"Cross-cultural Understandings of Power Harassment in Higher Education: Awareness and Actions"

Faculty Directors: SHAO Dan (EALC) and Colleen Murphy (Philosophy and Law)

Participants: Amira Al-Mutairi (ISSS); Daniel Morrison (Title IX Coordinator); Kaamilyah Abyllah-Span (ODEA); Grads and undergrads (to be recruited)
(Please contact Shao Dan (danshao@illinois.edu) if you are interested in participating the research cluster.)

Description of the project and its purpose
The proposed research cluster will continue the work of an IPRH Reading Group examining power and harassment in higher education (2018-2019). The reading group analyzed a number of topics, broadly conceptualized as: 1) perceptions of gender equity and power harassment among international scholars and students and 2) explorations of the possibility for legal and policy transplantation of relevant regulations for higher education from the United States to other societies. In the year of 2019-2020, participants will apply current theories and methodologies we have explored as a reading group to 1) design, conduct and analyze a survey that collects information on how international students, scholars, and staff members perceive key concepts of Title VII and Title IX at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and 2) to study how relevant legal concepts and ethical codes are perceived and practiced in academia back in international students’ and scholars’ home countries, especially focused on Africa, East Asia, Europe and Mid-East.  We also plan to apply for external grants to develop and launch a multilingual website that includes database of relevant policies internationally and resources that will help to increase the awareness of gender-based inequality and power harassment and knowledge of actions possible among international students, scholars and staff members in the U.S.