Sexual harrassment in academia: my experience

June 3, 2008 · Filed Under An American Expat in Deutschland, Uncategorized · 33 Comments 

My student idFor probably over a year now, I’ve been considering posting about my experience as a female graduate student in a male dominated field. Until now, I’ve always told people that I left the PhD program in Statistics at Duke University because Rainer was in Germany and the professor I was working with had gone to another university. Those things were part of my decision to leave, but they were not the whole truth. I knew that my story could help people, but I also didn’t know how much I wanted to reveal, fearing even more damage to my career and reputation. So far, none of my story was ever made public, despite the attempts of two reporters, one of whom, from the campus newspaper, dogged me for a year.

First, I’m not going to go into the details. I don’t think that would help anything. And I’m not going to name names.

I started in the program at the Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences at Duke University in the fall of 1999. Unlike all the other students in my year, I was entering with a Masters degree, giving me two years of experience in graduate school that none of the others had. I think this may have given me a kind of research confidence going in that other students didn’t necessarily have. I didn’t take a lot of classes with the students in my year, but one that I did take was with professor X. Professor X is a famous, respected , world-renowned statistician. X’s class was considered tough. The rumor was that no one ever got As on X’s assignments; X’s standards were too high. I don’t know if that rumor was true, but I believed it, so you can imagine my surprise, and joy, when I regularly got extra credit (I’m talking 110% to 115%) for my “ingenuity.”

The grad student office I shared was next door to the office of professor X, both of which were a little apart from other offices. Professor X would come in occasionally to ask what I was up to. It never occurred to me until later that I was always alone at those times.

Because of my “elder student” status in my year, at least that’s what I think was the reason, occasionally other students in my year would come to me to talk about their problems. I sometimes felt that the faculty should be aware of what was going on amongst the students. In one case, several students were pressuring another to leave, erroneously thinking that this would increase their chances of making it to the second year. I would take these issues to professor X, since I respected and had a closer relationship with him, and we’d spend time in his office discussing the problems and possible solutions. In the previous case, a meeting was held for my year and the students were told that if everyone performed well, everyone would continue in the program; there was no “weeding out” by percentage.

Sometimes professor X would make odd comments that I just wrote off, assuming he didn’t know how what he said sounded. I could never remember exactly what he said, but I remember once he said something about a sun dress that I wore one day, that made me feel a little weird. He also had a habit of standing too close, but then, he did that to everyone and we all just wrote it off as a weird quirk.

In the fall of 2000, I slipped a disc in my back and was out of school for a few weeks. I returned shortly before Halloween, just in time to join in the annual department Halloween party. The professors in the department knew how to party. Their parties always ended up with drunken people dancing on tables, while the grad student parties were usually dry and involved board games.

There was always a lot of pressure on the students from the hard-partying professors to attend the Halloween party. Most of us would go. I was asked to be DJ that year, and I was actually looking forward to amazing them with my skillz. The night of the party came, I got a ride from a friend, and I got to work on getting the party started. Things were going well until people started hitting the liquor hard. Soon professor X was spending the majority of his time sneaking up on me to do and say very inappropriate things.

I complained to friends, and we tried to look out for him, but we’d get caught up in dancing or chatting and he’d strike again. I complained to professor A, a female professor in the department. She told me to hang back towards the edge of the room and stand next to a male grad student, this would deter professor X. I did this and thought things were going well, but as I went back to the secluded stereo alcove, things progressed with Professor X accosting me physically. Just as I was about to punch or knee him in order to get away, he was interrupted by another professor coming into the area.

I got a ride home, and spent the night awake, going over and over the events of the evening. The next day, I called two friends and we emptied my stuff out of my office. I didn’t want to make a big deal about what had happened, but I needed someone to talk to X about what he had done. I visited professor B at home, who said that no one in the department could do anything. I spoke to professor C, who also said this. I spoke again to professor A, who told me that as an attractive woman, I needed to expect this kind of treatment, and that I should be flattered to have attention from such a famous guy. She added that if I went along with it, it could make my career. I was appalled.

I knew a woman in the dean’s office and met with her to ask her opinion. She took me to meet the Dean of Graduate Studies, and I told him what had happened. I ended up making an informal complaint and taking an official leave of absence from the university. The dean told me that when he confronted professor X, X, who always treated me as a favorite, called me a “lying whore who couldn’t be believed.”

I got a job and things were going smoothly until I got a call from the Office of Internal Affairs. Word of my informal complaint had reached the president of the university, and she was demanding a formal investigation. I came in and testified. They also questioned at least one other person who was at the party that night. Professor X was found guilty and given a substantial fine. I received a letter of apology from professor X (with no return address on the envelope, I was ambushed into reading it with no prep time). The university asked me to come back, and I said that I’d think about it.

Then my father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. His wish was for me to finish my PhD, so I went back to school. The leave of absence was wiped from the records. Officially, I never left school. I hadn’t told my father the details of what had happened. He thought I was overreacting to something small at the time. Later, shortly before his death, I told him exactly what had happened, and he was upset that he had pressured me to go back.

Rainer returned to Germany in September of 2001, my dad died in November of 2001, and the professor I wanted to work with went to another university, halfway across the US. In addition to these reasons, I was no longer happy in the department. I had turned in professor A for her appalling advice and another professor for being a serial groper. Half of the department didn’t know what to say to me, the other half ignored my existence. Conversations would stop when I entered the room, people would get up and leave. My questions would go unheard by professors. I lost my best friend because we differed in opinion on how I should have reacted. I was also being borderline harassed by a student reporter (in addition to me, she called every person in the department, but I don’t harbor any ill feelings towards her, she was doing her job well and I probably would have done the same if I was in her place). For all these reasons, I left the university and moved to Germany in May of 2002.

In the time before I left though, I attended several conferences, and I can’t count the number of women who came up to me mostly to praise my courage in turning X in, or, in a few cases, exclaim my extreme stupidity. They all told me about their own experiences. At the time, I could name at least one professor in every top statistics program in the US who was a serial harasser, most of whom were never reported. I was the first to make a complaint about X.

Much of my unhappiness my first few years in Germany was probably caused by dealing with this (I almost had a panic attack when alone in a car with my German boss once) and the death of my dad. Also, as time went by, I realized that professor C (and maybe also B) had used me to make a power play. C is now a VIP (very important professor), partly, I think, because of the downfall of X. I actually feel more wronged by C than by X or A. I wonder if she was secretly gleeful as I poured my story out to her. I also expect that my current weight is due in part to this experience (in addition to the death of my dad and the expat 20). I was a size 8 at the time, I exploded up to a size 18. I’m now struggling at size 16, dealing with a recent binge that happened after a homeless man groped me in Nuernberg (I tend to binge after receiving unwanted attention now, but I’m getting better and better at dealing with it).

According to the Wikipedia article on sexual harassment in education, 9% of females who were sexually harassed dropped a course or skipped a class. I guess the percentage who completely drop out is even lower, or maybe they just don’t say why they dropped out.

I no longer have the respect for academics that I had as a young naive grad student. I don’t imagine that I’ll go back to school. I don’t really have a desire to finish. I used to want to change the world, to be a top statistical researcher. I thought I might someday get back to that, but eight years later, I still have no desire. I do feel a bit ashamed though when I tell people I never finished. Whether or not they really are, I feel like they are judging me, that they figure I failed out and am using Rainer as an excuse. I guess that’s more me externalizing some of what I feel on the inside. I know it shouldn’t matter, so what if I had failed out. But just for the record, because I’m shallow like that, I left Duke having passed my preliminary exam and with a 4.0 GPA.

My experience has left me with a lot of doubts about whether i want a career. For one, there is only one professor from my time there who would give me a recommendation. Two, I have trouble trusting authority figures, especially male authority figures. It also makes me a tiny bit uncomfortable to be alone with most men (other than Rainer, of course). I never believed X capable of what he did, how can I be absolutely sure that any other guy won’t do the same?

Well, I think that’s it for my tale. I hope it ends up helping someone and not just making trouble for me (or anyone).

Have you experienced sexual harassment? How has it affected you? (Feel free to post anonymously)

Wow, it’s never been so hard to hit “publish.” Okay, deep breath and here goes…

Update 12 Aug 2008: It’s been a little over two months since I wrote this and I’m surprised at how much it helped me to get my story out there.  I feel like it’s put closure on the incident for me and a weight has lifted from my shoulders.  I had doubts two months ago, regrets that I never finished my PhD, but since the writing, I’ve realized that it’s not important to me at all.  I might change my mind in the future, but for now I don’t want to go back to school.  I’m enjoying being a stay-at-home mom and have even started to think of a career as a writer or pro blogger, perhaps.  I think having my son put things in perspective, and writing my story allowed me to let go of the last bits of that past I was holding on to.  Thanks, everyone, for your kind thoughts. Oh, and by the way, I just slipped into a pair of size 14 jeans and I feel marvelous and sexy, not at all worried about what kind of reactions I may have to deal with.


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Regensburg Expat Weekend Meetup (June 21-22, 2008): The Details

May 14, 2008 · Filed Under Events/Meetups, Uncategorized · 18 Comments 

Please spread the word! Mention the meetup on your blog!

I really hope you’ll join us in lovely Regensburg next month for the Regensburg Expat Weekend (you don’t have to be an expat to participate either). Regensburg lies at the confluence of the Regen and the Danube rivers, and was largely unbombed during WWII, leaving the medieval city center intact. The city includes outstanding examples of Roman, Romanesque and Gothic architecture. For this reason, the entire Altstadt (old city center) was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006.

Stone Bridge over the Danube
Regensburg cathedralMedieval Tower
Regensburg Neupfarrplatz

Where is Regensburg?

  • In Bavaria, about an hour northeast of Munich

View Larger Map

What’s the schedule? (if more people come, more events may be planned):

  • Friday - there are baseball games from 10:30am till about 9:30pm. We’ll likely go to the 3:30pm game.
  • Friday 8pm-whenever, Sarah and Cliff are organizing an evening get-together, for more information, see their post on Regensblog
  • Saturday 10am-12pm, morning baseball game, exploring the city, whatever you want to do.
  • Saturday 2:30pm, 1.5-2 hour guided city tour - the cost is 80 Euro for the entire group, with a limit of 30 participants (so with 20 people, the cost would work out to 4 Euro a head). We will be leaving from the west facade of the cathedral (between the cathedral and Haus Heuport) at 2:30pm.
  • Saturday 4:30-6:30pm, hanging at Gaststätte Spitalgarten, a beer garden along the river, just across the Stone Bridge
  • Saturday 6:30pm-whenever, join us for the monthly Regensburg Expat Dinner at Osteria Siciliana on Unterer Wöhrd. I also imagine some folks might want to watch the Eurocup Football Quarterfinal at 8:45pm.
  • Sunday, attend a baseball at the Armin-Wolf-Arena - for the diehard fans,* the games start at 9am, for the rest of us, we’ll attend the final game of the Baseball Eurocup 2008 at 3:30pm. Cost for the games is 10 Euro for a single day ticket, or 15 Euro for a family day ticket. There is limited seating, so bring lawn chairs or a blanket to sit on.

Where do I stay?

  • I’m recommending the Ibis Hotel Regensburg City as the official meetup hotel. Single rooms are 64 Euro/night (without breakfast). It’s located across the street from the train station, at the edge of the Altstadt.
  • Other possibilities are: Brook Lane Hostel (starting at 15 Euro/night), Hotel Karmeliten (starting at 52 Euro/night, including breakfast), and if you want to splurge a bit, there is the really beautiful, nice Hotel Orphee (starting around 137 Euro/night).
  • If your budget is really tight, let me know and we’ll see if a local can put you up for a night (much more likely if you’ve previously met said local)

How do I get there?

  • By train or by car are your best options. The closest airports are at Munich and Nuremberg.

Who’s coming for the tour on Saturday?

Who’s coming for the dinner Saturday night?

  • We are
  • J?
  • Tammy and Matthias
  • Jul and Scott
  • Heather and Tim
  • Cliff and Sarah
  • Joan and Hannah
  • Andrea and family (+2)
  • Anita
  • Sam and family (+2)

Who’s coming to the final game on Sunday?

Go to our TripHub site to sign up. You can leave a comment here too if you’re coming!

For more information see:

* for the really die hard baseball fans, the Baseball Eurocup starts on June 18th!

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Update

December 14, 2007 · Filed Under Uncategorized · 8 Comments 

Sorry I haven’t really been posting or reading blogs lately.  There’s been big family drama and I’ve just been too distracted.  With us leaving next week for our holiday travels, I’m not sure when things will improve and I’ll get back to reading and writing, but I’ll try to get something up every now and then.

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