Thursday, 6/5/97 GSA releases latest survey about sexual
harassment Task Force explores experiences of 2,000 graduate
students
By Mason Stockstill Daily Bruin Contributor The first survey on
sexual harassment at UCLA since 1984 has hit the streets – but
don’t expect it to fall into the hands of many undergraduate
students. Because they feel that graduate students have a unique
situation on campus, the Graduate Students Association (GSA) Task
Force on Sexual Harassment has sent its survey to 2,000 randomly
selected graduate students to gauge their feelings and thoughts on
sexual harassment at UCLA. The task force began three years ago in
response to stories and anecdotes of harassment that John Hajda, a
graduate student in ethnomusicology, overheard at UCLA. "John heard
some stories anecdotally that there was a big enough problem with
harassment to be affecting the progress of graduate students," said
task-force member Jill Stein. The task force decided that graduate
students face a different situation when dealing with harassment
than others on campus, and that therefore a survey geared toward
gauging their beliefs and feelings would be revealing. Task force
members feel that such a survey could cause administrators to
change their policy on sexual harassment and be more responsive to
the needs of graduate students. "Graduate students are in a unique
position," Stein said. "There is a close relationship between a
grad student and their professors, who could be influential in
deciding which grad gets Teaching or Research Assistant positions."
For example, a grad student could feel reluctant to report a case
of harassment against a professor because of the professor’s
potential influence over a graduate’s career, Stein explained.
There is also the situation that a graduate student serving as a
teaching assistant (TA) faces, which can cause tensions in the
relationships between the TA and the students. "Because the TA is
usually so close in age to their undergraduate students, there is a
blurring of the line between their role as a teacher and their role
as a peer," Stein said. This can make the relationship difficult
between a TA and his/her students, Stein believes, especially if
there is harassment taking place. "Sometimes, TAs overcompensate
for the closeness in age, and that can lead to situations of
increased tension," Stein said. The task force’s survey is the
product of three years of investigation, research and testing by
the task force, culminating in the dissemination of the survey at
the beginning of last month. The investigation into the problem was
daunting, Stein said, especially since the records kept on sexual
harassment charges at UCLA are confidential, and the record-keeping
does not cover all of the cases. "Our records only go back four
years," said Assistant Dean of Students Kathleen McMahon. There are
also many service centers at UCLA that have counseling and other
services for students who feel they have been sexually harassed.
The UCLA Ombuds Office, the Women’s Resource Center, and the Dean
of Students all offer counseling or a forum for students to try to
have their problems mediated. According to university documents,
there have been 11 cases of sexual-harassment charges brought
against UCLA students since 1993 through the Dean of Students’
office. In preparation for the survey, the task force also had to
go through the Human Subject Protections Committee, which is
designed to test any experiment or survey on campus that deals with
human subjects. Results from the survey will be tracked by the task
force after all of the responses are received beginning June 13.
The task force has also received a number of responses from people
looking for a forum to express their feelings and talk to other
people with similar experiences. "Many people want to get together
and talk, because the survey prompted them to look for this kind of
service," Stein said, "so we’re going to start something like that
next year," she continued. The task force is funded from a variety
of campus sources, including GSA, Graduate Division, and the
Chancellor’s Office. "We wanted to get our funding from different
sources so that it wouldn’t appear that this was done by any
specific campus group," Stein said. "We wanted it to be
independently done." Related links:Graduate Students’
Association