Is it Resolved? One Story of Academic Contrapower Harassment and Cyberbullying
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Is it Resolved? One Story of Academic Contrapower Harassment and CyberbullyingANONYMOUS 1 I am a professor at a Canadian university who recently experienced more than a year of harassment by an undergraduate student in an upper year class.During this period, I tried to connect with professors who had similar experiences, but I could not find anyone.Nor could I find more than a handful of detailed online personal accounts or academic articles relating to student-on-faculty harassment, despite clear evidence that it is not uncommon.In a study of 524 professors across 100 American colleges and universities, Lampman (2012, p. 184) found that "91% reported at least one act of student incivility/bullying, 25% experienced at least one sexual behavior from a student, and one to two percent said a student had used or threatened them with violence in the past year."Although Lampman's study, like several others, incorporates quotations from faculty interviews about their experiences, longer and more detailed experiential accounts are rare.Yet, learning how other faculty members experience and deal with student harassment might have helped me navigate my situation.In this dispatch I offer the sort of narrative I was searching for during and after this difficult period of my life, in hopes that it will be useful to others in similar or analogous circumstances.Beyond a simple recounting of the details of my experience, I aim to provide insight into what others in comparable circumstances might feel, to identify some challenges that may be avoided, and to add texture to understandings of student-on-faculty harassment.Student-on-faculty harassment is a form "academic contrapower harassment" (ACPH), which "occurs when someone with seemingly less power in an educational setting [e.g., a student] harasses someone more powerful [e.g., a professor]" (Lampman, Crew, Lowery, & Tompkins, 2016,
Source: Studies in Social Justice
Author: Anonymous
Institution: Brock University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4255035860