of Contents
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
7. “Captains of Erudition: Use and Misuse of Administrative
Power,” James Van Patten 8.
“Canadian Gulag? Comparing the Elimination of Dissidents
by Totalitarian Regimes and of Unwanted Professors by University
Administrations,” Stan C. Weeber 9. “A
Good Reason for Mobbing,” Jo A. Baldwin
10. “When the Bastards Grind You Under: Conflict Theory
versus Social Exchange Theory,”Anson Shupe
11. “A Review of Literature on Tenure and Dismissal of Professors,”
Barry W. Birnbaum
12. “Dreams and Reflections on a Sad Chapter in Canadian
Academic History,” James Gollnick
Conclusion: The Waterloo Strategy
for Prevention of Mobbing in Higher Education
* Current printing has a slightly different cover. |
|