Another battle over collegiality is brewing: faculty in the four-campus Connecticut State University system involved in union contract negotiations are questioning, amongst other things, proposed collegiality rules. As I document in my online article in the current issue of Academe, “Grappling with Collegiality and Academic Freedom,” UW-Stout faculty were fortunate to be “on the same page” as administration when developing our AAUP-based collegiality policy. Collegiality rules loom more sinister when it appears an administration is strong-arming or forcing the rules on faculty, especially when those rules are part of a larger package of proposals hostile to faculty. Is the situation at your campus more like the Connecticut State divide or more like the UW-Stout joint effort?

UW-Stout faculty also are fortunate our campus is focusing on ways to promote collegiality rather than on ways to punish non-collegiality. For example, we are undertaking initiatives to improve supervisor training, our employee assistance program, and informal dispute resolution. What is your campus doing about collegiality that appears to be working or not working?

Still, there is a new discussion emerging about a gap in our policies. Our current hostile environment harassment policy, like many others in academia, only applies to members of protected categories. Some are arguing we need a workplace policy that prohibits harassment of all employees, whether a member of a protected category or not. It is believed the lack of such a policy leaves some harassed employees without an effective means to find relief. If such a policy is restricted to legal definitions of hostile work environment, then it should not raise concerns about a slippery slope to punishing alleged non-collegial behavior. Does your campus have such a policy? What impacts has it had? Should campuses have such a policy?

Author Bio: Timothy Shiel is a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Stout