Some Russell Group academics ‘treat administrators like scum’

Researcher describes ‘fraught’ tensions between working-class professional service employees and academics at leading UK universities

October 24, 2024
Patrick Jack
Shoe cleaner is polishing the shoes of a buissnesman in Leadenhall Market to illustrate Academics ‘treat staff like scum’
Source: Horst friedrichs/Alamy

Working-class professional services staff have described harmful relationships with academics at UK universities, with some facing derogatory language and reporting being treated “like scum”.

A new paper explores the tensions between 13 working-class administrators in Russell Group institutions and their academic counterparts. Author Jessica Pilgrim-Brown, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol, told Times Higher Education that the relationships between the groups, although on a small scale, could be characterised as “oscillating between being professional and supportive, and being directly harmful”.

Her findings, published in the Higher Education journal, show that despite having similar pay structures, academics were “always superior in the hierarchy of the university” with a view that professional services staff were “working for” them.

Participants detailed a clear divide between the two groups, even eating lunch in different rooms. With academics often treating them as their personal assistant, one described feeling like the “team bitch”.

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“I think academic colleagues are still held up as the like, the main deal aren’t they? And the rest of us are just sort of helping them shine,” said one participant.

The study uncovered particular tensions around meetings, which gave many respondents the impression that their ideas were not taken into account.

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Obscure references to Greek mythology and opera in conversations often left the participants feeling isolated, but the main concerns appeared to be around academics’ “toxic” treatment of staff.

Participants detailed how academics treated professional services staff as “lesser” employees, often treating them in disrespectful or “horrific” ways. Others said they were treated “like scum” or like “something on [an academic’s] shoe”.

“They think I’m a pleb and I’m always trying to make them think that I’m not basically,” said a staff member.

“They just act and behave however they like. And everyone just is expected to suck it up.”

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The paper concludes that professional services staff face demeaning, fraught and often derogatory relationships with academics, findings that were said to be at odds with the wider inclusion agenda that UK universities pursue.

“It is also uncomfortable for academics to review this kind of research,” added Dr Pilgrim-Brown, who said that she had found herself on the receiving end of negative behaviour from academics when she had held a professional services role.

“I think sometimes we don’t like to believe that these negative behaviours exist in the academy in this day and age, but I think this research, even though it is small-scale, demonstrates that this continues to persist and needs addressing.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (12)

#1 Submitted by OPR on October 24, 2024 - 6:24am
Seems a bit unlikely. I've only seen constructive relationships between academics and support staff until relatively recently. I've increasingly noticed that administrators are beginning to act like managers and treat academics like marketing or office staff. There are so many admin people who seem to spend all their time bouncing work back to academics rather than supporting them (after all it is academic research that underpins the whole university). Students also increasingly treat academics with some disrespect too. This seems to be an anti-knowledge era, unless it can be quickly marketed and monitised. Needless to say, HoD, HoSs, Deans etc, tend to be more agents of often sugar-coated bad news for academics than their supporters (eg, 'I have great news for you, you don't need an office any more' or 'I'm offering your the priviledge of being various tedious committees/ [or other such administrative role]'. Add to that VCs and senior staff's totalitarian thought-speech about how their various failing institutions are doing so well along with serious overloading of academics and it all makes for a poisonous research and teaching environment.
#2 Submitted by kjk on October 24, 2024 - 7:51am
I work as Professional Services staff in a Russell Group institution and have worked with Academics for more than 2 decades and have never encountered the treatment described in the article. ( Although I have from senior PS staff). I agree with some of the comments above , Professional Services leaders do seem to have lost sight that the role of their functions is to provide services to the institution to improve teaching and research the core values of the business.
#3 Submitted by badmus.bidemi on October 24, 2024 - 9:00am
As an academic staff member at a university, I've observed a concerning trend: academic staff often treat professional service staff as subordinate support personnel, referring to them as "non-academic" staff. However, every university employee are academic staff with categorization of of teaching staff and non-teaching or profession service staff. Above all, the business of all univetsity staff is center around academic and all of tbem contributes to the academic mission. To promote excellence, foster positive relationships, and ensure students receive top-notch support, I propose: 1. Redefine roles to clarify responsibilities among teaching staff and non-teaching academic personnel. 2. Encourage mutual respect between teaching and non-teaching staff. 3. Recognize interdependence: neither group can operate without the other. Key recommendations: 1. Academic staff should focus solely on academic duties. 2. Professional service staff should handle non-teaching activities. 3. Non-teaching staff appointments and promotions should be managed by senior professional service staff, not academic staff. By implementing these changes, we can: - Enhance academic excellence - Improve student satisfaction - Foster a culture of collaboration and respect"
#4 Submitted by cynicus academicus on October 25, 2024 - 12:25pm
While all of this sounds nice, my 40+ years of experience is not in line with this. First, "Academic staff should focus solely on academic duties". Explain what are specifically 'academic' duties. Should we just be (as on senior administrator called the academics 'content' providers?). Right now, my 'academic duties' include teaching, publishing, getting grants, doing my own photocopying, doing my own travel, doing my own expense reports, doing my own IT, managing students, doing all my own typing, putting in my marks, ordering meals for meetings. See this article -- "we are all secretaries now". https://www.ft.com/content/e30e51b5-2d57-430e-a829-5965313c6c6b. Second, "professional service staff should handle non-teaching activities". Again, what are non-teaching activities? As it stands, not a single administrator in our department does any of this. Do they help me deal with the travel agency (nope -- we were told specifically that that is not the support staff's duty)? Do they help me with photocopying or dealing with IT problems (nope)? What they mainly do, is tell the academic what the rules are that imply that they don't respond to emails out of office hours (while we are still working) or send an out of office email saying they will get to our request as soon as possible (good luck with that). Third, "Non-teaching staff appointments and promotions should be managed by senior professional service staff, not academic staff". I haven't been involved with the hiring or promotion of non-academic staff in decades. In fact, even as an Associate Dean, the staff in my office were hired and promoted without me on the committees (everything was an all-administrative committee). Indeed, I had people who nominally reported to me moved to other jobs without any consultation. Now, all of this said, there is always room for greater respect and great cooperation. But the reality is that universities can operate with less administration. But the greatest university have the greatest scholars and it would hardly make sense to tell Einstein (or any modern equivalent) or potential Einstein that he had to be his own secretary. Today, Einstein would be doing his own photocopying and told that he needed to catch up on his online-training.
#5 Submitted by david palfreyman on October 24, 2024 - 1:13pm
Back in the day we referred to ‘academic and academic-related staff’ on broadly similar pay-scales, and (as I recollect from 1980s Warwick) there was mutual respect (even if a bit of banter between the Registry table in the Staff Club and, say, the Social Studies table) - but, hey, that was another age before the corrosive effects of recent decades of hyper-managerialism and ultra-corporatism ousting collegiality…
#6 Submitted by levygametheory on October 24, 2024 - 10:01pm
I think a part of the problem is a large cultural divide. The academics are often from different cultures, often neurodiverse, while the professional services are often British and more neurotypical. Hence, the way academics speak to teach other - which is perfectly acceptable among academics - sounds derogatory to the ears of professional services staff.
#7 Submitted by workingclassprinny on October 25, 2024 - 5:06pm
The way that some academics treat PS colleagues is deeply shameful. I cringe for them. This is an issue of classism.
#8 Submitted by Colin Simpson on October 25, 2024 - 11:56pm
I am working on a doctorate touching on some of these issues and my supervisor has said more than once to me "that's not true, is it?" Why would I make it up? Being uncomfortable with these reports because they prick one's heroic self image, as seen in many comments here, is a highly unscholarly attitude.
#9 Submitted by B.volkmer on October 26, 2024 - 3:14am
I have noticed where I work that the tables have started to turn and Department heads are starting to promote the voices and concerns of Professional Services staff to the point that they will be at the top soon and more seen and heard, demanding respect. I'm a more junior academic and PS staff push back! I'm like what have I done? They can get very short over email or in person and unleash past grievances and come with a stronger stance and I agree totally with behaving like managers and spouting the rules. For someone newly embedding into the profession there's years of poor work balance and culture between the two groups underlying this behaviour. I often find PS staff difficult to work with but I guess academics can be even more difficult. We all just need to get to know each other better at a more personal level and get on for the greater good. Working for a more common goal.
#10 Submitted by sean.cameron_1 on October 26, 2024 - 9:49am
I’ve worked at various levels of seniority across multiple departments in three universities across the last three years. Each has had different cultures, and those in turn have very much influenced how staff engage and are treated. Senior leadership, at every turn, sets the tone. I’ve worked in offices where staff have been signed off with stress due to the actions of academics, and I’ve also worked directly with many wonderful academics. Those writing here that it “isn’t their experience” are missing the point entirely. This data has been through review and is a microcosm of a larger problem. Professional services staff, by role design, may often feel disposable, at the “bottom of the ladder” and ignored. There’s a large body of research looking at the needs of academics, not so with professional services. Professional services is also an unhelpful term, not really doing justice to the larger constellation of roles that the field encompasses, often on the front line dealing with waves of student problems with little support. Research like this is an important beginning in addressing the problem, which does exist. Instead of dismissing these accounts offhand and victim blaming, we should instead seek to understand. Staff experience directly relates to student experience, and that needs to be clearly understood.
#11 Submitted by k_w_ac_uk on October 28, 2024 - 9:14am
My first week in a PS role at a university I was bawled out over the phone by a senior academic who did not like me doing my job which would mean they no longer had two offices (in different buildings). My one and only time in my working life, across different sectors, where I have had such treatment. My manager took appropriate action to support me (not something that always happens). While I have not experienced anything like this in the years since I have heard of examples of bullying (cos this is what it is) and it does not always get dealt with appropriately. Seems the culture in some places is very anti the management of academics so they don't get held to account and have got away with unacceptable behaviour for too long. In that kind of environment the PS staff may not be being properly led/managed either. Neve as simple as one thing or the other. Lets not fall in to the 'I've not seen/experienced it so its not true' trap. We have all seen the news reports of what happens when that goes on in any organisation.
#12 Submitted by SJBB on October 29, 2024 - 11:03pm
There are some very bad actors on both sides, which is what this article should examine. There are bullies and narcissistic social climbers on both sides, which poor and incompetent management and HR protect. The disrespectful types are often highly incompetent, no matter whether they are academic or professional services: they are arrogant and not team players. What they will do is lie, fabricate, misrepresent all while getting away with discriminatory actions and words to the detriment of their colleagues and the universities they serve. What are the red flags - regardless of the academic or professional services divide? They label other colleagues as lazy, they are sexist, they assign admin tasks to women even in mixed teams of people, they won’t take on board ideas unless you can convince the narcissist that it is their idea and they effectively push people out who are doing better than they are. Who supports these bullies and non-self aware types? Bad actors in management and bad actors in HR. Bad management that once was in the union, climbed the union and then entered management. Where can this happen most frequently? Look at the larger universities like Glasgow where large staff numbers allow incompetent bullies in academic and professional services to hide in plain sight. The library/info services is full of these types - and some good people, yet the bad ones cause the entire place to rot due to their toxicity. Examine the staff turnover and correlate these to settlements they have handed out. Dig deeper and look at their yearly staff surveys to understand why staff are unhappy - and which kind of staff are unhappy and feel targeted. Then examine the staff who might report on scare tactics used by HR to silence them. Russell Group universities don’t want to solve their staffing problems, they want to keep up appearances while claiming to be progressive.

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