LNVH Spring Symposium 2018 ‘Challenging Poor Behaviour in Academia – How to tackle and prevent intimidation and abuse of power’

Power, abuse of power, harassment, and misconduct in academia. A theme that deserves attention, but is often dismissed as non-urgent, non-existent and therefore: non-important. Contributing to the taboo character of the subject, is that people simply do not dare to share their experiences for fear of consequences (or worse: lack of consequences). Recently however, the discussion about abuse of power in academia has certainly kicked off: in the fall of 2017, ScienceGuide published an article series on harassment. The Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH) was consulted and contributed to the series, because they wish to underline that this is not a ‘new issue that has ‘suddenly’ come up. They think it is important to, beyond the hype, focus on substainable attention for the theme and most of all: ways of preventing and dealing with abuse of power.

Het Acteursgenootschap was invited by the LNVH for the Spring Symposium 2018. After a very interesting ‘active bystander training’ by Scott Solder, we played out cases of poor behaviour, misconduct and harassment. Together with the audience, an expert panel discussed logical courses of action and how to tackle and prevent these situations. It’s so important to, beyond the hype, focus on ways of preventing and dealing with abuse of power.

Information
Duration: 5 scenes, each followed by a discussion with an expert panel and the audience
Writer and director: Tony Maples
Actors: Loek van den Wijngaard, Elske Rollema and Suzanne Spliethoff
Moderator: Scott Solder
Location: Academy Building Leiden University
Contact: info [at] hetacteursgenootschap.nl