UNIVERSITY CULTURE

 

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In the months following my fiancé’s death, and through my own steady unravelling, what became most unbearable was the erasure of my grief within the studied quiet of a community that prefers social comfort over compassion. Aidan and I shared a common academic world—colleagues, collaborators, and acquaintances who crossed paths with us in research and conversation. Academic brethren, these words are for you, not as an appeal for your sympathy or recognition, but as a record of your absence and apathy. 

In a culture that prides itself on honest inquiry, my grief was a subject too messy to engage with. In a culture where every agenda begins with admissions of collective guilt over stolen territory, the theft of my dignity was an easy transgression to make. In a culture that promises to honour the names and bodies by which people self-identify, the identity of your colleague's fiancée was refused visibility. In a culture that shouts slogans and holds up placards for global causes, solidarity was denied to a grieving community member.

Systematic Invalidation and Isolation of the Individual in Academia

Within Days of His Death

On the third day, I wrote to a few of you—searching for the barest acknowledgment and support from those who have shared his/my work spaces most closely and those who knew me personally and professionally. I asked how I could get my belongings which were in his office and if I could meet to talk about some of his incomplete work which I have with me, including things he has said he would like to see his department do in the future. I received no response in return. The silence became its own verdict, heavy and deliberate. I will never understand how anyone can fail to respond to that and yet make public declarations of their regard for him.

These are people who knew we were engaged, lest they scramble to deny it. They were told. By me. And by others who also knew. I imagine that they were embarrassed, decided to hush it up, and jointly shun me since I am positioned on a lower rung of the academic ladder than them (and him, for that matter). So much for "equity" and other such buzzwords. Or perhaps they decided that their loyalties had better look socially tidy for external appearances, even if it means dishonouring who he loved the most. 

One Month After His Death

A colleague whom I have worked with—and who I supported through their own bereavement!!!—finally sent me a text message, likely because they wanted to avoid communicating through their institutional email. With no explanation for why they never responded for a month, and offering not one word of condolence for my loss, they asked robotically (institutionally) if I had counselling support. When I told them I don’t want any (I did not tell them it is none of their business), they said they can connect me with a counsellor when I am ready, since it’s likely difficult for me to deal by myself. 

By myself?! Why on earth would I be dealing by myself if they and others in my community had bothered to write back when I asked a month ago if they would see me? It is audacious to suggest I get counselling while ignoring my request for community. They are someone whose phone call I answered when their partner passed away and I took care of some of the tasks they could not do when they were grieving. Of all people, they are the last who should have shown such disrespect.

Three Months After His Death

It was the final straw to be asked not to attend the university's performative grief memorial. An event where his fiancée is unwelcome is exactly that, and it automatically makes it a day when the community insults his choices the most. This a public university and the event seems largely of public nature. I have a primary affiliation with the university/department—while hostile parties do not. If harm towards a current community member is anticipated, then that harm should be prioritized first. That is done by making it safe for them to attend, not by prioritizing the attendance of anyone perceived as a potential source of harm to the one who stands to be harmed. It is psychologically damaging—not protective—to a person who is vulnerable to attack by others to be asked to make themselves even more invisible. 

Erasure is Structural and Cultural. It is also Personal and Deliberate. 

If Aidan represented anything, it is that kindness is not complex and its absence is not neutral. These attitudes dishonour him. If he could see what has been done—he would fall to his knees and sob. He would be broken to see the community he led for so long now ignore, reject, demean, humiliate and shun any person in grief—something he would never have stood for. And you did that to his fiancée who grieves for him. 

This is why Aidan always told me that we can never confide in anyone at the university until everything is settled neatly. The last three months have provided me with solid confirmation of what we always feared: that academia makes no room for the uncontainable parts of life. Grief, love, despair—these are regarded as disruptions to a polished facade, as embarrassments to be handled offstage—particularly when they challenge hierarchies in the academic social order. So many of us break down in these corridors everyday, unnoticed and isolated, until we vanish. So many internalize these behaviours and perpetuate harmful cycles, never learning where to draw the line.

Ours was a love story that lived within these spaces—two people who wished that dignity could coexist with vulnerability. But that is clearly a battle we were never going to win.

Academic Groupthink: The Collapse of Individual Moral Reasoning

I urge members of academia to pause and re-examine what academic culture has done to their individual humanity if they need—as my Aidan often said—“a f**king staff meeting to determine and approve the correct human response to everything.” Including response to human tragedy, it seems.

We have become people who are hesitant to reply to a grieving woman’s cry for connection—let alone the cry of one of our own, let alone the cry of a colleague’s loved one. If that is how far we have fallen as a community, perhaps we should stop using words like “inclusivity” and “empathy” for intellectual clout and moral grandstanding.

Do we need a departmental memo to grant us permission for—oh no, wait—to deny us permission for extending support to someone whose partner has taken their life? And if we did not follow the party line, would we be admonished by our institution? For what?—for holding space for someone in bereavement? If nobody would admonish us, then that means it was our own decision to cold-shoulder a community member during her bereavement period, not our institution's. I'm not even sure which is worse: that its members' values reflect the moral character of academia—or that academia reflects the moral character of its members. 

If you wear the mask too long, it becomes your face.

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