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Bullying and Harassment – ‘I have been subject to behaviour that I consider to be bullying/harassment in the last two years at UCL’
You said: 85% of staff said they had been subject to behaviours they considered bullying or harassment. This was unacceptably high and needed urgent attention.
What we did: We developed some innovative workshops titled ‘Where do you draw the line?’ and ‘Taking the Lead’ which are focused on prevention and intervention. Over 400 staff have participated in these workshops and over the next academic year, a further 2000 staff will have attended them. UCL has also been in dialogue with leading US Universities who have excellent procedures and structures in place for addressing harassment. We are sending a member of our staff on a fact-finding trip to the US in October and the best practice learnt will subsequently feed into our Strategic Group. The University is also currently developing an online reporting form that will enable staff to report harassment, including anonymously. Our Student Union has also led on a very impressive Zero Tolerance campaign and have been highly effective in engaging departments with this and providing training to undergraduates.
We have taken a number of very important, proactive steps to prevent and address incidents of sexual harassment in our community. In June, the Provost chaired a conference titled: ‘Full Stop. Developing an institution-wide strategy to tackle sexual harassment and misconduct at UCL’. It was very well attended by staff and some students. It concluded with a commitment to set up a high-level strategic group to review and significantly improve prevention, support, policies, procedures and structures for addressing sexual harassment. The Strategic Group is due to have its first meeting at the start of the academic year in October and will be chaired by Professor Becky Francis (Director of the IOE).