Defending Collegiality

In Change magazine, Michael Fischer addresses collegiality - where it exists, where it doesn't, and specifically with regard to faculty, how it can be saved/re-established. He ends with a discussion of the value (or not) of codes of conduct. Got anyone like this on your campus?

"Their weapons include personal insults, threats and intimidation, hostile e-mails, public ridicule, and scornful interruptions. They hurt organizational performance as well as the people they target. In the environments that they poison, enthusiasm for work gives way to anxiety, resentment, and a longing to get out."

"The reluctance to adopt a code of conduct for faculty members stems in part from a belief also expressed in corporate workplaces: that geniuses must be jerks and that some belligerence, indifference to others, and rudeness are inseparable from the achievements of a Steve Jobs or Bobby Knight. Sutton counters this view by observing that not all successful people are jerks and that jerks succeed despite their cruelty to others, not because of it. I would add that the odds are slim that the professor yelling at the departmental secretary spends the rest of his day bringing about a Copernican revolution in his discipline. Much more frequently, no paradigm-shifting accomplishments offset his poor behavior."

You can read the full article here:
http://www.changemag.org/May-June%202009/full-defending-collegiality.html