Memorandum
To: Members of the Council of Deans
From: James V. Maher
Re: Faculty Awareness of Universities Policies on Sexual Harassment Prevention and Faculty-Student Relationships
Date: November 24, 2004
I appreciate the very good and helpful discussion at the Council of Deans meeting this week on the issue of which faculty will be required to successfully complete the University’s online module on prevention of sexual harassment. Everyone present at the meeting was of the same opinion that all faculty have enough responsibility for supervision – of students, staff, or both – that all must be required to complete this course. Please communicate this requirement directly to your faculty. As you know, they have been alerted by my letter of November 2, 2004, that faculty with such responsibility will be required to successfully complete the module during this academic year. Once a faculty member successfully completes the module, he/she must provide you with a signed certificate of completion of the module. Once all faculty of your unit have provided you with their certificates, please write to me reporting that this responsibility has been met and that the certificates are on file in your office.
It will also be helpful if in your communication with your faculty you would reinforce the information in my letter of November 2nd that faculty must disclose immediately the existence of any intimate faculty/student relationship as described by the University’s faculty-student relationship policy. Faculty should be made aware that failure to make such a disclosure is a very serious offense.
A copy of my letter is available online. Thank you for your help with this very important issue.
cc: Mark A. Nordenberg
Members of the Chancellor’s Senior Staff