Harassment Vigilance

Illustration by Martín Elfman for The Chronicle

When the American Geophysical Union held its annual meeting in San Francisco in December, two dozen of its staff members were wearing something new: green-and-blue badges that said “Safe AGU.”

Posters displayed throughout meeting spaces told attendees they could go to staff members for help. “If it’s unwanted or unwelcome,” the posters said, “it’s harassment.”

The AGU is among a growing number of scholarly associations and academic departments that are becoming more vigilant about monitoring sexual harassment after well-known cases arose in the sciences, philosophy, and other disciplines. Over the past few years, male professors at the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, the University of Miami, and the University of Colorado at Boulder have resigned or been fired following charges that they sexually harassed female students.

“A number of high-profile incidents made this news, and some of these came from the astrophysics community, which has an overlap with the American Geophysical Union,” says Eric A. Davidson, the group’s president, who is a professor of environmental science at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science. “Sexual harassment has been happening for decades. But the fact that it is gaining attention is new. We felt it was incumbent on us to be right there — leading the charge.”

The geophysical union is also considering making sexual harassment a form of “scientific misconduct” and banning those found responsible for harassment from attending its meetings and publishing in its journals.

In a talk this year at the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, C. Megan Urry, director of Yale University’s Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics and past president of the American Astronomical Society, gave her usual talk on “Steps to Success for Young Women.” But this time she added a 12th step to her slide presentation: “Watch Out for Sexual Harassment.” She highlighted it in red.

“When I made the original slide a few years ago, I hadn’t realized how widespread sexual harassment is,” says Ms. Urry. “Then came survey data in 2014 that showed most young trainees doing research in the field experience sexual harassment or assault, on top of which came the succession of public scandals. It is now clear that young people are at serious risk.”

The American Philosophical Association has shut down the open bar that was a common feature at the main reception of its annual meeting. Instead, at its latest annual meeting, held last month in Baltimore, the association gave each attendee two drink tickets. “It changes the perception of APA as a source of endless free alcohol,” says Amy E. Ferrer, the executive director.

At past meetings, female graduate students had complained of male professors’ behavior at the reception, she says. “There was a culture that was rooted in an old boys’ network that philosophy used to be known for. We’re changing the face of the profession.”

Academic departments are trying similar tactics to professionalize their respective cultures. In the wake of sex-harassment charges that led to the departure of Peter Ludlow, a prominent professor, in November 2015, Northwestern University’s philosophy department traded in its raucous graduate-student recruitment weekends for alcohol-free dinners at a local restaurant. The director of graduate studies began bringing along her young children.

“The entire culture of the profession has changed significantly in the past few years,” says Jennifer Lackey, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern and director of graduate studies in the department. “There are far fewer events that revolve around alcohol, more sensitivity to the needs of a diverse group of people in the profession, and far more concern for and awareness of sexual harassment.”

After three male philosophers were forced to leave the University of Colorado at Boulder, the department eliminated a faculty-student mountain retreat in favor of more daytime, family-friendly activities, including hikes, teas, and visits to a farmers’ market. New York University’s philosophy department has instituted rules on how people should behave with one another in formal settings — “be nice,” no eye-rolling or making faces, no laughing at other participants — in the hope that a new sense of respect will govern all interactions among professors and students.

The heightened attention to harassment, though, makes some academics leery of socializing with graduate students at all. Some wonder, why would a male professor mentor a female student and risk accusations of sexual harassment? Others say something is lost when professors and grad students can’t have a drink together.

Some graduate students welcome the new kinds of social opportunities. Cheryl E. Abbate has been impressed by the hikes and teas with philosophy professors at Boulder, which she says make students feel like part of the community rather than “second-class citizens.” At the same time, she has gone out for drinks after class with small groups of grad students and professors. “That’s very healthy, too, because people are able to relax and engage in conversations they wouldn’t have had if they were sitting in the classroom,” she said in an interview last summer, in the aftermath of the Boulder incidents.

Some of those conversations, she said, led to ideas that later inspired papers.

Robin Wilson writes about campus culture, including sexual assault and sexual harassment. Contact her at robin.wilson@chronicle.com.