Category Archives: equitable policies & practices

Office of Institutional Equity

equitable policies & practices, Institutional Climate, JHU

Last week, Karen & I had the chance to sit down and talk with Kimberly Hewitt (Vice Provost for Institutional Equity) and Joy Gaslevic, (Associate Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Title IX Coordinator). We talked for over an hour in their Wyman Park office and we hope to collaborate on faculty events in the near future . . . . stay tuned.

What is the OIE? Here’s the overview, copied from their website:

The Office leads JHU efforts to foster an environment that is inclusive, respectful and free from discrimination and harassment. In its role, OIE ensures compliance with affirmative action and equal opportunity laws, investigates discrimination and sexual harassment complaints, and serves as a central resource for those with disabilities or those who require religious accommodation.

Just last week, the OIE published its 2017 annual reportScreen Shot 2018-10-09 at 10.49.40 PM. Vice Provost Hewitt introduces the report this way:

This document—the first annual report for our office—provides background and specific data on the university’s response to reports of sexual misconduct and other forms of discrimination and harassment. Our aim in this report, which covers the calendar year starting January 1, 2017, is to increase the transparency of our process and our community’s understanding of our work, and provide a baseline against which we can measure our progress in years ahead.

OIE has worked hard to establish solid processes and to improve investigation and report preparation techniques consistent with legal guidance and university values. At this point we believe we have made significant improvements in these areas and are modeling many best practices. We also hear the call from the community to identify ways to maintain the high quality of our work and complete the process more expeditiously. In response, OIE has engaged outside support to identify ways to streamline our approach to cases. We are also adding staff to the office in the coming year. We look forward to the ongoing process of improvement and understand the importance of our role as the principal means for members of the university community to seek recourse for their concerns about harassment and discrimination.

Graduate Advising: Drew Daniel on vulnerability and responsibility

equitable policies & practices, Institutional Climate, teaching

The NASEM report on gender harassment has generated well-deserved attention and conversation, including for us at JHU (WFF@H co-chairs will run a workshop on the report at this year’s DLC conference on October 19, for example). One core message of the report: that “the most potent predictor of sexual harassment is organizational climate” (x). Along these lines, Recommendation #5 reads: “Diffuse the hierarchical and dependent relationship between trainees and faculty” (7).

Meanwhile, the lawsuit against NYU German and comparative literature professor Avital Ronell has pressed us acutely on the conditions of these power structures, particularly in the context of a crushing job market for humanities PhDs.

Rather than gawk at wreckage surrounding the Ronell situation, here we consider how to approach “diffusing” the hierarchy and dependency built into graduate student-advisor relationships. Drew Daniel (from our English dept) offers a compelling reflection in“Hands on a Hard Body: Remarks on Graduate Advising as Emotional Labor.” A brief excerpt:

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Graduate advising is intimate and intense. You are forging a bond with someone that lasts for many, many years and has affective highs and lows. Over time, you learn to ride out both the emotional peaks and the depressive troughs. It is a partnership but it is also structurally, fundamentally unequal. One of you is learning how to do something; one of you is advising the other on how to do that thing based on prior experience and presumed expertise. Both parties are catalyzed by the changes taking place in a piece of grad student writing as it emerges in an intersubjective space between unequal collaborators. The advisor must help the grad student bring something new into the world which is the student’s own and which the advisor does not themselves already completely understand.

 

Guest blog post: Carol Greider, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Molecular Biology & Genetics and Nobel Laureate

collaboration & leadership, equitable policies & practices, Institutional Climate, JHU

Today we welcome JHU’s Professor Carol Greider to the WFF@H blog.

carol greider.png

One interesting conclusion that the recent NAS/NAE/NAM report on sexual harassment draws is that much of the leaky pipeline for women in science may stem from sexual harassment in academic science. (You can read more about the NAS report in Science Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Ed, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.)

When I read this report, I was reminded of very similar issues here at JHU. We (along with many other academic institutions) are doing a poor job at resolving sexual harassment cases promptly and fairly. The NAS report is clear: by not addressing these issues, we are also contributing to the leaky pipeline of women in science.

The good news is that the NAS report offers clear suggestions. I see this as a unique opportunity for JHU to tackle this problem head on. There are many concrete steps we can take; just as a start I list a few below, although I note that there are many others we could also consider.

  1. Give OIE more support and more staff ASAP. The problem is not just that OIE is very slow to respond; the problem is also one of pervasive perception that OIE is not able to help and so people don’t report. What colleagues I know have experienced here at JHU is very similar to the story of poor institutional response at Columbia University. As things currently stand, we are no better.
  2. Establish less hierarchical mentoring environments. Empower and encourage Ph.D. thesis committees to discuss career and climate issues with students. Assign one thesis committee member as co-mentor for the student to address environment and progress towards personal and professional goals. (See K.A. Amienne’s Chronicle article on how a system that locates power in only a select few inevitably lists toward abusiveness.)
  3. Treat sexual harassment, as defined broadly in this report, as research misconduct. Sexual harassment in the laboratory dramatically slows down research progress. For that reason, as stated in the report, sexual harassment should be considered research misconduct. The same, or perhaps a parallel, equally rigorous process that is brought to bear on research misconduct cases should be carried out for sexual harassment cases, and funding agencies should be notified.

It’s often said that changing institutional “climate” and “culture” is difficult. This is true, but it is no reason not to tackle this issue head on. Many things that we do in our personal and professional lives are difficult and yet we do them because they are important.

Hopkins and other leading research universities should take concrete steps laid out so clearly by the NAS report. We should be leaders in making real change for women in science, and indeed increasing the overall effectiveness of the research enterprise.

Clearly, now is the time to act.

What can you do? You can start by sharing the NAS report widely, as well as this blog and other specific concrete recommendations. Join the conversation: There will be a report discussion Tuesday, June 26, that will be webcast; click here for more information.

It’s time to take part, even if, and especially, if you’ve never spoken up before.

Carol Greider

Daniel Nathans Professor & Director, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor

June 21, 2018

Pipeline Leaks Require Institutional Transformation

collaboration & leadership, equitable policies & practices, Institutional Climate, JHU

In her recent blogpost for the Biophysical Society, our own Professor Karen Fleming comments on the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s new report on the Climate, Culture, and Consequences of Sexual Harassment of Women, focusing on the critical role of institutional climate and intentional institutional transformation. Please read it here.

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Gender pay gap & negotiation resources

equitable policies & practices, Institutional Climate, teaching

Screen Shot 2018-05-01 at 3.19.16 PM.pngToday, after we remind you to come on Thursday to the Happy Hour (4pm, Mudd), a quick look at today’s NYT article “How a Common Interview Question Fuels the Gender Pay Gap (and how to stop it)”:

“Women are told they are not worth as much as men,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the Ninth Circuit’s opinion, before he died last month. “Allowing prior salary to justify a wage differential perpetuates this message, entrenching in salary systems an obvious means of discrimination.”

Some resources:

AAUW Salary Skill Builder

“What is Anchoring in Negotiation? Learn how to defuse the anchoring bias and make smart first offers” from the daily blog of the Harvard Law School Program on Negotations.