NASEM White Paper Highlights Benefits of Ombuds for Postdocs

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has published an issue paper exploring practices and key considerations related to supporting postdoctoral fellows who experience sexual harassment. Shannon Burton, Ombuds at Michigan State University, is one of the coauthors (and also coeditor of the new IOA book). The work of University Ombuds is featured prominently throughout the paper. 

Here's the summary by NASEM: 

Postdoctoral scholars are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment because of their early career stage, a lack of clear institutional policies, and dyadic relationships with their advisors, among other factors. Recent surveys and listening sessions have reiterated this issue, indicating that workplace bullying, harassment, and discrimination are chief concerns to postdoctoral scholars and that power imbalances are a cross-cutting theme contributing to harassment, bullying, and questionable behaviors by mentors and principal investigators. It is within environments of generalized disrespect and incivility that much sexual harassment occurs. 

This issue paper builds on the findings and recommendations in the 2018 report Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine by providing more information related to implementing the report’s recommendation to diffuse the hierarchical and dependent relationships between faculty and their trainees (e.g., students, postdoctoral fellows, residents). Through this paper, individual scholars, higher education leaders, and practitioners from the Action Collaborative’s Response Working Group describe key institutional considerations and challenges in supporting postdoctoral scholars experiencing sexual harassment in higher education.

(National Academies Press.) 

Related posts: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Endorses Ombuds for Higher Ed's Sexual Harassment Problem; IOA Signs on to National Academies' Initiative to Prevent Sexual Misconduct; National Academies and Universities are Incorporating Ombuds in Effort to Combat Gender Discrimination; NASEM Report on Mentoring Recommends Wider Use of Ombuds; IOA Publishes Long-Awaited Ombuds Book.