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by vanusa
1604 days ago
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If we ask a question during the interview like "How do you handle a situation where a student reports sexual harassment to you?", we don't want it to be the first time in their life a candidate has ever even considered the question. So - how often do sexual harassment incidents occur such that the obvious line of report is to the instructor (as opposed to say, the department chair or an administrator)? Are you literally saying that, literally, every post doc should have (with 99 percent probability) been the recipient of such a report (on the basis of the handful of likely very small classes they've taught by that stage)? And if the students did go to some other responsible contact person at the university, aside from the instructor (which is perfectly reasonable of course - maybe they don't want the instructor to know, because would distract from their ability to focus on their studies) -- I guess that post-doc shit out luck when applying for a position by your DEI board, because they have no sexual harassment reports under their belt? Sounds patently unrealistic, of course. But this seems to be exactly what you are saying. |
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If incidents like this are reported at all, they are most often reported to instructors first. The reason is that the issues are quite sensitive, and often times students have a well-developed relationship with their instructors (in some cases it may be the only relationship with an adult on campus). They often do not know the chair or administrators, so the instructor takes the role of guiding the student though the process. Usually it means handing the issue off to someone who is more qualified, but it's important to be ready for when those students come to you.
> Are you literally saying that, literally, every post doc should have (with 99 percent probability) been the recipient of such a report (on the basis of the handful of likely very small classes they've taught by that stage)?
No, but a post doc should be aware of the high probability that something along these lines could happen with regularity when they become an actual professor. A post doc shouldn't sit there wide-eyed and slack-jawed when we ask them about these issues during an interview.
> I guess that post-doc shit out luck when applying for a position by your DEI board, because they have no sexual harassment reports under their belt?
No, expectations are calibrated based on the experience of the applicant. If we go by the Berkeley rubric, a candidate could score very well by:
- Comfort discussing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging related issues
- gives some detail about specific strategies for effective mentoring
- Mentions plans or ideas but more is expected for their career stage.
So if you can comfortably talk about salient issues, have some experience mentoring students, and have some plans but maybe not concrete ones, you are in a solid position. I don't see this as unrealistic.