This post is the next-to-last post in a series of stories that, taken together, might help explain why I decided to take early retirement from UCI. My point in posting these stories is to say "This happened. It shouldn't have. Can you learn something from it, so you can prevent such things from happening where you are (or at least not be complicit)?"
Looking up the leadership chain
On August 9, 2018, based on rumors that the Dean of the School of Physical Sciences was planning to step down in a year, I emailed the Provost:
I wanted to let you know of my interest in serving on the next search committee for Dean of the School of Physical Sciences. I feel that I have ideas, perspective, and experience that would be useful on the committee. I hope that you will keep me in mind to serve. Thank you.
He wrote back:
Thank you for your email, Alice; we are still early but will keep it in mind, best regards, e
Another senior woman in the department also asked to serve on the Dean search committee. Neither of us was chosen, while much more junior men were.
When the names of the 15 committee members were announced, the math department had less representation than any other department in the School, was the only department with no women on the committee, and the 1.5 FTE representation from the math department was all in math biology. The Equity Advisor told me she was not consulted about representation on the Dean search committee, and that many people had concerns about the process.
I eventually emailed the Provost:
I was wondering if you would be willing to share with me your reasons for not appointing me to the Dean Search committee. Feedback and information are always helpful! Thanks.
A couple of days later he replied:
Dear Alice,When assembling a search committee, my office sends a potential list of names to the Senate for those who we are considering. The Senate then sends us an independent list of nominees.For the final list, we select some from each group with an eye toward making sure the committee has broad expertise and both gender and ethnicity balance. There were many outstanding potential committee candidates to represent the school (like yourself) who were not included due to the limited number of slots since the larger the committee, the more unwieldy it becomes.I want to assure you that you were not purposefully excluded. I hope that you will provide input to the committee regarding the candidates for dean, as your views are very important in their deliberations.Sincerely,e
That evening I attended a dinner for Distinguished Professors on the grounds of the official Chancellor's house. While we were standing around eating hors d'oeuvres before dinner, the Provost initiated a conversation with me by saying that I'll get an email reply from him about why he didn't choose me for the Dean Search committee. He didn't realize that someone had already sent it for him. I said it wasn't that I had to be on the committee, it's that many people in the School had concerns over the composition of the committee. He kept saying that they need to balance gender, field diversity, etc., and I pointed out that the math department's representation on the committee in no way succeeded in doing that. We argued about other recent problems in the department. The conversation soon degenerated into the Provost getting annoyed with me and belittling me.
The other senior woman who had asked to be on the Dean Search committee was nearby, and I invited her into the conversation. She repeated what I had said. The Provost repeated what he had told me and (a bit angrily, it seemed to me) told us we were wrong about the math department issues.
Eventually, I calmly but directly told the Provost that I didn't see the point in staying somewhere where I wasn't valued or taken seriously or listened to. I said that we were trying to help, and tell him about things he didn't know, and to make sure that he talked more widely to people and learned the facts. I said it would be nice if he approached it as "What can I learn from this?" rather than just telling us that we're wrong.
Although at dinner I was seated at the same table as the Chancellor, I didn't think that was an appropriate time or place to bring up the contentious issues that we had discussed with the Provost. But on the receiving line as I was leaving, when I had him alone, I told the Chancellor that there are problems with the math department, things have gotten really bad (hostile climate, bullying, etc.), I decided I shouldn't have to put up with it so I'm considering taking early retirement, and other female math faculty were unhappy and were thinking about leaving. He sounded legitimately concerned. I told him I had mentioned it to the Provost and he hadn't taken it well.
The Chancellor asked if I had talked to the Chair. I said that the Chair, the Dean, and the Dean's office were part of the problem. He asked if I had talked to the Title IX folks. I said that I had gotten advice from several people one reports things to, and it was uniformly "never go to them; it will take over your life". Given the choice of that or retiring, it seemed easier to retire. He said that there were other routes that didn't require going through the OEOD reporting process. He'd ask around and let me know.
I emphasized that I didn't want to cause trouble, I just wanted to help and make things better. He said that he understood that.
I told the Chancellor that I wanted to make sure he knew about the problems and had a chance to do something about them. I didn't want him/them to find out later and say "But you should have told us. We didn't know."
I went back to the Chancellor's house the next night, as a plus-one at a dinner for Endowed Chairs. I was seated at the Provost's table. The Provost spent the entire dinner in a private conversation with a donor and the donor's wife. He never opened it up to a conversation with the whole table. It came across to me as extremely rude.
In the notes I sent myself, I wrote that the only thing that the Provost's behavior those two nights seemed consistent with is that he was feeling disaffected, either because things weren't going well for him at UCI or in some other aspect of his life, or because he was on his way out to a position elsewhere. His behavior was not normal for someone in his position, towards faculty at an official event. (Indeed, within a year the Provost was made to step down "pending an investigation by external authorities ... related to [his] academic and research activities." Despite UCI's being a public university, no further information has been made public to this day. I don't know whether the Provost knew he was under investigation at the time of those dinners.)
On that night's receiving line, I told the Chancellor that after thinking about it, I believed it would be good to talk to him directly. He said he didn't think that was possible; there are channels one has to go through. I said that's part of the problem. He said something vague about the Vice Provost.
He added that if I didn't hear anything in several months I could get back to him.
I reminded him that I might be retired by then.
Much to my shock, he replied, "that's OK."