The Building on Civility Project, within the Prevention Working Group of the Action Collaborative, will commission authors to develop a landscape paper to serve as a tool for institutions to use when exploring, developing, and implementing civility and respect promotion programs that address sexual harassment. Incivility in the workplace has shown to impact the persistence of bias, sexism, and racism (Cortina, 2008). Encouraging civility and promoting respect, thereby diminishing incivility, in the workplace is a strategy that prevents an escalation of aggressive behavior (Andersen & Pearson 1999; Robotham & Cortina, 2019), and should be considered when strategizing the prevention of sexual harassment. To provide information for institutions or departments looking to implement a civility and respect promotion approach, this paper will:

1. Explore the meanings of civility, incivility, respect and other relevant terms as they are used in higher education institutions, in social science research, and in laws and policies.

2. Summarize the research on why attention to and the promotion of civility and respect matters to higher education institutions.

3. Describe civility and respect promotion approaches, including: the various approaches, goals, and outcomes; what factors influence the success of these efforts; and what research exists on the effectiveness of such efforts.

4. Identify gaps in the research or practice knowledge and propose what work needs to be done to address these gaps.

This paper will serve as a comprehensive background reviewing the effect of civility and civility promotion programs in preventing sexual harassment for higher education leadership, practitioners, and those considering how to promote civility in different environments (e.g., lab members, faculty, staff, employees, students, in labs, doctoral programs, classrooms, workgroups, workplaces, etc.).