Beyond Just Words: Moving from Bystander to Ally in the Academic Workplace

NSF-funded research by the UNH ADVANCE program has shown that bias incidents are common, are rarely addressed, and negatively affect academic workplace climate, lowering job satisfaction, and increasing turnover.  We have also found that bystander intervention when bias incidents occur mitigates their negative effect on workplace climate.  

Given the importance of bystander intervention to positive workplace climate, we created an online, asynchronous course, Include U: Bystander Intervention in the Academic Workplace, to address how to encourage faculty to intervene when bias occurs, thereby supporting efforts to increase diversity and retention and improve inclusion on university and college campuses.  

Using animated scenarios, we will demonstrate how four cognitive biases can emerge when evaluating candidates for jobs or promotion and tenure, and in many other areas where important decisions are made. We will also present our research that shows that, rather than being a binary phenomenon, effective intervention behaviors can range from indirect to direct and from immediate to delayed, presenting faculty with behavioral options at levels of risk commensurate with their ranks and levels of power. https://www.unh.edu/includeu/

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant(s) # 1726351, 1209189 and 0930231