Noise at the Flemish universities. After a rape case at the KU Leuven in 2022, this time the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) will be under a magnifying glass. Within a few days, several cases of inappropriate behavior by professors came to light. “That is the tip of the iceberg,” says Jo Colier, chairman of the education union ACOD and a VUB employee for thirty years.
Especially the news against the well-known clinical psychologist Elke Van Hoof in Flanders complaints have been submitted due to toxic leadership hit hard. Her expertise is regularly used by Flemish politicians.
According to the newspaper The newspapaer her team of seven employees, mainly doctoral students, left in 2021. They would have often fallen ill and spoke of an extreme workload. The VUB has started a procedure. Van Hoof said that she has not yet seen a complaint and therefore cannot defend herself.
Nothing done with notification
Soon after that it turned out to be a second VUB professor an investigation is underway for transgressive behaviour. “Each report is examined and the reporters are supported,” said VUB spokesperson Nathalie Vlaemynck. She spoke of “a new approach” to put things “past and present on the radar”. With a report from 2016 against the professor done nothingreported news channel VRT.
According to Jo Colier, universities ignore welfare legislation. “It is felt that other rules apply in an academic context. That’s insane.”
The 1996 law requires employers to conduct a psychosocial risk analysis every five years, an inventory of issues such as workload and job security. That only happened for the first time in 2013, says Coulier. “When Flanders became responsible for education in 1989, it was included in the decree that universities had to regulate themselves. That is a source of discomfort. There are hardly any rules.”
Disturbing image
The 2013 analysis revealed a disturbing picture at the five major Flemish universities; “2 percent of people indicated that they had been the victim of inappropriate behavior at work in the past year. And five years later, those numbers had not improved. On the contrary.”
The universities are a breeding ground for toxic behavior. Coulier says that a new financing model was introduced in 2008, in which government resources are distributed on the basis of market share. That share is measured on the basis of publications. “That model has been extended to the faculties. Everyone is each other’s competitor. Every month I have a professor or student who is crying because of bullying and burnout complaints. It’s hallucinatory.”
Another problem is that Belgian universities do not have to pay tax for researchers as long as they are on the payroll as doctoral students. This makes them cheap workers and, for tax reasons, there is no employment law relationship between a PhD student and a professor. “The student is in a dependent position. So if you get into a problem with your promoter, there will be consequences. As a result, there is a culture of fear.”