Allegations of bullying by bosses at university

A senior lecturer has spoken of a "culture of bullying" by some members of management at a university department that trains future teachers.

Dr Joanna Kidman said some staff at Victoria University's faculty of education in Wellington had sought medical treatment as a result.

"I think there is a culture of bullying at the college and it's an environment which is making people sick.

"There have been redundancies, people have felt very strongly that they've been bullied into saying, 'okay, we'll be made redundant'." Kidman said some staff had been hospitalised and others were on medication. Colleagues also spoke of students being bullied, and feared they could end up using similar tactics in school classrooms after completing the course.

The allegations are being investigated by the university's student association and have been addressed at a meeting of Tertiary Education Union members.

The university acknowledged the faculty had been through a difficult period since it announced in December that 18 jobs would be disestablished but human resources director Annemarie de Castro rejected the bullying allegations "completely".

She said there had been no recorded cases of bullying at the faculty in the four years since it was created by a merger between the university and the Wellington College of Education.

University management was not aware of any formal or informal complaints about staff or students being bullied at the faculty.

One insider, who did not want to be named, said staff were too intimidated to speak out.

"They feel really frightened. People are sitting around the place crying."

Another worker who did not want to be named said staff felt ignored by some senior managers and were gathering evidence of ill-treatment.

The student association confirmed it was investigating "general claims of senior managers bullying staff" and were "very concerned about students being bullied".

Student welfare officer Seann Paurini said the "universal claim seems to be that senior managers have an aggressive, non-compromising approach when making decisions".

Concerns were aired at a meeting chaired by Tertiary Education Union organiser Michael Gilchrist.

Leaked minutes refer to widespread concern about the number of employees suffering from stress, and say senior management and the university's health and safety committee had been alerted.

Gilchrist confirmed one employee was in mediation with the university but would not go into details.

De Castro said the university had a conduct policy which set out the standards of behaviour expected of staff.

It employed more than 2500 full and part-time staff and in the past three years had dealt with only four cases through the Employment Relations Authority and 14 through mediation. rebecca.milne@heraldonsunday.co.nz