17 December 2019 
Martin Higgs, Communications Officer
CUPA Study Visit 2019
1: The US Experience
I was absolutely delighted to be awarded this year’s CUPA-HR Bursary, writes Rhona Bain of Edinburgh Napier University, which included 3 day attendance at the annual CUPA-HR Conference and Expo in Colorado and funded the opportunity to visit local HE Institutions in and around Denver.
Having recently undertaken accredited training as a Sexual Violence and Misconduct Liaison Officer, I am now one of ten people trained in this role at the university. This informed the theme of my study tour, namely; “Preventing and Tackling Sexual Violence and Misconduct on Campus.”
The Conference offered a fantastic opportunity to meet and network with a large number of people from across the USA and wider and to attend a number of workshops with a variety of subject matter relevant to the HR Professional. Of particular interest to me was the session delivered by Kathleen Donohoe, Associate Director of Human Resources Policy from The University of Michigan. The session focused on how they have taken a holistic approach to preventing sexual violence in the academic workplace.
To get a sense of scale, the University of Michigan is host to around 46,000 students over a number of campuses and takes pride in its student: faculty ratio of 1:15 students.
Their journey, in terms of tackling sexual violence on campus started more than 10 years ago and they believe they now have a model which is working and which is changing culture. Their approach is built around their “See Something Say Something” strategy and considers the organisational leadership required to create change and having their leaders as strong advocates who do not shy away from reporting the reality of the extent of the issue on campus. Michigan also spoke at length around the importance of bystander training, specific training for first year undergraduates and also training for accommodation staff and security staff who are often in the frontline and who are often taking a first disclosure.
Michigan also stressed how important it is to publish “What happens next?” – that is to say, making sure the university campus community is clear on what happens in the event of a disclosure and what happens when an investigation is instigated (for both students and staff).
An interesting point for me was their warning of the overuse of the language around “Zero Tolerance”. Evidence suggests that using this term may actually be a deterrent to reporting. The concept of “Zero Tolerance” for many means ultimately, dismissal. In fact, the complainer may simply want a change in behaviour from the person who is perhaps harassing him/her rather than wanting them to be dealt with in the strongest sense.
At the end of the Conference I headed into downtown Denver and prepared for my first study visit. Denver University is a private HE institution with around 12,000 students. And incidentally, from experiencing 24 degrees centigrade the previous day, I woke up to find snow and a temperature of minus 2 degrees as I made my way to spend the day with the HR team! In recognition of this and as a reminder of my visit, I was presented with a Denver University woolly hat!
So, Denver has its own dedicated team of 2 full time staff, who are responsible for managing their Centre for Advocacy, Prevention and Empowerment. (CAPE). In the last year, CAPE have handled 205 cases of sexual violence and misconduct which is an 8% rise of the previous year. 55% of those cases relate to sexual assault and 77% of cases concern undergraduate students. 2% of reports were raised by staff. CAPE at Denver CAPE not only provide advocacy and support for survivors but they also provide programmes for the family and friends of survivors who are often overlooked. I really liked this innovative approach as we cannot underestimate the impact on those around the survivor and their struggle to support them.
The following day I headed out of Denver to the University of Colorado Medical Campus in Aurora, where the Office for Equity is based. This office deals with all claims of discrimination, including race and disability. Again to give context, the U of C has around 65,000 students over 4 campuses. The University undertook a survey of its students in 2016 to explore the extent, perceived or otherwise of the level of sexual misconduct incidents taking place. The findings mirrored that of Denver in the sense that the majority of survivors were in the undergraduate group, with the majority of offences taking place in the fall, very much suggesting there is something about the “freshman” culture happening, experiencing lots of alcohol and potentially drugs, newly away from home with more sexual freedom.
The Office also shared a very interesting statistic which highlighted that 69% of those students who had experienced sexual violence or misconduct chose not to report as “they did not feel it was serious enough”, suggesting that the campus community was unclear around what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and how and where to call upon for help. In response to this, the Office for Equity increased their capacity to train staff and students and have since trained around 10,000 staff and students.
The CUPA Bursary Conference and EXPO experience was incredible and together with the opportunity to visit and meet counterparts in other universities, who are facing the same challenges was a career high for me. I would urge anyone considering applying to go for it!
Carry on reading - this is the first of Rhona Bain's three articles on her US experience
