Editorial
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPIF-01-2016-0005 |
| Published date | 04 April 2016 |
| Pages | 206-207 |
| Date | 04 April 2016 |
| Author | Elaine Worzala |
| Subject Matter | Property management & built environment |
Editorial
Changing the academic culture one goal at a time
It is that time of year again. Time to make resolutions and set goals for 2016.
You can have personal goals,“I want to lose ten pounds or train to run a marathon”.
Or, relationship goals, “I want to be nice to my spouse or better motivate my children to
do well at school”. And, there are your professional goals. For academics, this is
typically “I want to publish in the best journal possible or complete the revisions to the
paper that was just returned from the journal”. Or, maybe it is teaching goals, “I want to
be a better teacher and be more organised in the classroom or learn all of my student’s
names by the first two weeks of class”.
All of these are important and good goals but I would like to suggest that those of us
that work in a university environment consider adding a new goal to our list. “I want to
be a better colleague in my work environment”. That is, I want to suggest that we work
to consciously take off the critical hat, the competitive hat that we have been trained to
wear and replace it with a cooperative hat, a supportive hat to create a better workplace
for ourselves and our colleagues.
It is interesting that most of us reading this journal are in the academic environment.
We have been hired in to universities or colleges where we are supposed to be collegial
and supportive. But, anyone that has spent much time at a university or college quickly
finds that many academics have fallen into the trap of “doing unto others, as others
have done unto them”creating a culture that is unproductive and backbiting. They do
not follow the golden rule but do the opposite and perpetuate the negative, creating a
hostile environment that no one wants to work in. Faculty stay home to “research ”
when in reality I would guess many of them are just trying to avoid the negativity and
confrontational environments that are found in the corridors of the ivory tower.
A good friend of mine likes to call it, “Revenge of the nerds”. That is, some very
intelligent peoplehave risen to the top but to get there they were not necessarily treated
well so when they get to the top and have the power, they use it to be negative and
unproductive. They have in the back of their minds; I was treated poorly by the
reviewers, so I will do the same. Or, I was made to feel like a second class citizen until I
had tenure, so that is how I will treat our junior faculty. We are even worse on our
colleagues that areour temporary faculty, our adjuncts and clinical professors.They did
not do the work to get a doctorate so they cannot possibly add the same value as a full,
tenured track or tenured faculty with a doctorate in hand. They areonly on the job for a
class or two so clearly they do not know as much as I do.
If we all tried to work on this goal, we could change our academic culture to one
where respect is important and cultivated. Where we take on the role of a coach or
mentor and we help to make sure our employees, all of them, have what they need to
succeed and flourish. This is how a successful business runs. The employees are assets
to be invested in and valued. With positive reinforcement and constructive criticism not
negative reviews and rude treatment. Where the environment is friendly and fun with
people wanting to come in to work rather than stay home and avoid any chanc e of
confrontation. Here are some areas that most of us in the academy could improve upon
in order to make our work environments stronger and healthier so we all can be are
more productive and enthusiastic about our profession.
Journal of Property Investment &
Finance
Vol. 34 No. 3, 2016
pp. 206-207
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-578X
DOI 10.1108/JPIF-01-2016-0005
206
JPIF
34,3
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