Conclusions

Based on the institutional summaries presented in this paper and our collective experiences in higher education sexual harassment prevention work, we now note several reoccurring themes that demonstrate the need to account for the ecosystem of faculty, staff, and graduate students when developing bystander intervention programs. We also consider how these overlapping themes attend to the research by accounting for such factors as social norms, sense of community, prosocial modeling, policies and accountability cues, and physical environment (McMahon, 2015).

Collaborating Across Multiple Offices, Senior Leaders, Employee and Graduate Student Groups, and Other Stakeholder Groups

Every program noted some degree of cross-collaboration in the institution when developing content, leading and/or facilitating components of the program (e.g., workshop sessions, male graduate student bystander training), and providing feedback and evaluating the program. Engaging multiple stakeholders helps promote bystander intervention even if changes in leadership and roles occur (e.g., a faculty member becomes a department chair). It also helps incorporate the ecosystem of faculty, staff, and graduate students into bystander intervention programs by accounting for environmental factors that promote bystander behavior such as social norms, modeling the desired behavior, and building a sense of trust (McMahon, 2015). For instance, Wellesley College engages various leaders, such as the Associate Provost for Equity and Inclusion and the Director of Talent Management and Development, through the Bias Response Committee. The committee is designed for the purpose of developing and improving training content, and subsequently, Wellesley College emphasizes a social norm that prioritizes and supports bystander intervention.

Leaders can show support of bystander behavior when they endorse intervention, similar to the messaging sent by Harvard University’s Office of the President and Provost. Additionally, Rutgers’ program staff built an extensive network of partners that engages many offices and individuals in leadership roles. These partners used their platforms, power, and influence to support the program and bystander behavior.

Rutgers’ focus on collaboration is a method for building trust and a sense of community among individuals prioritizing and supporting intervention, thereby encouraging others to engage in positive bystander behavior. By developing partnerships among multiple offices and departments, Rutgers built bridges across its institutional silos, helping faculty, staff, and graduate students feel less isolated and perhaps more willing to intervene.

Program staff also faced challenges in building partnerships, extending collaboration networks, and acquiring leadership support. For example, building partnerships and buy-in within the institution may take time, where sometimes leaders of the institution may not choose to prioritize sexual harassment bystander programs. It may also be especially challenging to involve leaders and stakeholders from environments that may show signs of an unhealthy climate and could benefit from bystander intervention training. At the same time, these challenges could also be an opportunity for program staff to find creative ways to address the barriers that might prevent leaders or other stakeholders from stepping up and joining efforts that promote bystander intervention.

Incorporating Voice to Address Power Dynamics, Microaggressions, and Other Challenges

Every program made use of the lived experiences and perspectives of faculty, staff, and/or graduate students. Boston University’s Beyond Bystanders program engaged multiple stakeholder groups—including participants’ peers—to build allyship, which encouraged participants to be more willing to accept and learn positive bystander behavior. We see the tactic of engaging peers as directly facilitating a social norm that intervention—not silence—is desired and expected by the community. This tactic can also help individuals model positive bystander behavior, where peers can show one another practical approaches for intervening in shared or common experiences of harmful incidents.

Institutions also noted the value of engaging their audience(s) when developing content so that the training remained relevant. Icahn School of Medicine and the University of California, San Diego took great efforts to tailor their programs so that the content was relevant for the attendees. By doing so, the institutions showed a commitment to support bystanders, which seemed to build a sense of community and trust. Several programs, such as one at the University of California, Irvine also gave their targeted audience opportunities to provide feedback to improve their programs. By providing a place for insight and perspective—and have their voices heard—institutions create an environment that increases perceived trust and fairness (Potter and Stapleton, 2011; Potter et al., 2011; Umphress and Thomas, 2022).

With these benefits in mind, we also acknowledge that limitations to fully engaging faculty, staff, and graduate students exist. For instance, it can be hard to develop programs that attract multiple audiences, including those who are interested in bystander intervention training and those who are not. Furthermore, it can be challenging to have faculty, staff, and graduate students serve as trainers and evaluators and in other roles that require their participation in the program without further burdening them with more work. We encourage institutions to develop, implement, maintain, and evaluate programs that can effectively engage and support faculty, staff, and graduate students.

Follow-up Activities to Promote Norms

By providing follow-up resources and with additional support through institutional policies, bystander intervention programs may be able to further promote a norm that sexual harassment is not tolerated by the institution, and the institution holds the community responsible for discouraging sexual harassment by intervening. Program staff who followed up with their attendees, such as the Harvard and Icahn teams, showed a standard of accountability by further supporting attendees to engage in positive bystander behavior in the real-time situations they faced. Also, institutional policies that encourage intervention, promote bystander behavior, and provide adequate protection for faculty, staff, and graduate student bystanders can help to support those who may fear retaliation and/or institutional betrayal (McMahon, 2015; McMahon et al., 2020). Rutgers University policies supported their bystander intervention program by “wrapping around” bystanders, providing support and showing a commitment to creating a safe place for them.

Potential challenges with this approach include limited institutional resources and support that could result in overwhelming the staff running the bystander program and affect the sustainability of the program. One possible strategy to deal with limited resources is to consider repurposing or modifying existing training

programs (e.g., bystander intervention training programs for undergraduate students or existing sexual harassment information or research integrity training programs) to address situations faced by faculty, staff, and graduate students, as several institutions have done. This approach could minimize the effort spent in development, draw from similar funding sources, and benefit from the collaboration networks that support other programs. Finally, institutions could consider rolling out a pilot version of the program, as Icahn did, to gain support and resources, and then tailoring it to address specific needs that may require more time and effort from program staff.

Call for Research

More research needs to be done to better understand, identify, and assess factors and strategies for a successful program, especially for a bystander intervention program in complex work environments. In addition, more detailed evaluation efforts are needed to determine effectiveness of these programs tailored to faculty, staff, and graduate students, including around doses, boosters, training modalities etc. (Banyard et al., 2014, 2018; McMahon et al., 2017; Mennicke et al., 2022; Potter and Stapleton, 2013). Research questions include but are not limited to the following:

• What are best practices for developing, implementing, and/or assessing a bystander intervention program?
• What characteristics contribute to a successful and effective program? For example: Is it more beneficial to have opt-in bystander intervention training programs compared to mandatory intervention training programs? Is it more beneficial to have in-person or remote training programs? What are optimal doses and necessary boosters to affect long-term change?
• How does the design of bystander interventions correlate with changes in bystander behavior and culture change that discourages sexual harassment over the short and long term?
• Who are the essential people and what are the offices needed to develop, implement, maintain, and evaluate a bystander intervention program for faculty, staff, and graduate students?
• What actionable tools, guides, resources, and networks need to be developed to assist institutions in creating and sustaining bystander intervention programs?
• What are effective measures and what data should be collected for assessing a bystander intervention program specific to complex work environments?

These questions provide opportunities for moving forward. Rather, this is an opportunity for faculty, staff, advocates, practitioners, training program staff, and institutional leaders to develop, and funding agencies to support new and creative ways for developing more robust programs that reflect the experiences and environments of a range of audiences. By investing in a better understanding of the ecosystem of faculty, staff, and graduate students, and prioritizing the evaluation of training programs for these populations, institutions can better equip the members of their academic community to intervene and stop sexual harassment from occurring.