One factor that shapes whether sexual harassment occurs in a given environment is power — specifically, whether there are large differences in power among the people in that setting. If those lower in the hierarchy are strongly dependent on those at higher levels, the risk of sexual harassment increases, according to the National Academies’ 2018 report on sexual harassment in higher education.

That situation describes many university departments, where graduate students may be wholly dependent on their advisers for funding and academic support.

These power differences can make universities conducive to “networks of complicity and complacency” that enable and allow sexual harassment, explained Minette Drumwright of the University of Texas at Austin, speaking at the recent public summit of the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, which was co-hosted by the National Academies and Duke University.

“There are so many hierarchies with high power differentials,” said Drumwright, noting the “star system” that accords power to professors who bring in a lot of grant funding, for example, or to Nobel laureates. “There’s a pay-your-dues mentality [where] junior faculty, untenured faculty, professors of practice, and graduate students are supposed to do what they’re told.”

To shift this dynamic and lower the risk of harassment, the 2018 report recommended diffusing the power relationships between students and faculty. Now some universities are experimenting with programs to do so, two of which were presented at the recent summit.

“When the report came out, many felt that reducing power relationships would be especially challenging, and worried that nothing could be done until funding agencies made sweeping structural changes that altered the adviser-advisee nature of STEM,” said National Academies program officer Arielle Baker, who helps coordinate the Action Collaborative. “But these are two specific examples of how changes can indeed be made.”

Reforming routes to admission

Andrea Page McCaw, a professor and the director of graduate studies in the department of cell and developmental biology at Vanderbilt University, explained her department’s recent efforts to reform a graduate admissions pathway that was leaving students isolated and highly dependent on their advisers.

Most graduate students at Vanderbilt are admitted under an umbrella program that lets them apply to a group of departments and then choose a department and an adviser during their first year, after doing rotations in different labs, explained Page McCaw. Other students apply directly to a department and then, after a trial period, choose their advisers from among dozens of options.

But a third group, known as “direct-admit” students, apply to work with a specific adviser. It was the circumstances of these students that concerned Page McCaw, given their strong dependency on their advisers and lack of options for changing their situations.

Though she wasn’t aware of specific cases, Page McCaw knew that these environments are the kind of settings that are conducive to sexual harassment. There were also higher rates of academic and social problems among some of these students — specifically, those who applied without first having any experience in their adviser’s laboratory.

“The direct-admit student had no formal way to try out the adviser before committing and was financially dependent on the adviser from the start,” she said. “There was no clear path for changing advisers and labs. And, even if they tried to forge their own path, there was the potential that other faculty perceived such students less favorably because they didn’t have the stamp of approval from the umbrella program.”

To create a better environment for these students, a group of faculty including Page McCaw worked to reform the direct-admit admissions pathway in the department of developmental and cell biology. The department’s new policy requires candidates for admission to apply to the umbrella pathway and be reviewed by the Graduate Committee, after which those who wish to can pursue the direct-admit pathway. Direct-admit students are now also expected to work in the adviser’s lab before applying for admission, or to explain in their application materials why this is not possible.

Other changes were made to reduce students’ isolation and leave them less dependent on a single adviser. For example, each student is assigned a pre-candidacy committee to offer oversight and support from their first week in the program until their thesis committee is formed. Students also participate in the same mentoring networks as the umbrella students.

Finally, the new policy gives students options. “Students do have the opportunity to change labs, and that decision is routed through the pre-candidacy committee that is monitoring how the student is doing in their laboratory,” said Page McCaw. The department funds these students through two rotations to give them time to find a new lab and adviser.

Empowering students through transitional funding

Enabling graduate students to change labs and advisers was also the focus of a reform effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Doctoral students Molly Bird and Mohamed Ismail explained the program at the summit — as well as why ensuring transitional funding for students is important.

“A student whose funding and status is mostly dependent on their adviser is much more vulnerable to harassment and mistreatment than a student who can easily change their adviser and keep their funding,” said Bird.

The need for transitional funding had been on the administration’s radar, and a few departments at MIT already offered it on a case-by-case basis, Bird noted. But advocacy from the student coalition RISE (Reject Injustice through Student Empowerment) led to a central commitment to the funding and hastened its implementation.

“It took a strong push from students to demonstrate a sense of urgency and the need to enact these policy changes as soon as possible to help current students,” said Bird.

The movement for guaranteed transitional funding was part of a well-researched and extensive list of demands RISE put together based on climate data, comparisons to other schools, and reports including the 2018 National Academies report, said Bird. The list focused on reforming graduate admissions and faculty hiring, increasing resources for education and support, reforming the policies for preventing and responding to faculty misconduct — including guaranteed transitional funding — and advancing funding equity.

RISE shared a petition widely to demonstrate student support — over 1,000 graduate students signed — and maintained pressure and visibility on the issue with regular articles and social media posts, said Bird. The group developed an initial proposal and worked with administrators and another working group to make the proposal a reality.

The transitional support program was split into two phases to give students access to support as quickly as possible, even before the details could be ironed out, said Ismail. The first phase — which was launched early in 2021 — included guaranteed transitional funding regardless of the reason for the transition, as well as academic accommodations and formal protections for the student. “All indications so far are that it is successful,” said Ismail.

In the second phase, which is currently underway, a group of administrators, faculty, and students is working to evaluate the first phase and to expand the program’s coverage. The working group is also collaborating with other initiatives to develop a process for addressing problematic advisers across the institution, drawing upon insights from the transitional funding program.

“The overarching goal of all of this is a change in academic culture,” said Ismail. “The big picture is creating an inclusive environment where students feel safe and supported.”

Watch recorded presentations from the summit.

Related Report

• Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine