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University staff common room

This board is for university-based professionals. Find discussions about A Levels and universities on our Further education forum.

bullying/harassement from student

2 replies

me2again · 27/01/2019 14:00

Has anyone experienced bullying or harassment from a research student? I've been through a rough time and am wondering what you did/how you recovered? Can there ever be mitigating factors (i.e. wellbeing)?

OP posts:
ommmward · 27/01/2019 15:20

Document everything.

Talk to your line manager. Copy them into all emails that you exchange with the student (helps build the narrative, and also helps you avoid putting anything unfortunate in the email, since you know you have an objective audience...)

Look at your university's code of practice for behaviour of research students. If the student is definitely contravening that code, then you can talk to your line manager or graduate dean or whoever about putting disciplinary proceedings in motion.

Shift across to a shared supervision arrangement, 50/50, where the other supervisor is also present in all supervisions and reads all work (that also is a really good way to give you an opportunity to re-evaluate the situation - your colleague will be seeing the good in their work and will be seeing them as a valid human being, which will help you to recalibrate).

Remember that there is a huge imbalance of power, and you are sitting on the comfortable end of that particular scale. Your lack of support could cost them their PhD and their (dreamed of) career.

(and yes, I've been in this position from the supervisor's point of view, a couple of times. It's easy for me to sound glib at this end of it, where the PhD is completed and the relationship has been mended by time and hard work on both sides, and the student has gone on to a prestigious postdoc; I entirely appreciate how all consuming it seems during the sleepless nights phase...)

me2again · 27/01/2019 17:04

Thank you. Some fantastic ideas in there. I did talk to my then line manager but didn't really get the immediate response I needed (probably left it too long - or didn't realise it was crisis point till it was) and felt I had to make a decision as I was already very stressed by the situation (had a huge workload anyway) and felt it couldn't be resolved. I stepped away in the end so that others could manage things and get the phd back on track (it had gone way off).

I appreciate there is a huge imbalance of power and what side of that I'm on (didn't feel at all comfortable at the time but i get what you mean). The PhD won't suffer. It is interesting you say you've been through it a few times. I am working on improving professional boundaries and aim to bring up issues sooner and bring in some of these suggestions more quickly so it doesn't get to a point at which the relationship is irretrievably broken.

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