#timesupacademia - anyone been watching this unfold on twitter?

Didn't mean to be harsh, but do think there's a huge difference between student/tutor relationships and others. In general though, as an academic myself, I would NEVER entertain the idea of getting into a relationship with any undergrads, and especially not in my own university.

Yes, I agree that it is not always an abuse of power. It's often messy though. I've personally been disadvantaged by having a much needed teaching gig taken away at the last minute to be replaced by the PhD student the subject coordinator was shagging. I've also seen what happens when the shagging stops - often students are then victimised or teaching or research lifelines turned off or other staff also dropping them like hotcakes. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I am not comfortable with an all out banning.

I think that's fair 20. I can't imagine hitting on one of the students I teach (also a lecturer). To me that's really crossing a line. I just wanted to add my experience as some of the tweets I have read suggested that it's always an abuse of power - and it's not.

Basing policy on your personal experience is not a good idea. In any case, I’m more concerned with relationships between teachers and students which are so clearly open to abuse.

I think it's really great that harassment and violence against women in universities is getting looked at more closely. At the same time, I don't think that we should necessarily move to ban all relationships between staff and students.

My reasons for this are personal.When I was 22 I met a great, clever, funny and kind man at an academic conference - he assumed I was a PhD student, I assumed he was a PhD student too. Actually, he had only recently got his first lectureship (late 20s) and I was in my final year of undergrad. When we worked this out it was like, oh...Do we continue this or not? In other words, we had an open conversation about whether it would be too problematic, on both sides, to continue to see each other. We both wanted to continue as we really liked each other.

He never taught me, we declared it to the HoD so that he never marked my work or was even present at exam boards where my work was discussed.

We dated for a while and broke up because he was more of a homebody and I wanted to be off exploring the world. At no point did I feel there was an unhealthy power differential - if anything he was a bit too shy and reticent for me. But he was (and is) a really lovely person - a lifelong friend, who danced at my wedding, and who I still meet for coffee now and then, even though it's over 20 years since we dated.

So not every staff member who has a relationship is predatory, and not every student who has a relationship is being preyed upon. I think that's what makes it so hard to deal with cases where that IS happening.

I find this research completely unsurprising. Sexual abuse has been going on at universities for a long time. Everyone knows about it and nobody does anything.

Absolutely. People know that Hollywood, Churches and other institutions are is bad for sweeping things under the carpet. Well add British academia to the list. I hope this breaks big time.

Watching with interest too. It's about time some things were openly challenged - the majority of academics at my university are men and almost all the senior teams. Some of them have been allowed to get away with stuff they never would have in private companies.

Yep, my university is on that list too and is a power keg waiting to explode. Fear of exposure, bad publicity and legal action are driving recent platitudes. Not concern for victims.

Yes, it's not just harassment, its bullying and it's all of this in the context of a culture where broader toxicity is normalised and accepted as 'just how it is'.

I'm also watching this with interest. My university (where I'm both staff and student) is going hard on declaring that its got "zero tolerance" for bullying, that people can report accusations of bullying and sexual assault anonymously...which is all bullshit, because no way is the university going to sack professors who bring in millions of pounds in grants. Pretending they care about bullying, sexual harassment while crossing their fingers behind their back they can squash it before they get caught. They deserve whats coming to them.

I’m so glad I found this though am late to the party. I’m surprised it hasn’t been bigger news and am wondering if it’s down to women being scared to complain. I know I am. We all know powerful people are being protected in our universities and what the consequences can be for complainants. What will it take of this to really take off? Has it slowed down? Looks like it to me.

Have you also seen that Lee Salter, the lecturer who violently assaulted his student girlfriend has now made a film called 'Injustice' which is about the criminal justice system? He is going by a pseudonym- Unsound Robin- and has been touring various universities screening it. If you work in academia, be aware of this and warn organisers if you hear of a potential screening. He has accepted no responsibility for his crime.

The identity of the history guy is pretty well-known. He’s not especially famous in his field, I don’t think, but was v active on twitter (and got lots of plaudits for his “bravery” around mental health issues).

At a small-ish conference I attend, there’s an academic who preys every fucking time on female graduate students. Isolates them, emotionally abuses/gaslights them (tells them all their peers hate them/are jealous of them), gets off with them. At the next conference/event, it’s someone else. Quite apart from the emotional/sexual abuse aspect, I really despise that he’s put a wedge in between so many young female academics. A couple of us more established women chatted about it after the last egregious episode, but don’t know what - if anything - we can do about it, short of warning off whoever the unlucky next candidate is.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I've been watching it unfold with the numbers going up daily.

Exactly, the policy is "make them aware" - there's no onus on the university to actually do anything. The entire policy is about damage control and doesn't acknowledge that any relationship between a lecturer and a student will have a power imbalance.

In my dept we are really short staffed. I run several modules single handed. If I was shagging a student, there would be no provision for my conflict of interest- I would continue to teach the module and mark the exams and essays. The students who were concerned that my being in a relationship with one of their fellow students might make me biased would just have to suck it up. I can’t see any HoD agreeing to increase the staff budget to get someone else to teach my module because of my involvement with a student. And nor should they. Staff student relationships within the same department and where the student is taught by the staff member should be a disciplinary offence. I can get in trouble for posting something negative on Facebook but not for sleeping with people I have power and influence over? Doesn’t seem right to me.

It was only last year we published a 'relationship policy'. Will have to dig it out but it was basically you should let your faculty know if you're sleeping with someone, staff of student, so they can be aware of any potential conflicts of interest/ power imbalances.

I also think staff student relationships should be banned. The power imbalance is huge plus it has a potentially detrimental impact on other students.
Some male academics are disgusting. They will openly hit on female students and see it as their own personal hunting ground. Read about Lee Salter who assaulted his postgraduate student girlfriend, stamping on her head and pouring salt in her eyes. At the trial he was supported by his new girlfriend, an undergraduate. It took the university until he was convicted to actually sack him and stop him interacting with female students. He was a 40 yo man preying on young women in their early 20s. Unsurprisingly he did not take too well to one of them actually standing up for herself. He also subjected her to emotional abuse and told her that she was the reason her father had killed himself.

I have been watching it unfold. It will be interesting to see how many hasty retirements there are before publication.

Yep drives me mad. I've just been part of a push at my place to ban staff-student relationships and I was amazed at the pushback and the amount of people who seemed to think it was fine as the student was over 18. Even if they were being directly taught and dissertations supervised by the offending academic.

Although they haven't been banned completely (which is sort of understandable as I know at least one PhD student who was already married to a member of staff when they applied) we have thankfully managed to get the policy significantly strengthened and a well known offender has left.

Yes - Howard Kirk in The History Man is a lecturer in sociology. A "theoretician of sociability"!

Yes, though the character in the history man was a sociologist, if I remember correctly. He saw himself as being part of the tide of history, or something like that.

I find this research completely unsurprising. Sexual abuse has been going on at universities for a long time. Everyone knows about it and nobody does anything.

Crikey. I want to know who the historian is. Real life The History Man for those old enough to remember.

Students and fellow academics.

One of the issues in academia is the people on precarious contracts and how established academics take advantage, it's hard to speak out because your field can be so specialised, and you can wind up being ostracised because perpetrators can influence whether you get a job or not. Careers depend on publishing papers and colleagues with power can make your life very difficult.

There's too many supposedly consensual relationships too - I get that they can be consensual because everyone involved is an adult, but the power differentials are substantial. Plenty of male academics having relationships with students. I'm always interested if a female academic doing the same would lose respect, I suspect she wouldn't be taken quite so seriously.