Checklists
Checklists for shaping awareness work at FAU
The use of the Awareness Handout is explicitly recommended and welcomed for all areas mentioned here. All members of the university who are responsible for organizing or taking care of one of the settings named above are called on to check their setting critically using the available checklists and to consult with others to decide on the implementation of adequate awareness work for their area of responsibility. We would expressly recommend sharing intermediate steps and results of your own awareness work, for instance in the shape of modified checklists you have used or best practice examples, with colleagues and the team at the Office of Equality and Diversity in order to allow these to be incorporated into future revised versions of the handout.
It can be helpful for your awareness work to reflect on your own privileges and unconscious biases. Reflecting on these can reveal prejudices, prevent discrimination and make it easier to consider other perspectives. The following privilege tests can be used as support: Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) and Oppression and Privilege Self-Assessment Tool.
In order to raise sensitivity and awareness for a respectful and safe event free from harassment and discrimination among all participants, it is necessary that you know your target group and inform or train them in a way suited to their needs.
In order to provide participants with the necessary support and reassurance in the event of behavior overstepping boundaries, (sexual) harassment, discrimination and violence it is important to establish a network of suitable services and to be able to refer anyone affected to the relevant points of contact. You may consider the following questions at this stage:
Raising awareness for transgressive behavior and developing a culture based on mutual appreciation is a work in progress. It is important to reflect on (initial) experiences or insights and to use them consciously in order to improve measures and to facilitate and consolidate changes.
The following checklist will help you assess your lectures and seminars in view of awareness and obtain specific tips for implementation:
Examination situations are highly sensitive settings in which the stakes are particularly high for the person being assessed. Examination candidates often feel insecure, and power dynamics and hierarchies can have particularly severe repercussions. Examination situations must therefore be designed with particular attention and an appropriate sense of responsibility in a respectful and equitable manner while maintaining the greatest possible objectivity. In addition to the applicable requirements and stipulations for examinations at FAU (Department L – Teaching and studying), the following tips and questions for reflection help you to plan safer and more effective examination situations according to the criteria for awareness work.
Due to the risk of abusing power and exploiting dependency relations, staff acting as supervisors are particularly responsible for actively ensuring respectful and equitable conditions. This applies in particular to the supervision of doctoral candidates due to the length and the intensity of the supervision. However, there are also dependency relations between supervisee and supervisor in the supervision of student theses or projects and habilitations.
The annual report 2020 of the Ombudsman für die Wissenschaft takes an in-depth look at the multi-faceted question of what constitutes responsible supervision as a part of good scientific practice. Within the context of awareness work, you may also use the following tips and reflection questions.
Within the context of teaching and research, FAU often enters into partnerships with other institutions or companies. In order to offer all members of the university a consistently safe, appreciative and therefore successful study and work environment, it is also important to consider these interfaces. Both the university and the cooperating institution are responsible for creating framework conditions. The exchange of ideas and effective collaboration within the partnership must therefore take place in a setting aimed at preventing (sexual) harassment, discrimination and violence.
Before undertaking an excursion, it is important to carefully analyze the anticipated situation(s) in view of awareness requirements. Particular attention ought to be paid to the gray area between the institutional and private frameworks, as this is an area where the potential for violating boundaries is particularly high. In addition, the framework conditions such as times and locations for events, type of gatherings or alcohol consumption ought to be checked in terms of their safety. On this basis, suitable information can be provided and preventative protective measures introduced.