I was in my office today when I heard one of my colleagues chewing out a student in the hallway for having left class early this morning. No one else was in the department at that time. I recognized the voice as that of a student who is in one of my classes and had missed class today. When I peeked my head out, I noticed that my colleague was having a full-blown, red-faced meltdown in the hallway by yelling (not just raising her voice) that she did not appreciate his disrespectful attitude towards her because he had come to class to turn in his homework and then simply left after that. She shouted, "If you think this is how you're going to get ahead in life, you're going to be surprised because you're not going to pass my class," and then stomped off and left the student standing in the hallway.
The student is one I've had in two classes and is currently taking a third class from me (the joys of teaching GEs). I asked if he was OK (still from the safe haven of my office). He asked if he could come sit in my office for a minute to talk about what he'd missed in class today. I motioned him in. He sat down and said, "Wow, that was intense." We both nodded and kind of chuckled to relieve stress.
Then he said, "So, anyway, I'm having a really bad day. Here's why I wasn't in class today..."
As I was getting ready to fill him in on what he'd missed, my colleague returned, saw him sitting in my office, and descended on both of us.
She started to hiss at me that it was inappropriate that I was talking with her student ABOUT her. I tried to reassure her that we had not, in fact, been talking about her in any way. The student even said, "I'm talking about another class. Not yours." But she continued to rant and rave that I was being unprofessional (!) and that she would ask the Registrar to drop him from her class and file a complaint against me for lack of discretion when it comes to students. She then stomped off again.
So... I haven't had a chance to talk with her. I did send her an email (I cc'd our chair) in which I stated that the student was discussing his absence in MY class, and that despite appearances, we were actually NOT discussing her in any way.
What would you have done in this situation? What would you do now? Has anyone had any experiences with grievances filed against them by colleagues?
The student offered to write me a letter as evidence that I was not being unprofessional, but I told him to hold off on that unless it becomes a problem.
(PS This colleague is NOT a parent... for those of you who remember me from "a thirsty on fertility")
You WERE "chuckling" about the colleague behind her back, which is, indeed, completely unprofessional. I would have refused to offer such a student a "safe haven" in my office and refused to talk to him at that time. I would have asked him to approach me about his issues in my course at some later date.
ReplyDeleteTrying to endear yourself to students by chuckling over the stress they inflict on your colleagues shows a complete lack of collegiality and is just simply wrong.
Wow, the crime of the century! Chuckling at a student.
ReplyDeleteSo no one is going to note abhorrant behavior of the other colleague? You know, the one who was screaming at the student like an ape in heat?
I'm sure that I'm over emphasizing the obvious when I point out the following:
What that other colleague did was inappropriate in so many ways. Even if no-one at your school cares, the student can complain to outside agencies and maybe even sue the school.
Of course, anyone acting like she did must have tenure.
So, I'm left wondering, can you grieve what she did?
ReplyDeleteCC'ing your chair is good. Talking to them is better. Make it clear that you're just trying to clarify your role in this. What your chair does regarding your colleague's grossly unprofessional behavior is their problem, though you should make it clear that any formal complaint from her will be met with a cross-complaint, and that you're willing to write up what you witnessed for their use.
ReplyDeleteOnly after you have ironclad assurances of support from your chair should you allow your colleague within ten yards of your person. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt further personal reconciliation until someone in authority has spoken, preferably very firmly, to your colleague.
@Emergency: thanks. She does, indeed, have tenure. We weren't chuckling at the professor, so I appreciate your recognizing that. It was literally a "wow, that was intense," nervous chuckle, and change of subject to what he'd missed in my class. I'm sure if we'd both WANTED to rail against her, we could have, but that's not what was actually happening. Do you think it would just spiral out of control if I filed a grievance against her. She was having a bad day (I assume), and I don't see the point of exacerbating the problem (but I don't want to get shafted, either).
ReplyDelete@Jonathan, good advice. I'll make sure that if she attempts to engage me tomorrow, that witnesses are present.
Seconded everything Jonathan said. Your colleague has a hell of a lot of nerve to accuse anyone else of unprofessional behaviour! Not only was she having a screaming meltdown at a student, in a hallway, she followed this up by threatening you.
ReplyDeleteLet us hope she was simply having a bad day and isn't genuinely unhinged, and none of this will come to anything. In the meantime, you have certainly done the right thing by emailing her and ccing your chair to reaffirm that you were discussing your own class with the student, not hers.
If I saw a colleague screaming red-faced at one of my students and swearing that they were going to fail the class before stalking off livid - because they'd left class early, hardly a hanging offense - I would offer them a safe haven in my office too. You did absolutely nothing wrong.
I'd also recommend, with Jonathan, that you make absolutely sure that you have no interaction with this colleague that isn't witnessed by a third party. Don't speak to her in private; if she emails you, include her email in your reply, and cc your chair; if she phones you, tell her it's an inconvenient time to talk; ask her to phone back and leave voicemail. Whatever's causing her to go off the deep end, you don't want to leave her any openings to drag you with her.
to answer the question in your last (we cross-posted) - no, don't file a grievance unless she does; that would indeed make it all spiral, one hopes unnecessarily, out of control. But ifshe does file a grievance, of course counter-grieve. But ask your chair, and your steward or faculty association rep or whatever you've got, for advice, first.
ReplyDeleteI hope that tomorrow she meets you in the coffee room, looking sheepish, and apologizes vaguely for "having a lot on her mind" yesterday, or something, and you can forget all this. How distressing!
@Thanks, Merely. Good advice on whether she tries to phone, too. I'm not sure if she's coming unhinged. She's a really passive-aggressive person, so this extreme of aggressive behavior took me by surprise. Do you think I should solicit a letter from the student just in case she files paperwork and the student graduates, or should I wait to see if it blows over?
ReplyDeleteI think it's your chair's job to interview the student, not yours. If they know their job, they should be very, very worried right now about your colleague and how much trouble she's going to be. If they don't step up, though, go for it. Get it notarized, too. And go up the chain of command, too: if your chair won't take substantive action, talk to a Dean. A union rep, if you have one.
ReplyDelete@Jonathan: excellent call! Indeed! :o) THanks so much.
ReplyDeleteI do have to wonder what it is about dealing with snowflakes that elicits a meltdown from time to time!
While I don't think she should have yelled at the student, I also don't think you should have invited the student into your office at that moment.
ReplyDeleteA nervous smile from your office door would have been sufficient. Then, you should have gone to find her, and ask her if she is okay. Something like, "Hey, are you okay? Do you need an ear?"
You never know what was going on with her, in her life, that day. If you're a guy, it might also be the case that the student treats you differently than he does her. I know there have been students, especially male students, who treat my male colleague quite a bit more respectfully than they treated me, in the classroom. Not saying it IS that way, but you never know.
Anyway, I think you should have discreetly offered a safe haven to her, first. Come on now, if a student upset you, truly upset you, even if it's not justified, it's not going to help if you see that student in a colleague's office a little while later.
Put yourself in her shoes.
Those of you who are jumping all over her, without knowing her situation: think of the last time you got super, super upset with a student, on a bad day, and reacted in an over the top way. Hasn't that ever happened to you? It has to me. 10 classes a semester, no time for a social life to blow off steam, no time to really cultivate friendships that help alleviate some of those stresses...sometimes you blow.
All I'm saying then, is put yourself in her shoes. Even if just for a minute. Not to minimize how scary & stressful the whole scenario was Contemplative Cynic. Again, I'm just saying.
@ Office-In
ReplyDeleteGood spoof!
Those of you who are jumping all over her, without knowing her situation...
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely why we're recommending that Contemplative Cynic stay away from her. We don't know her situation. She may calm down and apologize for her outburst. Or she may follow through on her threat to take punitive administrative action. Or she may not, but still find other ways - as tenured faculty sometimes do - to punish her apparently disloyal junior colleague.
We're not dealing with a case of adjunct abuse here: this is a senior, tenured faculty member who behaved inappropriately with both a student and a junior colleague.
We're also talking about someone who left under her own steam, leaving the student - to whom Contemplative Cynic has a responsibility as instructor. CC had no idea whether or not the colleague was coming back, but did what was necessary to do their own job, professionally and appropriately.
@ Emergency Mathematical Hologram
ReplyDeleteHuh? I'm confused. I was...being serious.
?
I think I'd favour a lower-key approach than Jonathan, CC. you might ask the student to email you with his description of your meeting in your office, and then just save it for future reference. I don't know what good getting it notarized would do. If your colleague is menacing tomorrow, you might want to speak to your chair. If she actually grieves, then of course you pull out all the stops. But I can't see her doing that unless she's genuinely gone round the bend; because this whole incident puts her in a rather negative light.
ReplyDeleteIf you do speak to your chair, then of course you can pay some lip service to the idea that perhaps it would have been best to speak to the student some other time about his absence from your class, but since he was right there ... and do the same thing, of course, if your colleague shows up tomorrow in an apologetic mood. Without admitting for a second that you did anything wrong, of course.
@Office: Gender is not a factor here (although I agree with you that our students react differently based on our genders).
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, while I believe we should back up our colleagues, she also hurried off to teach a class (from what she was yelling in the hall, she was actually already late for that particular class, and was also annoyed that the student was holding her up), yet she returned to the building, and that's when she walked by and saw him in my office.
I can understand how she misconstrued what was happening (which is why I'm NOT filing any grievances at this point), but she also could have pulled me out (away from the student) to ask what was going on before hissing at both of us.
I agree that I could have used discretion by telling the student to go away and come back later, but at 4 :15 p.m., having a student show up to ask what he'd missed seems like a miracle in and of itself, so it didn't even occur to me to say, "Um... go away for half an hour, wouldja?" Hindsight and all...
@ Jonathan Dresner:
ReplyDeleteGood point. The tenured / hierarchy facet can make a difference in those ways, I agree. I overlooked the fact that she is senior faculty. Thanks for pointing that out.
The student being invited in right then though...I'm still not comfortable with that. Anyway, since I don't know all the details, it's not fair for me to say conclusively either way.
That's at least one perk when it comes to adjuncting: minimal dealings with colleagues and office hall politics.
@ Contemplative Cynic:
ReplyDeleteYeah, I definitely see your points.
It's easy for me to sit here and say what I would or would not have done, forgetting how fast things move in a moment like that, and how you're just trying to do the right thing, in the moment, without the advantage of hindsight.
Your intentions were clearly good. I can imagine how awkward it all was in the moment. And you seem like a good sport about it all, even here. Thank goodness for blogs like this, eh? Coming here, blowing off steam, getting lots of good and varied advice; it's a godsend!
Good luck. :)
Indeed, we may not "know her situation" here, but, from experience, I've really only seen these kind of outbursts from people with substance-abuse issues or borderline personalities. Frankly, it sounds like my former landlady has become your colleague . . .
ReplyDeleteAnyway, her reaction to the student was inexcusable. A student -- being an adult -- may certainly choose to leave class. You might respond by docking participation points, or simply remembering that the student is the one losing out on the learning experience that she or he is paying for. But university isn't jail; instructors don't get to control everyone's movements and choices.
FYI: I now have SOME evidence from the student. He sent email to the chair (and cc'd me) explaining what had happened (he wanted to know what to do in case the professor actually makes good on her promise to 'drop him' from the class). I think this is now out of my hands. At least I'll tell my insomnia that in 4.5 hours.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletereposting to get out all the pre-coffee typos and stuff:
ReplyDeleteLeave the student out of it to the extent you can from here forward (although you already have the happily unsolicited version of events from the student for the chair...you'll want to hang on to that!).
Lots of things can set people off in unexpected ways, but nothing justifies raised voices to the degree you described in a professional workplace. Less still justifies two separate rants with two different audiences in a short span of time.
Maybe she missed her meds. Maybe the interaction with student and then you was the straw that broke her will in some day from hell. Maybe she is having what my wife used to describe as "power surges" if she is of a certain age. Or maybe she's just a jerk, and has successfully concealed that from you until now.
Threatening students is petty and the vein-popping yelling as described --as one other poster indicated-- is a must-have ingredient in creating a hostile work environment.
While I haven't been grieved by a "colleague", I was part of a very dramatic grievance by a subordinate with a lawyer years ago. After numerous depositions with our own lawyers, got within two weeks testifying in front of an EEOC judge before employee'slawyer and our lawyers got everything worked out (in ways which were never revealed to me or the others named in the suit by the offended employee.). Although this employee and I have both moved on to other offices, we still enjoy the most entertaining chance encounters in the hallways. And my spidey-sense tingles when I see him.
This sounds like a case study in a conflict management study. It's a hot potato belongs in the hands of your chair. Tread lightly on any approach to peer-peer reconciliation. Like Woody Hayes (or was it Darrell Royal?) said: "Three things can happen when you pass...and two of them are bad". You're looking at similar odds here, especially if one of the other actors is not entirely rational.
Shit like this is why I buy lottery tickets.
Good luck.
Depending on your relationship with the other prof, you might consider walking by her office and asking what was going on. Pretend no threats have been made. (They were made in anger and maybe were not really intended to be followed through.) Clearly something is eating her, legitimate or not, and by adopting an immediately friendly posture (having cya with the chair) might be the best long-term solution.
ReplyDeleteI'd also suggest that if you talk with the other prof, per Dr. Nathaniel, that you NOT suggest that perhaps she "missed her meds" is "of a certain age." Maybe I'm extra-prickly this morning, but those two phrases annoyed the hell out of me. A woman can't be mad without us questioning her biology? (Sure, she could just be a jerk. Or she was pushed to a breaking point. But why bring biology into it?)
ReplyDeleteLet's get something straight, something no one seems to have really grasped.
ReplyDeleteTHIS IS NOT HIGH SCHOOL. THIS STUDENT IS AN ADULT, EVEN IF STILL A NOVICE ONE, AND THE INSTRUCTOR IS NOT THAT STUDENT'S PARENT.
The Colleague Gone Wild should have never treated the student that way a fortiori from the fact that one adult should never treat another adult that way in public, for any reason. It's because of CGW's most egregious behavior that I can say, without qualm, f**k that instructor's feelings about whether it would be "inappropriate" to have the student into speak. All the people in this thread concerned about the INSTRUCTOR'S feelings, and not a damned one I've seen concerned about how the STUDENT felt after experiencing that sort of nonsense.
I knew, intellectually, that most academics were neurotic introverts with poorly developed social skills and a God-complex, but, seriously, people, stop living the damned stereotype so effectively.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - although we are teachers, we are not in loco parentis like high school teachers are. Hell, that sort of meltdown would be inappropriate coming even from one of them, but at least they have the excuse that they actually play SOME sort of parental type role in the lives of their students. THAT IS NOT WHAT WE DO. We're adult professionals and the school is our workplace, and we're speaking to fellow, albeit less experienced and less well educated, adults. There's a standard of decorum, and that doesn't involve treating them like they're our kids because we flat out don't have that right.
If an instructor had ever yelled at me that way, I'd have punched him OR her, straight up. Where I come from, that's how you handle it when some bozo gets in your face.
CC - I would NOT go to her office for an informal chat, for all sorts of reasons.
ReplyDeleteFirst, you don't owe her an apology, or anything at all; she owes you an apology and it's her job to do that. (Not that I think she will, because she's obviously got something eating her.) If you go over to her office it will look as if you're "trying to make up". You aren't. She behaved badly. She can make up, if making up is to be done.
Second, she obviously has something eating her, as I said, and is looking for an object to lash out at. If you show up in her office, it will be you. If she was inclined to just kind of forget about all this and hope that everyone else does too - which is the best-case scenario - you showing up in her office will start it all up again. I don't see a good outcome.
Third, the best-case scenario is that her spectacular bad behaviour is documented and drawn to the attention of the chair - which it has been, by both you and the student - and that, once that's done, everyone just forgets about it. If she keeps on pulling this, it's been documented and action can be taken later. If this was a one-off, she's probably really hoping everyone will just forget. For the sake of departmental harmony, I would let that happen. So don't visit her.
If she comes to you to apologize and explain, I don't know, she was in a major car accident that morning and was still wobbly and hadn't realised how much, that would be quite another matter. But you should not do anything at all now. This can't be fixed by taking her out for coffee, and trying will put you in a bad position.
@Black Dog:
ReplyDelete"But why bring biology into it?"
Sorry to have annoyed you.
The meds question is gender neutral (but has a biological component...so why not). A shitty day is gender neutral. Being a jerk is gender neutral. Can I get an indulgence for "certain age" comment...
No man or woman should act like this in a professional workplace, so all of the above are red herrings.
What if you are sitting in church, it is 120 degrees outside, somebody there is dealing with a biology issue, and you are sitting down-wind from it...?
ReplyDeleteUm, what?
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who agrees with the first comment? People just don't get punished hard enough for chuckling these days...
ReplyDelete