Gast oversaw ‘favouritism’ and ‘exclusion’ at Imperial – report

College forced to release bullying investigation by Information Commissioner’s Office

February 3, 2022
Alice Gast
Alice Gast, president of Imperial College London

Imperial College London president Alice Gast and the institution’s chief financial officer oversaw a culture of “favouritism, exclusion, the making of disparaging comments about others and at times a lack of respect for others”, an independent investigation found.

Imperial confirmed in late 2020 that Professor Gast had been found guilty of bullying a colleague and that Muir Sanderson, the finance chief, bullied two colleagues between February and March that year. The pair faced disciplinary investigations and apologised.

However, the report of Jane McNeill QC had been kept under wraps, until the Information Commissioner’s Office ruled last week that it should be released.

The document, which has now been published by Imperial, finds that Professor Gast “undermine[d]” a colleague “personally and professionally” to the extent that their “self-esteem and self-confidence have been badly affected and [they] has suffered from lack of sleep and weight loss”.

This “adverse and humiliating treatment” included the making of “disrespectful and sometimes unpleasant” comments and the exclusion of the staff member from key parts of their role.

Ms McNeill says that while she did not consider that Professor Gast “set out to bully…she must have known or closed her eyes to the fact that her treatment…would cause…significant humiliation and lack of self-esteem”.

Much of the strongest criticism in the report is reserved, however, for Mr Sanderson, who, Ms McNeill writes, “created or contributed to a culture where aggression and the making of inappropriate and offensive comments is tolerated”.

Mr Sanderson, Ms McNeill writes, “uses language and exhibits behaviours from time to time which are abhorrent in a modern workplace”, including telling a female colleague to “Watch your tone, young lady”, and using the expression “[leaving] the plantation”, comments which the report says “could suggest negative treatment relating to…protected characteristics”.

In relation to both Professor Gast and Mr Sanderson, Ms McNeill writes that several witnesses “described a culture of favouritism: you are ‘in or out’; ‘the favourite child’; ‘a hero or zero’; or in the ‘in gang or out gang’. One witness described that there were a lot of employees at any one time ‘in the rubbish pot’.” The number of witnesses making these comments was “significant”, she writes.

While Ms McNeill did not conclude there was a culture of bullying in Imperial as a whole, she found that at a senior level, there was a “culture of making disparaging comments about, undermining and excluding others”.

There was a culture at the top “where personal likes and dislikes are allowed to interfere with objective decision-making”, Ms McNeill writes, adding: “In short, I consider that [Professor Gast] and [Mr Sanderson] have contributed in their different ways to a culture of bullying.”

Barry Jones, a regional official with the University and College Union, said that it was “shameful” that the pair remained in post. Union members reported an “endemic culture of bullying at Imperial”, he said.

Professor Gast, whose remuneration totalled £519,000 last year, will step down in August at the end of her term. She said that it was “personally devastating for me to find that my behaviour fell short of both the college’s and my own expectations and that it had affected a colleague in this way”. 

“In the two years since these events took place, I have worked hard to ensure that my colleagues feel fully supported as we all contribute to improvements in the college culture,” she said.

Mr Sanderson said the report “makes as uncomfortable reading now as it did in 2020”.

“Since then, I have been trying to learn from the lessons of that period. It is still work in progress but I am always encouraged when someone comments that they can see the results of my efforts. I intend to stay focused on this,” he said.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (7)

Farvourtism and cronyism is rife in UK academe. Rarely anyone is hired in Oxbridge unless they are already in as a fix termer or have studied there and know at least one interview panel member. Other elite universities and even universities that are not elite are the same. There is no objective decision making is rare in academe and the entire industry needs legal regulation. It needs a law requiring people with conflicts of interest to recuse themselves on interview panels and from editing and reviewing papers when their friend is involved.
Although the VC model may need refreshing, I must take issue with the comments regarding appointments. In my experience, the process has been fair and appropriate - personally, I applied to departments where I had no links with success and then in the panels with which I have been involved, selection has been on merit.
Vice Chancellors are an outdated way to run and manage universities. They are based on the concept of monachy with a king or queen leading from the top. In 2022, unversities should be managed collectively by committees of eminent professors deciding jointly. We no longer need mascot VC's travelling the world for their own personal benefit and dictating their personal view to everyone else. We need a committee of professors at the top with it renewing its membership every two years and then have layers of collective decision making at every level under it. One person running a university or a faculty like its their own private business is wrong in 2022. Also need to make unfair dismissal a criminal offence, as that would take most of the power to bully away. Without the threat of unfair dismissal these managers would lose a great deal of their bullying power.
I completely agree with your comments regarding VC's however replacing this model with another elitist decision making group seems just as bad if not worse.
If an organization looks for and hire management and leaders who get results in a Machiavellian way (e.g., resorting to insults, threats, and bullying when necessary as long as you get the results we want), why should anyone be surprised when it occurs???
favouritism and exclusion - and only at imperial? HA HA HA...
The situation is worse in most African public universities . Farvourtism and cronyism is rife.

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