“I worked in a private liberal arts college that promoted itself as affluent by the community. This perception was perpetuated by the administration. Legacy was very important. That’s how my immediate boss earned his title and status — something he thought was more important than people. The bullying began immediately after I was hired. The damage affected my mental health, financial stability, all while experiencing social/emotional abuse. I had done an externship at the college in a different department. I was a career counselor for a private college. The man who was my direct boss was clearly unimpressed with me.
I always felt alone and ashamed, even though I was surrounded by people and had nothing to be ashamed of. That’s how I was treated on a daily basis.
I suspected he didn’t like single mothers since that topic came up in both the interview and again during the training period. He was misogynistic toward me but friendlier and more outgoing with the other women I worked with, all of whom were married. He was a conservative man.
He refrained from supporting or encouraging the work I was hired to do by limiting my ability to connect with students. The boss was condescending. His patronizing tone never left, except when there were faculty and administrators around. Then he was encouraging or supportive. When I was the only one in the office, he would passive-aggressively insult me or try to embarrass me in teams. He once embarrassed me by commenting on the food I was eating with a tone that indicated he was insulting my weight.
Two Weeks Notice?
Two weeks later, I walked in on my boss in a compromised position with a student. He had already been derogatory toward me because of his elitism status in a university where he was openly misogynistic, especially when it came to single mothers. I left after apologizing, but he didn’t speak to me for nearly a week after that.
His reaction was to start questioning the work I was doing at our small team meetings. He would assign tasks that were more student employment busy work than someone in charge of guiding more than 400 students on my caseload. I was creating content to present in workshops, during which time I was invited by one of the executive administrators to head up a first-year student success camp during the summer months.
I loved that job as well as the gracious administrator who oversaw the project. He was the quintessential good boss. The executive saw how much work I was putting in, so he told me he had budgeted an additional nearly $3,000 as my bonus for doing the additional work.
When my immediate supervisor found out that I’d be paid this money, he told the executive that the money would be allocated to his office. He then told me it should be part of my job, so I wouldn’t receive the money. He was taking it for our department.
When my immediate supervisor found out that I’d be paid this money, he told the executive that the money would be allocated to his office. He then told me it should be part of my job, so I wouldn’t receive the money. He was taking it for our department.
I put in an additional twenty hours per week for six weeks only to be reprimanded and demeaned publicly. My supervisor took all the credit for the work I did. I was too humiliated to tell anyone other than our new hire who was a dean of first-year students — a job I was well-qualified for and petitioned to apply for, but my supervisor stepped in, informing the then president that I was not worthy of the job. He again used his influence to demean me in public. I found out because in my first two weeks in this role, I introduced myself to every member of the faculty and staff I’d be working with.
I still had the audacity to believe we were servant leaders, regardless of title. My boss hated that about me. He told me I was wrong for thinking myself an equal to the executive team, even though when I ran my committees, several of them were on my team and thought the same way I did.
He also hated that I began dating one of the star faculty members. To the boss, title and status were everything. It got worse when I began dating someone he considered better than me.
Biases, Elitism, and Prejudices
Eventually after two years, I quit. That man attacked my character, my professionalism, and my psychological safety on a daily basis. His verbal insults were too much. It finally all came to a halt when a young RA I had been working with in my externship came to me for advice. She needed advice on what to do after starting an affair with another administrator she knew I worked with for years. I worked with his wife as my office mate. After she told me about the affair, I no longer felt safe.
When that man found out I knew, he systematically worked with my direct supervisor to make my life even worse. That was it. I quit knowing it was a small campus in a rural area. There was a public university in the same location I ended up teaching in, but even there, it was always dramatic, considering we were highly educated, professionals.
I left. People who were targeted left. Nothing was done. In the decade following, I heard many of the executives, including the president, also left. The immediate boss? He was gone. The entire department changed.
I left. People who were targeted left. Nothing was done.
The first-year dean who had been hired in my first year left. He told me he was going to leave too, but for him, it was due to racism. He was the only Black man in administration for the entire region. He and his wife, a faculty member at the neighboring university, both felt they were hired to fulfill a quota.
All in all, this college was notoriously referred to as “a boys club,” where men in leadership did whatever they wanted. Women in lesser roles either went along with it or quit.
Sadly, all these years later, it has not changed.”