Heresy №3: Treat others the way you want to be treated, unless you have tenure, I guess???
By: Timothy Hagen
Tags: Mistreatment, Workplace Culture, Lies, Academia, Adjuncts

My relationship with Susan was strained from the time of our initial phone conversations in May 2017. In our second conversation, on the day I accepted the position, I asked for her guidance regarding a particular issue. I don’t remember what the issue was, but I clearly remember her response. She refused to offer me, a brand new colleague, the advice I was trying to solicit. This wasn’t exactly what I would call a warm welcome.

A second issue stemmed from that same phone conversation. Because I had virtually no savings with which to cover my moving expenses, I asked if I might be given a $2000 moving stipend. Susan said that such a request was unorthodox (even though it is standard in many fields outside academia), but she checked on it anyway with the administration of the college of letters and science, which houses the school of music. The higher-ups approved, and the money was deposited into my checking account.

What no one told me was that the college had a policy of withholding tax on such stipends when given to one-year appointees, even though federal tax law at the time held that moving stipends were tax-exempt. My November 2017 paycheck was therefore $700 short. When rent is $865/month, a $700 deficit is a lot. I approached Susan, and she claimed to be powerless in the situation. (Noticing a pattern yet?) I took my complaint to the administration of the college of letters and science, and only then did I learn about their strange policy regarding moving stipends. Even though the school of music all but confirmed that I would be appointed for a second year, since they had ruled out doing the flute tenure-track search during my first year, the college wouldn’t budge. The net effect was that I was promised $2000 of moving expenses, spent that $2000 on moving expenses, and then was only reimbursed $1300. Susan shrugged. Oh, well.

This treatment felt disrespectful and apathetic, and it extended beyond financial matters to the words Susan chose when speaking to me. I remember being in a private meeting with her during my first semester on the job. During this meeting, she floated the possibility of changing my course load. Participation in the faculty wind quintet had traditionally counted for 33% of the load for the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon professors, an extremely generous amount. Slashing how much of the course load it represented would free up space for us to be given additional teaching assignments.

There was a significant problem with this idea, which I expressed: with the simultaneous arrival of our new clarinet professor and me, a 40% turnover in personnel, the quintet was revitalized. We already had plans in place to increase how much we performed, and we were discussing how to implement new, interactive approaches with audiences. In other words, on our own, we had decided to ramp up the quantity and quality of our work, only to have Susan embrace the idea of cutting how much we would be paid to do it.

Another problem that surfaced came from Susan herself, when she admitted that our ensemble brought in more money for the school than either of the other faculty ensembles. Splintering us and not the other groups seemed farcical to me, but Susan dug her heels in, bringing this idea up multiple times over the three years I was at Wisconsin. Thankfully, it seemed to be another item on which she couldn’t or wouldn’t take action, and her vision never materialized.

Each time Susan brought up a reduction in the quintet’s weight to me, that led us directly into a conversation about the nature of my position and what would constitute a 100% appointment. For two years, she repeatedly admitted that she and her senior faculty colleagues had not arrived at an answer to that question, yet an answer to that question is exactly what I needed in order to have a target at which I could aim. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was only when I had a credible job offer from another institution that Susan and other senior faculty agreed to increase my appointment. Before that offer, they were fine forcing me to increase my workload via increased studio size while refusing to pay me more.

I am not alone in this situation. The do-more-work-for-the-same-amount-of-money-or-even-less problem plagues adjunct faculty members (and all untenured faculty members, to an extent) across the country. That it is commonplace doesn’t make it less demeaning.

In our conversations about the nature of my position, Susan’s indifference to me became glaring. On the off chance that she did acknowledge my achievements, only seconds would pass before she followed up with statements like, “You’re not tenure-track. You don’t have research and creative activity expectations in your position, so we can ask you to do more teaching.”

“But Susan, I still do all the research and creative work, because that’s how recruiting happens.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not part of your contract.”

What a statement! Not, “I see how hard you are working, and it is greatly appreciated, but these are the regulations in place, and bending them is not at my discretion.” Not, “I know this is unfair, but I’m unable (for some reason) to change the terms of your contract.”

Just, “Too bad, so sad,” in essence. Another shrug.

The pattern of apathy and disrespect I experienced from Susan extended further. During my second year at Wisconsin, Susan began the practice of emailing the entire faculty and staff of the school of music whenever one of our colleagues suffered a loss in their families. I was touched by this kindness, and I made sure to follow up on her emails with those colleagues who were hurting.

When my mother dropped dead? Nothing, despite the fact that I called her cell within an hour of learning the news to tell her what had happened and that I didn’t know when I’d be back on campus. She didn’t pick up, so I left her a voicemail. If I recall correctly, I emailed her the same day and received an auto-response that she was at a conference in the UK and would be slow to respond.

Because the UK has cell and internet service, I fully expected to hear from her. After a few days, when I’d heard nothing, I emailed the school’s assistant director to fill him in on the situation. He wrote back with condolences. Still nothing went out schoolwide. I was hurt, not because I wanted my tragedy to stop the earth from turning but because this was yet another way in which Susan’s behavior seemed to single me out as a second-class citizen. I apparently wasn’t worthy of comfort in the darkest week of my life.

Late in the evening on Sunday, March 24, the day after I returned to Chicago from the funeral, I was lying in bed and received condolences from Susan via text message. She was very kind, apologizing for being off the grid, but as far as I was concerned, it was too little too late. Perhaps I should be more charitable, but the way I see it, leadership begins at the top. As the elected head of the school of music, collecting a sizeable salary (nearly $180,000 in 2019), going completely off-grid without delegating responsibilities shouldn’t be an option. Yet Susan had been “unreachable” (again, at a conference in a nation with great technological infrastructure), and it didn’t occur to our assistant director to send a notice our colleagues on my behalf. I was left to get through the hardest week of my life without the simplest of acknowledgments that had been previously given, multiple times, in support of other colleagues.

The sound of Susan Cook making essential decisions

I put my phone away and went to sleep. The next morning, I received an email from Susan, essentially echoing her text message from the night before and offering to finally send a notice out to our colleagues. This was the straw that broke my camel’s back. I had tried multiple times to contact her the previous week, when I needed support, to no avail; why was she suddenly so intent on making contact with me?

I responded to Susan with an email that gave her the blow-by-blow of all of the soul-crushing moments I had been through the previous week. I closed by writing that it was that previous week when I needed support, but sure, if she wanted, she should go ahead and send a notice to our colleagues. She wrote back with a terse apology, clearly offended.

I, however, was not sorry for what I wrote, for finally asserting that I was a human being who deserved equitable treatment. Disappearing was not an isolated event for Susan; it was part of a pattern. My first year at Wisconsin, she made herself unreachable over the winter break, despite knowing that it was possible one of our colleagues would receive another job offer during that time. That job offer came, and we ended up losing an excellent colleague, largely because Susan couldn’t be reached to counter the outside job offer.

There’s still more, unfortunately. As a show of good faith, I declined to apply for many jobs during my second year at Wisconsin. This forced me to trust that Susan wouldn’t try to reduce my appointment for my third year, since I had no job offer to use as leverage. How did Susan respond? For reasons unknown, she took an extremely long time to approve my contract for the 2019–20 academic year, so long that I lost my health insurance for September 2019 as a consequence. I am fortunate that I didn’t break additional bones in the course of duty that month.

At this point, it is possible to view the many ways in which I was marginalized by Susan as accidents. Maybe she truly did mean well. In my view, this makes the situation only slightly better, suggesting she is unfit to lead due to incompetence rather than indifference. The events of the 2019–20 academic year would show that one of those things did not preclude the other, however.

In late August 2019, I sent an email that I would take back, if I could. It was to a student set to be an incoming freshperson in the flute studio. The previous spring, before accepting our offer of admission, they contacted our admissions staff and me to say that they were upset we had not offered them any scholarship. The tone of their email struck me as demanding and condescending. I wrote back calmly to explain that our dearth of scholarship money had no reflection on her fine playing and offered to try to secure some funding for her.

At the end of my first year at Wisconsin, Susan had allocated a special pool of scholarship funding for our clarinet professor, who had arrived at the same time as I and was also working to rebuild a studio. No such offer was made available to me. Why? Because our clarinetist was tenure-track. Marc Vallon secured a similar pool of scholarship funds the following year, which he claimed originated from a request to Susan.

My employment status was a poor reason to deny my students scholarship funding that was readily made available to students of tenured and tenure-track professors. This is why I went to bat for that student who was weighing whether or not to enroll. If memory serves, I approached Susan, who responded that such funding was not at her discretion (despite the fact that she had been the person to set aside scholarship funding for clarinet and, allegedly, bassoon). I then respectfully petitioned the school of music’s student support committee for even a small amount of funding for this student, and that request was denied. Furthermore, I was told that my colleagues on that committee were angered by my request, since an increase in flute scholarship funding would mean that my studio was getting more money than some others, and that would be unfair. (In my view, what was unfair was that a thriving, growing studio was restricted to the same amount of scholarship funding as studios that were stagnant and half-empty.)

In the end, the student enrolled even though I was unable to procure a scholarship offer for them. I promised them that if they worked at the high level of which I knew they were capable, I would nominate them for any year-end academic awards for which they were eligible, several of which I understood came with monetary prizes.

This seemed to placate the student until late August, when they copied me on a furious email to our hardworking admissions staff. They claimed to be caught off guard by the facilities fees the school of music charges every student, as well as by my requirement that all flute students procure and pay a pianist for any repertoire they learned that had a piano part. The student went on to say that they were considering dropping their music major because they felt they wouldn’t be successful in such a poorly run environment. Both our admissions staff and I responded immediately in the spirit of damage control. For my part, I waived the pianist requirement for them and promised to approach Susan immediately to see if we could waive their facilities fees.

Before I could hear back from Susan, the student emailed to say they were dropping their music major, which would decrease flute studio enrollment to 11. Given Susan’s well-documented attitude toward my course load, the shenanigans around the timing of my final contract, and the fact that contract finally codified my teaching load as “12–14 students,” I panicked, fully expecting Susan to reduce my appointment and salary.

I also became angry, considering that I had very much put myself on the line for that student, to the consternation of my colleagues, only to watch said student send multiple rude emails to our staff and drop their major. I wrote back to the student, expressing disappointment in their decision. I also pointed out that their behavior struck me as entitled and wished them growth in their chosen major.

Note that I specifically took care to address the student’s behavior, not their identity. I didn’t call them a bad person, because they aren’t; rather, they were behaving in an unprofessional manner, and I felt it was my job as an instructor to point that out. In my view, it is better for a student to learn a difficult lesson from the disappointment of a teacher instead of the discipline of a boss, who might fire them for rudeness or insubordination without so much as blinking.

I heard nothing back from the student and thought the situation was settled. Fortunately, an incoming undergraduate who had not auditioned for the school of music had reached out to me about lessons earlier in the summer. I originally told them that the studio was full, because in the absence of clarity, I had decided that 12 was the enrollment limit. I invited them to come play for me ASAP. They had a great attitude and solid flute skills and became the 12th flute student for the 2019–20 academic year.

A few weeks passed by, and I was settling into the semester. One weekday afternoon in mid-September, I received a brief email from Susan, asking me to come to her office as soon as possible. Behind my back, the student who had dropped their major had taken great offense to my final email and complained to the dean of students. The dean then spoke to Susan, after which Susan spoke to the student to assure them that I was out of line and that they would be welcome to take coursework in the school of music.

Fortunately, I was tipped off to this shortly before going to see Susan, so I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong.

Susan went after me in a way that I found inexcusable. She excoriated me for the email and refused to listen to my side of the story. I promised to do whatever Susan asked of me to resolve the situation, and as a result, I offered an apology to that student.

Furthermore, Susan required me to promise that I would never send an email like that again. (Not a problem! If my well-intentioned effort to wake a student isn’t wanted, I won’t sacrifice my job to give it.) I agreed and noted, “In all fairness, Susan, this is the only time I have had this issue.”

You know exactly what happened, I would surmise, and on the six-month anniversary of my mother’s death, no less. Susan attacked me for the email I sent her in the wake of my mother’s death, telling me, “I have never received an email like that from a faculty member, especially not one in your position.”

There it was, the clearest sign yet that she viewed me as a second-class problem child. She used against me, at the most sensitive possible moment, the fact that I had dared to stand up to her when she failed in her responsibilities. I began to cry, very much against my will.

As the tears rolled down my face, Susan then engaged in what I view as an inexcusable manipulation. She reached out and touched my hand. It really was childhood all over again. With the best of intentions, I had inadvertently made a mess, like a child spilling milk en route from table to lips. Instead of a reasonable response, however, Susan verbally (and physically, with her uninvited touch) violated me.

Was it any surprise when, months later, she refused to meaningfully protect me when Marc Vallon spouted vicious homophobia? If it was, it shouldn’t have been. From the moment I was offered the job in 2017, Susan’s pattern of behavior, whether purposeful or not, pointed to the fact that she didn’t value my contributions, nor did she value me. Her documented lies to the university’s Title IX investigator support this point.