Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education

By Jeremy Bailin

Image Credit: NASEM

Action Collaborative is a collaboration between academic institutions that grew out of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report. Its goal is to "collaboratively work toward and share targeted action on addressing and preventing sexual harassment across all disciplines and among all people in higher education". More specifically, members pledge to advance research on preventing sexual harassment, develop evidence-based policies, share and implement those policies, and assess progress towards preventing sexual harassment in academia.

The Action Collaborative consists of 52 Member Organizations, who form the working groups and provide financial support, plus an additional 16 Partner Network Organizations. Applications to join the collaborative are accepted every January; for further information on applying, please contact the Action Collaborative staff at shactioncollab_at_nas.edu (replace the _at_ with @).

The collaborative hosts annual public summits, with videos of previous talks available. Individual working groups dedicated towards prevention, response, remediation, and evaluation meet 1-3 times per quarter.

Action Collaborative has put out a number of publications this year:

• Developing, Implementing, and Sustaining Sexual Harassment Bystander Intervention Programs
• Preventing and Addressing Retaliation
• Policies to Prevent "Passing the Harasser"
• Evaluation of Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response Efforts

To find out more about Action Collaborative, see

https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/action-collaborative-on-preventing-sexual-harassment-in-higher-education/about

Addressing Career Breaks Head-on in CVs and Cover Letters

Emily Nicholson, an Australian ecologist, has written a fascinating 1-pager at Science Magazine about addressing career breaks head-on in your CV and cover letter when applying for jobs and grants. She writes:

My early job applications—using a standard CV that mentioned my maternity leaves only in passing... didn’t get so much as an interview... Then, with mentoring and advice from colleagues and friends, I reshaped my CV to account for the time I’d spent raising my family. I put my career breaks front and center, and I reported my productivity metrics to account for my time away from work. 

The result: My first application after I made the adjustments yielded a tenured position...Reframing my track record undoubtedly helped. Here’s how I did it. 

Her approach was to:

• Get the data
• Do the math
• Write about career interruptions up front and in a positive way