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Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Now this is the kind of detail that makes these things fun! Person A being in a position of authority makes B's actions a clearer mistake. Offending the vanity of someone who has authority over you is absolutely huge. A great historical example is Nicolas Fouquet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
So it seems that B had better options, including something like you mentioned above.
OK, senior tenured faculty, like me, can't be fired, even if the dean is pissed. However, there are programs and funding lines I could be denied access to. Not a huge deal, but significant.
The power the dean holds is more over the junior faculty, which make up 60% of the faculty. Of the 40% who are tenured, maybe 2% have the balls to stand up to the dean.
The dean has a superior, who just retired, and it will be nearly a year of "interim" before that boss is replaced.
So let the infighting begin. The senior faculty, say B - G, can ignore the dean, lose no power or fringe benefits, but they leave 60% of the faculty denied a raise they deserve, amounting to $2,000 for one year only for each of them.
If the Faculty member B, who has balls, can detonate the dean's position in a public forum, many junior faculty members benefit, and a precedent is set for when the new provost (boss) is appointed. Of course, Ballsy B takes the personal hit for a decade by alienating his direct superior.
Given these circumstances, and avoiding the direct confrontation, it seems you would suggest getting a coalition or, possibly, another dean to take the stand, thus making it more difficult for the whole group to be punished.
Since I'm not risk-averse, I'm willing to be Ballsy B and just call the dean out. The coalition is hard, since most faculty are risk-averse, even those with tenure. And the deans tend to stick together, so fracturing their collusion is difficult.
But I'm working on it, while pouting about society being such nits about calling someone a liar.
And my original point about "everyone knowing A is lying" is only half true. The dean works through committees, staffed by senior faculty B - G, so he has limited power to withhold the raises. But if a Ballsy B stood up and made certain points clear, shove all in as it were, the dean would lose his position of sway and junior faculty might - emphasis on might, benefit.
So none of the original hypothesis is precisely accurate. But it would be nice just to stand on soap box and start calling names. Unfortunately, it's also pretty counterproductive.
But I thought it might raise some interesting discussion in the Commune.
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