Dealing with a new faculty member

[the-tenure-track-prof]

Some of you may recall that I post a post about a new colleague who arrived early this year to our program.
Early in the semester, I was forthcoming towards this new faculty because they were fresh out of their Ph.D. program, and I knew that our department is a total mess when it comes to helping new faculty members. I know that because I learned the lesson the hard way and succeed in proving myself despite the lack of support topped with a pandemic that started when I was still in my first year in a messy department, and a program that I learned later was on probation.

I should mention that I wanted to help the incoming faculty because she has no experience. She is from a foreign, not friendly, country and has difficulties beyond what an average faculty would face and our university is in a tough Southern rural area. I spent hours on the phone trying to give her tips and advice, workshops for new faculty on campus that no one bothered to tell her about, and much more. At first, I thought that we would be good colleagues, she invited me to lunch at her place, which I accepted, and I brought a dish with me. But then, as a month went by, I discovered that it was turning to too much attachment at her end and that she is in despair. I was unaware that it is going to turn this way, and I blame myself now. I later realized that I am acting as her mentor, and by early October, I gradually started to reduce any contact via emails or texts. I am a faculty second year, but I can't be her mentor. However, this was not the only issue.
I noticed later that she tried to take a course that I teach. In this course, she also asked me about it "if I want to teach it" when I was at her home after all the assistance and hours spent to give her some support and help her, especially that she has problems adjusting linguistically and culturally in the south. The course that she tried to take from my teaching loud is not the issue per se, but it lacks respect and attitude after all that I did for her.
I also found out that the house I found for her is the first house that she ever could stay in for more than a couple of months and that she was a victim previously for fraud and evictions, 6 times according to what she said.

Besides, I realized that her dissertation advisor in her former university in the US never advised her about anything, neither the university she is going to nor the region or state that she is going to. I find myself flabbergasted about why an advisor would not advise her advisee to learn about the region if she must accept a job in that region. The advisor must have an excellent reason why s/he would not have a chat with her doctoral student about a significant issue like that. When she arrived, she did not even know that there are different regions in the US. She has been living in the US for 6 years!. Why the advisor did not help her or try to give minimum information at least, why she does not have any friends and speak ill of all people she met in the last state she lived in. I started to ask myself these questions as I began to notice her backstabbing towards me.

I was planning to invite her to lunch to show her that I reciprocate, until I started to see the bigger picture and realized that she went behind my back to take a class that I teach and change a textbook in a course with two sections she and I teach. I expected a minimum courtesy as a colleague to ask me my opinion about changing the text. She didn't do that either. The director informed her that I would teach the course that she tried to take behind my back, and the textbook for the other course will remain unchanged (it is a new edition book). In early January, just before the syllabuses were about to go online for the Spring semester, she emailed me telling me that she made changes in my syllabus. Since the two sections in the same course should be identical, she wanted to send me a copy of hers and be willing to discuss it. I was shocked and amazed first of all for her lack of respect of making changes and then email me, and second of all, her course was hybrid, and mine was online while she is completely ignorant of the mode of delivery of her course. It turned out that she didn't understand the conversations we had in faculty meetings and kept thinking that her class is online like mine. This manifests the many administrative and logistic problems on the program levels and how the director didn't have this clarified for her. What about the written schedule of courses that were sent months ago in the Fall semester. It raises so many questions. I brought it to her attention that her class is a hybrid, even though I could not have told her even though I know that she is a mean person.

She turned out to be a mean person, and the more time passes by, the more I find out what an unpleasant person she is, and I feel that I was too good because I felt sorry for her on many levels. I do suspect that she is not mentally well because of many other eccentric behaviors and habits. She does not have a normal life, she does not have any friends, She never had furniture in any of the places she lived in, she find it strange that people have furniture that is delivered to their houses!, she does not have a TV in the US at all and does not want to hear any news in the US because, according to her "TV gets her into depression", she does not travel, she doesn't explore any area, and she knows absolutely nothing about the States, not to mention her problem with the English language. What is even more puzzling is that she thinks she is doing great. She is assigned only to online courses, so students never met her. The program did not publish her faculty profile on its pages either, and I suspect that it is hiding her from students, faculty members, and the public.

I have stopped any close contact with her, except for the general emails between faculty members as a team, and I keep space between her and me. When we have a zoom meeting, she always appears resentful when I speak, and I sense, even when I was at her place, jealousy, that quite honestly surprised me as I wanted to have a friendship and be on her side!. I wonder if I should send her a message to let her know that I am no longer interested. I wonder if I should address her lousy attitude, fall on deaf ears, and only get me into unpleasant situations. Any advice?

[Ruralguy]

Leave this alone. Just walk away. If in a few months she asks you to lunch, accept and just keep it light, then walk away.

You are under no obligation to anything else here. You tried and didn't work.

In my experience, this sort of thing never ends well when one person keeps on trying to "mentor" or whatever another person who doesn't really want that.

I'll take everything here at face value and not judge her or you other than to say it just ain't working.

Also, from your other posts, as I recall, it seems like things are less than perfect for you now, so just concentrate on you. Mentoring is for people with tenure.
I mean, we can all help out friends and such, but as I say, if it ain't workin', just move on.

[ciao_yall]

Sounds very difficult. What does your program director/ chair think about what is going on?

What is troubling is that someone like this was hired in the first place. Everything I hear is that faculty jobs are crazy competitive, so why wasn't this person, with their issues, vetted? And how could she have made it through the interview process with so little basic information about how things work?

[the-tenure-track-prof]

I have been in a low profile, since I suspected back in late September, that she may not be the type of person I would call a good colleague. I left things open and then observed all these behaviors that showed me that she is ungrateful and can be an unpleasant colleague.
I did walk away so far, but I am worried about the resentfulness that she shows when we have meetings. With that being said, I am in excellent terms with my school right now, but I am not happy because of the imperfect match with my academic aspirations, which I have discussed in a different thread, and yes, I am right now applying out to other schools.
As for accepting lunch, I do not think she will initiate. She seems to believe that I still need to invite her to my house after all that she has done. I am of course, not going to do that with someone who turned out to be so ungrateful, let alone all the other reasons, and her deep ignorance of her surrounding enviroment.

[the-tenure-track-prof]

She was the only applicant! During the interview, she presented a low-quality research presentation, but the program that is on probation needs to hire new faculty members. This also raises questions again, where is her dissertation advisor, and why s/he didn't advise her about what to expect, did the advisor want to get rid of her?.

She was offered the lowest salary among assistant professors and instructors, and she accepted. It is hard to understand what she is saying, but we all try to make it work because what are the alternatives?. It was my mistake to join them because of the high salary they offered me to join them, and now I am applying out, and I am getting interviews; I am disappointed in everything that I see here.

Sounds very difficult. What does your program director/ chair think about what is going on?

What is troubling is that someone like this was hired in the first place. Everything I hear is that faculty jobs are crazy competitive, so why wasn't this person, with their issues, vetted? And how could she have made it through the interview process with so little basic information about how things work?

[Katrina Gulliver]

victim previously for fraud and evictions, 6 times according to what she said.

Yeah bullshit. Sounds like a professional victim. I've met a few. Everything is a sob story and nothing is their fault.

As for her advisor not telling her about different regions of the states, there comes a point where an adult professional should be capable of some basic due diligence on their own.

[EdnaMode]

Sounds like someone I used to work with. We hired her temporarily because we had someone on sabbatical and another faculty member out with a serious illness so needed someone to cover a variety of general courses including one I'm the coordinator for. Long story short, she hated living here, thought our students, and Americans in general, were stupid, and did a very poor job teaching, refused to give common exams that were written to assess course outcomes for accreditation because none of us know how to write proper exams, etc. etc. and none of this was her fault. So, we declined to offer her a contract extension even though we were stretched pretty thin covering courses. I hope you can find a way to minimize the damage and just do your best to stay away from her.

[the-tenure-track-prof]

Exactly!.
She makes everyone else looks terrible and that she was always perfect, a gift to the world. She is never at fault!.
This was a red flag for me to suspect that she is a narcissist. Always an angel, and everybody else is terrible. Many other behaviors appeared to me poisonous and made me feel uncomfortable around her. She is never really grateful, and gradually, she started to show her jealousy and backstabbing behaviors. I treated her so well and offered my help and time at no cost, even though it is not my job. When I stopped to think about it, she appears a lot like a dangerous narcissist, which caused me to start distancing myself.

victim previously for fraud and evictions, 6 times according to what she said.

Yeah bullshit. Sounds like a professional victim. I've met a few. Everything is a sob story and nothing is their fault.

As for her advisor not telling her about different regions of the states, there comes a point where an adult professional should be capable of some basic due diligence on their own.

[mleok]

She was the only applicant!

That is disturbing, I've never heard of a tenure-track position that only attracted one applicant.

[Caracal]

As for her advisor not telling her about different regions of the states, there comes a point where an adult professional should be capable of some basic due diligence on their own.

It isn't like the existence of different areas of the country with somewhat different cultures is a unique and strange aspect of the United States that someone from another country could never comprehend. By some measures the US is actually a lot more homogenous than many countries. Nor should the differences between rural and urban areas come as some big surprise to anyone from anywhere.

As for all the rest...I dunno, she's a weirdo, but its mostly the kind of stuff that would seem like a harmless eccentricity to you if you liked her. I've known some lovely people with a bizarre and total lack of interest in their furnishings or lack thereof. Some people don't enjoy traveling, it isn't really a character flaw. It seems like you need to keep this relationship to a vaguely friendly collegial one. The good news is that it doesn't sound like that will be hard to do. This doesn't seem like someone who is going to be standing around in your office post pandemic-just don't contact her about anything outside of professional responsibilities and make vague protestations about how busy you are if she tries to contact you and it sounds like you should see this person very little.

[Katrina Gulliver]

She was the only applicant!

That is disturbing, I've never heard of a tenure-track position that only attracted one applicant.

from a field where posts attract hundreds of applicants, I can't even imagine

[Ruralguy]

It could be accounting or computer science at a school that has little in those areas. I know our searches in those areas often get five or fewer applicants. I think some years they've gotten zero.

[apl68]

It could be accounting or computer science at a school that has little in those areas. I know our searches in those areas often get five or fewer applicants. I think some years they've gotten zero.

If the program was on probation and needed to hire new faculty, it would appear that they've made a choice that is only going to hurt them in the eyes of the rest of the institution.

[marshwiggle]

I also found out that the house I found for her is the first house that she ever could stay in for more than a couple of months and that she was a victim previously for fraud and evictions, 6 times according to what she said.

Nobody else has mentioned it, but this set the alarm bells off in my head. A victim 6 times??? She's either the unluckiest person in the world, or she's lying, or she's the one who caused the problems. (I know where I'd put my money.)

[Katrina Gulliver]

I also found out that the house I found for her is the first house that she ever could stay in for more than a couple of months and that she was a victim previously for fraud and evictions, 6 times according to what she said.

Nobody else has mentioned it, but this set the alarm bells off in my head.

Yeah, I mentioned it and said bullshit