Thoughts on academic life (2)- The Theater of Scholarly Collegiality

As noted in the first episode, this series is based on my observations in many different settings, not necessarily happening in my own department. In fact, I am relatively lucky to be there, exposed to fewer troubles than I usually observe. 

“These meetings are so valuable,” a colleague proclaimed at the conclusion of yet another meeting on campus. Around the room, heads nodded in ritualistic agreement. We had spent lots of minutes discussing matters that could have been resolved via email, watching familiar performances unfold—a few (mostly senior) professors who dominate every discussion, and the administrative academics deploying new buzzwords like (nowadays) “strategic alignment” and “synergistic collaboration.”

This episode explores what I’ve come to understand as the theater of scholarly collegiality—the elaborate performance of warmth, mutual respect, and intellectual community that often masks a more complex, sometimes darker reality.

Stanford professor Robert Sutton once described academia as characterized by “petty but relentless nastiness,” a system where civil workplace norms somehow don’t apply despite our claims to intellectual and moral superiority.

The Backstabbing Behind Collegiality’s Mask

“It’s so wonderful to see everyone together!” This cheerful declaration typically opens many of the academic and social gatherings.  The atmosphere feels warm, collegial, almost familial. Yet in many academic departments, when people gather, the primary activity becomes gossip about other members of the department, with the goal not of information-sharing but of schadenfreude and belittling colleagues. I’ve learned to recognize the pattern: the colleague who effusively praises someone to their face, then dissects their perceived inadequacies the moment they leave the room.

Collegiality as Performance and Control

Recent scholarship introduces the concept of “collegiality-washing”—where institutions create elaborate collegial procedures that become unrecognizable from their original democratic intent, functioning instead as window dressing for predetermined decisions. This parallels the discussion in my first episode about transparency theater.

The American Association of University Professors warns that collegiality, when weaponized as an evaluation criterion, risks “ensuring homogeneity” and “chilling faculty debate” by stigmatizing those who don’t defer to group norms. I’ve seen this firsthand: colleagues who raise legitimate concerns about departmental decisions are labeled as “difficult” or “not team players.”

The performance becomes more elaborate precisely because the reality is so troubling. We develop sophisticated vocabularies around “community,” “shared governance,” and “mutual respect” while engaging in behaviors that undermine all three. The more eloquently we speak about collegial values, the less we seem to practice them.

References

American Association of University Professors (AAUP). (2016). On Collegiality as a Criterion for Faculty Evaluation.

Sahlin, K., & Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (2023). Collegiality washing? New translations of collegial practices. In Revitalizing collegiality: Restoring faculty authority in universities (pp. 157-180). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Vaidyanathan, B., Khalsa, S., & Ecklund, E. H. (2016). Gossip as social control: Informal sanctions on ethical violations in scientific workplaces. Social Problems, 63(4), 554-572.