Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education Year One Annual Report of Member Activities (2020) / Chapter Skim
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Year 1 Annual Report: June 2019 to June 2020
Year 1 Annual Report: June 2019 to June 2020
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: • To raise awareness about sexual harassment, its consequences, and the approaches for addressing and preventing it • To share and elevate evidence-based policies and strategies for reducing and preventing sexual harassment • To contribute to setting a shared research agenda for this work, and gather and apply research results across institutions • To develop a standard for measuring progress toward reducing and preventing sexual harass ment in higher education Figure 1: The Action Collaborative's four goals 1 The full list of members in the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education is available at www.nationalacademies.org/sexualharassmentcollaborative.
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This process of open sharing allows the higher education community to learn from one another's plans and results, informing the development of new approaches to addressing and preventing sexual harassment and informing the implementing and testing of such approaches. This annual report for year 1 highlights the Action Collaborative's overall progress toward its four goals and summarizes members' actions during the first year that they considered their most innovative, novel, or significant work.
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• Gave more than 25 presentations discussing the findings and recommenda tions of the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report and the Action Collaborative's work • Created a publicly available working document titled "How Higher Education Institutions Are Adapting Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response During a Pandemic: Information, Strategies, and Questions" including infor mation on how sexual harassment occurs in virtual spaces • Formulated a set of frequently asked questions and answers on the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report Raise Awareness about Sexual • Created a four-part presentation series on 2018 Sexual Harassment of Harassment, its Consequences, Women report: and the Approaches for o Prevention: "Preventing Sexual Harassment," by Dr. Alex Helman Addressing and Preventing It o Response: "Responses to Prevent Sexual Harassment," by Dr.
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, attends to and takes into consideration the compounding effects of sexual and other forms of harassment, and has research evidence (gathered using standard social science methods and metrics) of demonstrated success in better addressing sexual harassment or in preventing sexual harassment • Collected members' descriptions of their most innovative, novel, or significant work • Published the article "Don't Let COVID-19 Disrupt Campus Climate Surveys of Sexual Harassment," which provides research-based guidance on conduct ing campus climate surveys during the COVID-19 pandemic 4
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o The rubric will be updated each year to reflect new research and knowledge gathered by the Action Collaborative.
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to facili tate the sharing of practices from other stakeholder groups • Coordinated and shared information with Time's Up Healthcare, Association of American Medical Colleges' Gender Equity Initiative, Association of Ameri can Universities, Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities, Council of Graduate Schools, Association of American Colleges & Universities, and American Council on Education • Shared information with and fostered discussions in a forum hosted by the National Association of College and University Attorneys, designed to create a community for general counsels and attorneys to discuss "beyond compliance" strategies for preventing sexual harassment and misconduct 6
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This self-reported information is summarized below in an effort to identify areas where work is being done, and to help Action Collaborative members and the broader higher education and research community know where there are potential opportunities for innovative work or research. To facilitate the sharing of actions taken, potential innovative ideas, and research on the effectiveness of actions, Action Collaborative members were also asked to provide at least one and up to five descriptions of their most significant, innovative efforts -- either in the planning stages or being implemented -- that are consistent with the Sexual Harassment of Women report's findings and recommendations and are new for either the organization or higher education overall.
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As described in the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report, qualitative research can be valuable in understanding how people experience or view certain processes or policies and can gather greater information about the experiences of individuals beyond climate survey data;5 therefore, the Action Collaborative hopes to see more higher education institutions conduct qualitative research as they move forward with understanding experiences and evaluating the effectiveness of prevention, response, and remediation efforts. Summary of Work Being Shared by Members in Year 1 The following sections are based on the one to five descriptions of work that member institutions shared with the Action Collaborative.
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In the coming years, the Action Collaborative hopes to see details on the evaluation and effectiveness of education and skill development programs and on efforts to reinforce community values. In addition, while there is a research base to show how certain practices can improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, promotion, and advancement, in future years it will be important to connect these efforts to improvements in the organizational climate and culture, which is a strong predictor of the rate of sexual harassment in an organization.6 In sharing their prevention work, most Action Collaborative members describe efforts to embed the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into hiring, promotion, advancement, and/or admissions.
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offenders face sanctions.8 As identified by the rubric and the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report, this work includes efforts around the following: • Improve policies • Treat sexual harassment as a violation of research integrity • Create trauma-informed response and education programs • Provide anonymous and non-mandatory reporting resources and tools • Implement restorative or transformative justice and alternative means of resolution • Improve communication and increase transparency • Address gender harassment and other bad behaviors The most commonly shared response effort that Action Collaborative members worked on in year 1 is improving communication and transparency so that their communities have more knowledge about how sexual harassment is occurring and is addressed in their community -- something that can improve the organizational climate and prevent future sexual harassment. This work includes increased transparency about the handling of reports of sexual harassment though statistical annual reports and improved communication about policies and resources (University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Barbara, and University of Miami)
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shared how they explicitly acknowledge in their research code of conduct that "the prevention of sexual harassment and recognition and understanding of bias are key elements of research integrity." The use of and thoughtful plans for setting up ombuds offices is one of the ways that member institutions shared they are doing work to provide anonymous and non-mandatory reporting resources and tools (International Ombudsman Association and Argonne National Laboratory)
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have focused on power differentials among faculty, sharing that they have developed policies and practices to provide faculty mentoring, particularly for new hires. The most novel work reported by an Action Collaborative member in the remediation space is the work by the University of California, Santa Cruz, to develop a guide that provides information about processes, responsible parties, and recommended solutions for addressing negative consequences that a graduate student who has experienced and reported sexual violence or sexual harassment might encounter.
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Plans and Goals for the Future As the Action Collaborative progresses over the next few years, it will build on the work and research done up to this point and address important gaps where more effort is critically needed. The 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report makes clear that addressing and preventing sexual harassment requires a multipronged approach to make the systemwide changes that go beyond compliance and toward tackling the systems, cultures, and climates that enable sexual harassment to thrive.12 Thus the collaborative's hope is to see more institutions and organizations, both in and beyond it, working in all four areas of prevention, response, remediation, and evaluation, and also collaborating and sharing to build a larger knowledge base around what actions are effective.
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