Faculty to faculty incivility: experiences of novice nurse faculty in academia

Academic incivility creates a challenging work environment for nursing faculty. Understanding the concept of faculty-to-faculty incivility may enlighten faculty regarding appropriate interpersonal relationships, assist in alleviating uncivil behavior, and improve the likelihood that faculty will remain in nursing education, potentially easing the current nursing faculty shortage. The primary purpose of this study was to describe novice nurse faculty members' lived experiences of faculty-to-faculty incivility. A second purpose was to describe and understand how incivility influences faculty decision to remain in nursing academia. A hermeneutical phenomenological approach was selected to uncover the lived experience. A purposive sample of eight novice nursing faculty, those with less than 5 years of experience, was obtained via e-mail recruitment from mid-Atlantic college Web sites. Five themes and 7 subthemes emerged. Among the findings were sensing rejection, employing behaviors to cope with uncivil colleagues, sensing others wanted novice faculty to fail, sensing a possessiveness of territory from senior faculty, and struggling with the decision to remain in the faculty position. This study is significant in that understanding of faculty-to-faculty incivility adds insight and an increased sensitivity related to uncivil interactions and may contribute to the design of evidence-based interventions supporting increased collegiality that fosters an environment conducive for the recruitment and retention of faculty.