Supervisor bullying in academia is alive and well, says Timothy Ijoyemi. In Times Higher Education, Ijoyemi (2021) writes that “the arrangements that trap PhD students in toxic relationships with abusive supervisors must be reformed” – and offers several practical suggestions to empower students to leave toxic relationships.
You may also be interested in How to bully-proof higher education organizations – article digest.
In recent years, “a chorus of former PhD students have broken their silence over abusive behaviour suffered at the hands of their supervisors. Their horrifying accounts variously relate being belittled and humiliated in front of colleagues,” with some supervisors even sullying their students’ reputations in the eyes of prospective employers.
The toll of supervisor bullying on students’ mental health can be devastating, “with reports of anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and even suicide having emerged.”
Supervisor bullying in academia
The arrangements that trap students in toxic relationships with abusive supervisors rest upon a draconian imbalance of power.
“The power imbalance of the student-supervisor relationship makes students uniquely vulnerable to bullying from superiors who can destroy careers before they’ve even begun.”
These arrangements and the power gap mean “so few PhD students report their experiences of bullying.”
“Students jumping ship partway through their PhD are likely to lose access to essential resources bound to their existing supervisor, including research funding and access to crucial lab equipment, not to mention their supervisor’s expertise.”
“Any student raising the ire of a malicious supervisor … risks forgoing the glowing reference and authorship credit on papers that could be pivotal to landing their first postdoc. It’s little wonder that so few PhD students report their experiences of bullying.”
A key focus of reform “must be making it easier for students to change supervisor partway through their projects.”
Universities, funding bodies, and gatekeepers for academic metrics all have a role to play to fix the problem, empower students and help ease supervisor transition.
Universities can force offending supervisors to continue providing access to equipment or other resources needed by a targeted student to complete their project
“Funders could make provision for finance allocated to PhD students to be transferred to a new supervisor if bullying has occurred. Where this isn’t possible, universities should have a fund available to plug or mitigate funding shortfalls that accrue to students decoupling from abusive supervisors.”
Funders could factor records of academic bullying into funding decisions.
“Funding bodies should attach conditions to their grants that allow funding to be withdrawn from supervisors found to have bullied. Where this occurs, funding should be transferred to another principal investigator from the same department to reduce impacts on others funded by the same grant.”
“Gatekeepers for academic metrics, including those that publish institutional rankings to incorporate bullying records into their assessment criteria. This would benefit gatekeepers by driving up standards in the institutions on which their existence depends, while those institutions would benefit from outperforming competitors on a metric bound to influence student enrolment. Most important would be the benefit to students now belonging to institutions better incentivised to root out supervisor bullying.”
“Research has found that reporting of academic bullying is low largely because targets doubt that it will lead to meaningful action.”
Higher education institutions should enact “a robust anti-bullying policy that sets out disciplinary action to be taken against supervisors found to have bullied. Consequences for repeat or particularly egregious offenders should be severe, ranging up to dismissal.”
To inspire greater confidence, “anti-bullying policies must be communicated to incoming PhD students as a prominent part of their induction, with clear definitions given of what constitutes bullying, how complaints will be investigated, what disciplinary actions may result and what measures can be taken to minimise negative impacts on reporting students.”
“The stories of supervisor bullying that have emerged in recent times are a terrible stain on higher education. It’s past time for the multi-pronged effort needed to reform a system in which bullying has been able to thrive.”
Digest article
Bullying by supervisors is alive and well – now is the time to tackle it – Times Higher Education (Nov. 11, 2021)
The arrangements that trap PhD students in toxic relationships with abusive supervisors must be reformed – here’s how, says Timothy Ijoyemi.
Timothy Ijoyemi has more than 10 years’ experience in higher education. He has a passion for equity, diversity and inclusion, and at UCL School of Management he researches and supports on various projects to improve student and staff experience.
Related content
1st Annual University of Ottawa Supervisor Bullying ESG Business Risk Assessment Briefing
Disgraced uOttawa President Jacques Frémont ignores bullying problem
How to end supervisor bullying at uOttawa
PhD in DTI uOttawa program review
Rocci Luppicini – Supervisor bullying at uOttawa case updates
The case for policy reform: Tyranny
The trouble with uOttawa Prof. A. Vellino
The ugly truth about uOttawa Prof. Liam Peyton
uOttawa engineering supervisor bullying scandal
uOttawa President Jacques Frémont ignores university bullying problem
uOttawa Prof. Liam Peyton denies academic support to postdoc
Updated uOttawa policies and regulations: A power grab
What you must know about uOttawa Prof. Rocci Luppicini
Why a PhD from uOttawa may not be worth the paper it’s printed on
Why uOttawa Prof. Andre Vellino refused academic support to postdoc
