Towards Civility: Efforts to Address Harassing Behaviors in Engineering
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-020-04311-4 Ó 2020 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society
Towards Civility: Efforts to Address Harassing Behaviors in Engineering Teri K. Reed, Teri J. Murphy, Cijy Elizabeth Sunny, Whitney Gaskins, and Ashley Paz y Puente In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) published the report, Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.1 As with other NASEM consensus studies, the report provides a state-of-the-art synthesis and HYDOXDWLRQRIWKHNQRZOHGJHEDVHDQGR൵HUV recommendations both for practice and for further research. The report categorizes sexually harassing behaviors into: 1. Gender harassment (verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, REMHFWL¿FDWLRQH[FOXVLRQRUVHFRQGFODVV status about members of one gender); 2. Unwanted sexual attention (verbal or physical unwelcome sexual advances, which can include assault); and 3. Sexual coercion (when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity).1 As illustrated in Figure 1 (often referred to as the Iceberg Model), sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention are more visible in the public awareness, but gender harassment is actually the most prevalent of the three categories. Evidence presented in the report reveals that academia is second only to the military in prevalence of sexually harassing behaviors (58% vs. 69%) and that within academia, engineering is second only to medicine (25% vs. 45%).1 Although the NASEM report focuses on academia, a related body of research indicates that “women’s accounts RILQWHUQVKLSVDQGVXPPHUMREVGL൵HUIURPWKDWRI men. They describe a culture that is isolating, that often assumes women are second-class experts, and where sexism is normative.”2 A team in the College of Engineering & Applied Science (CEAS) at the University of Cincinnati (UC) has been working from several directions to replace harassing behaviors with civility: fundamental research, promising practices for training, and continued commitment to action through institutional membership in a NASEM action collaborative.
Fundamental Research
Figure 1. The public consciousness of sexual harassment and specific sexually harassing behaviors.1
Focus on Experiential Learning: As the founder of co-op more than 100 years ago, UC has a long and rich history of engaging students in co-op and other experiential learning 3055
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Teri K. Reed
Teri J. Murphy
Cijy Elizabeth Sunny
Whitney Gaskins
Ashley Paz y Puente
Reed, Murphy, Sunny, Gaskins, and Paz y Puente
opportunities, which positions us to pay special attention to student experiences in these settings and the impact of those experiences. Thus, in our research, we distinguish between classroom settings (i.e., an environment in a formal learning VHWWLQJLQFOXGLQJODEVDQG¿HOGWULSVZLWK multiple students and an instructor[s]) and experiential learning settings (e.g., co-op, study abroad, undergraduate research, service
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