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psychological/self-esteem damage

Posted by: emarie
Date: 12/23/2006 12:05:04 PM

I worked hard to complete my doctorate and was hired by a department for which I had adjuncted for years too high reviews by students and chair, who had urged me to get my terminal degree and come back full time, tenure track. I did. But the good and supportive boss left the year I started and in his place was a bully who thought he was crowned chair, not appointed. He had connections with a rich donor and he believed he made his own rules. By his own admission he claimed to have clung to some not-so-good machismo attitudes from his roots that he tried to watch out for, but he hated women, especially intellligent, clear thinking, articulate women with many more years teaching experience than he, and with a Ph.D. to his M.A. He broke rules, miussed meetings constantly, called names, sent his secretary to rifle through our private mail and go into our offices when we were not there. He assigned courses without ever discussing it with people he hated, and these courses were usually so far out of the faculty members area of expertise that it would guarantee bad student evaluations, which would damage the faculty members career. He lied when he was challenged, he called students in behind faculty members' backs to try to make cases against them (one student actually reported to me things he'd asked that were actionable and violations of faculty rights). He asked one student if I was a racist, and she was stunned, and told me herself that she had said absolutely not, that she was dropping my class because she had an overload but if he noticed, she was staying IN my other class, and that the one student from whom he had heard that complaint was simply a trouble maker. Alkl of this was reported to HR and to Affirmative Action. He was spoken to, so he took his campaign underground and two years of constant abuse, during which I lost massive amounts of weight, cried daily (once in front of him when he was yelling at me for asking him why I found out from a grad student what my schedule was and why it was already published before he had even spoken with me, which was humiliating! Not only did he not let up on the bullying when I had tears streaming fdown my face but he increased it, became sarcastic, and THEN called me arrogant,I suspect because I was a better teacher than he was and knew more about the institution and how things worked than he did). Two years of this abuse culminated in him taking my job from me claiming he didn't need someone with those credentials in that position. He knew he had no legitimate reason to get rid of me so before I reached my third year under which he would have had to show cause he released me. The union challenged it but he was within his rights. Fortunately, he was such a screw up he failed to notify me in writing in a timely manner, which cost our employer close to $25,000 paid to me. They knew it was a vendetta but they could not risk annoying his wealthy benefactor. But they were furious with how he had handled the department and a year later he was released from HIS contract early for incompetence. But it was too late to get my job back for me. So in sme ways I feel vindicated that eventually (too late for me) the institution saw through him (a colleague getting her Ed.D. is actually writing her dissertation specifically about his management style nd how damaging it was). However now I am afraid of the workplace. I have no trust in academic administrators to protect me from abuse, and am fearful of the classroom, when once I had been an energetic, excited and very effective professor. I doubt I could ever feel safe in the classroom again because there are too many like him in academe. I sometimes think I should try to get a lower level administrative job so I wouldn't always be walking point and subjject to the whims of a bully, but right now I just feel damaged. I don't know how to recover from this. I have seen a counselor, and I think if I were not under a chair but rather in administration I might feel safer, but I don't have administrative experience. And I freeze every time I think about going near a college again. The damage that man did to my self-esteem and to my family was massive. We now are having trouble making ends meet, so the effect is also economic. I feel like road kill on the employment highway...any suggestions?

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