Category Archives: Institutional Climate

Where We Stand: Thurs, Oct 25, 5:30-7pm, Mudd Atrium

Events, Institutional Climate, JHU

Please save the date!

We will look at the NAS report on sexual  harassment. How can we adapt and implement its recommendations to further gender equity at Hopkins across the humanities, natural & social sciences, and engineering?

Students, faculty, and staff of all genders are welcome. So are children! Screen Shot 2018-09-20 at 9.29.55 PM

Stay tuned for details. In the meantime, we recommend Professor Sabine Stanley‘s 2017 interview in Earth & Space Science News, in which she points to positive developments for women in science. One excerpt for you:

Q: What are your hopes for the future of women in planetary science?

A: Ultimately, I hope that women and underrepresented minorities have equal opportunities. To make this happen, it is very important for them to have strong allies among the majority group (i.e. white men) in the community. My biggest hope is that more white men step up and prioritize improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in our field. We need to stop relying on women and underrepresented minorities to shoulder this burden.

Photo Credit: Sergey Nivens, Fotolio, Adobe Photostock. https://eos.org/editors-vox/women-in-science-a-qa-with-an-editor

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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“Toxic Masculine Cosmology”

Institutional Climate

milky-way-2695569_1920In “Toxic Masculine Cosmology,” Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (University of Washington) reviews Brian Keating’s new book Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor. While the review is mixed in important ways, ultimately Prescod-Weinstein “see[s] Keating’s book as a critical call to action for physicists and astronomers to discuss our ways of being in community with each other and how that impacts not just the scientists but also the science.”