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How to Change the Culture Around Sexual Harassment

As a first step, stop hugging your postdocs, Karen Stubaus once had to remind an oblivious faculty member. Early in her career, Stubaus realized that even though universities have disciplinary procedures for dealing with sexual harassment, academic culture lacks effective ways to set and transmit expectations of behavior.

This is a problem: sexual harassment is widespread in higher education, including in scientific and technical fields. It undermines women’s health, work satisfaction, advancement, and productivity. “And too many women are harassed out of science altogether,” writes Stubaus, “which, in addition to hurting the women themselves, also deprives science of the benefits of their talent and training.”

Implementing disciplinary policies was, in retrospect, the easy part—and has had only a minimal effect on decreasing sexual harassment. Now, Stubaus argues, academia must move beyond compliance to build a culture that actively prevents sexual harassment.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN ACADEMIA

"Make It Everyone's Problem" by Vassiki Chauhan

Make It Everyone’s Problem
Sexual harassment in scientific and technical fields isolates survivors. Vassiki Chauhan makes the case that collective bargaining could help create a better workplace.

THE ONGOING TRANSFORMATION

You’ve Been Misinformed About Sharks
David Shiffman notes that misinformation has long been a problem for scientists who study sharks. Just look at the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week.

Forum: All too often lumped in with “the arts,” writes Paula M. Krebs, humanities such as philosophy and literary criticism are just as essential as music and poetry—and can be vital partners in interdisciplinary work with science and technology: “they enable us to interpret the world around us and to posit a better one.”

VIRTUAL EVENT: FEBRUARY 27 AT 4:00 PM ET

Despite frequent calls for more evidence-based policy, developing meaningful relationships and ongoing collaborations between scientific researchers and policymakers is difficult. But one surprising aspect of such relationships is the benefit that accrues to researchers who choose to engage with policymakers. On Monday, February 27, at 4:00 PM ET, join D. Max Crowley and J. Taylor Scott (Penn State University's Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative), Brittany N. Whitley (Missouri Science & Technology Policy Initiative), and Rush Holt (CEO emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) in a discussion moderated by Jeff Mervis (Science) on what they’ve learned from their work and how more research-policy collaboration leads to more evidence-based policy and improves research.

AAAS ANNUAL MEETING

We will be attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, next week (March 2–5). Join us at the Issues booth for special programming, great swag giveaways, and AAAS-exclusive subscription discounts!

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Third International summit on human genome editing, March 6–8, 2023

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Header illustration by Shonagh Rae.

Issues in Science and Technology is a publication of Arizona State University and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.