Sexual harassment officers Morton Mendelson, Antonia Maioni, Sharon Bezeau and Edmund Idziak PHOTO: OWEN EGAN

People to turn to

BRONWYN CHESTER | The number is 398-4911. Remember it. You may need it if you find yourself feeling uncomfortable or threatened due to the seemingly sexual nature of the comments or behaviour of a colleague, a supervisor, a staff member or student. Or, you may need it if in doubt about your own behaviour. As psychology professor Morton Mendelson points out in his seminars on sexual harassment: "Rules of behaviour change over time and from one culture to another." But is this news? Hasn't McGill had a sexual harassment office for the past 12 years? Yes, but this is the first time the office has had its own phone number. (Until this week, members of the McGill community seeking help regarding sexual harassment had to track down the phone number of one of the four voluntary sexual harassment officers.) Now, in a recorded message, a caller is given the phone numbers of Mendelson and the three other voluntary officers, manager of the student affairs office for the faculties of arts and science, Sharon Bezeau, political science professor Antonia Maioni and natural resource sciences professor Edmund Idziak from Macdonald Campus. The choice of officer is up to the caller. The phone number is but one of a number of changes to the Regulations Concerning Complaints of Sexual Harassment, approved last September by Senate, designed to make the office more visible and less intimidating, and to broaden its educational role. A website, http://ww2.mcgill.ca/harass, has also been initiated as well as campus-wide displays of the pamphlet boldly headlined "STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT: At McGill, sexual harassment is never acceptable." According to the officers, there are two changes to the policy, in particular, which enhance the office's ability to address the issue of sexual harassment. First is the broadened definition of an informal complaint. Now, when a complainant wishes the officer to speak to the respondent (the alleged harasser), there is no need to formalize the complaint. Under the old regulations, a formal complaint was necessary to involve the respondent in the process, which meant that the complainant had to agree to be identified. At the end of the process, a report of the proceedings would be sent to the principal, whether or not any sanctions or punishment were recommended by the officer -- a potentially more intimidating process for both complainant and respondent. This change to the concept of the informal complaint also broadens the role of the officers to one of mediator between complainant and respondent, with or without the complainant's direct participation. "We want people to feel that they have control over the type of action taken. We don't want them to be afraid," says Mendelson, who underscores the fact that in the vast majority of cases "the desire is to have the behaviour stopped," not to "get at someone." McGill's statistics would seem to bear that out. Last year, for instance, only three of 21 cases became formal complaints; in 1995-96, four out of 17 became formal, while in 1994-95, seven out of 23 became formal. Should the complainant decide to make a formal complaint, the coordinator of the sexual harassment office (yet to be selected from among the four officers) chooses a different officer to serve as an investigator. The differentiating between the original advising officer and an investigating one is the second principal change to the regulations, one designed to address the question of impartiality. The investigator interviews both parties, as well as witnesses, then makes his or her report to the principal. All three of the officers interviewed last week (Idziak was not available) stressed that their role is not to side with the complainant; it is to listen, question, advise and possibly recommend other services -- in the case of someone needing emotional support, for instance. Sometimes, an officer's intervention may be as simple as asking the complainant if he or she "has asked [the harasser] to stop," says Maioni. Maioni's interest in being an officer stems, in part, from her desire to make the University "a place where young women can feel comfortable." Women, not surprisingly, are the principal complainants. Of the 21 cases in 1996-97, 19 involved female complainants. Mendelson points out, however, that men are more reluctant to come forth. "Men feel that they should be able to handle it. Also, if it's homosexual harassment, they may be embarrassed." What is more surprising, perhaps, is that during the same year, there were virtually the same number of complaints of harassment between students (5/21 complaints) as there were between a professor and a student (6/21). (The remaining complaints were distributed evenly in the categories: professor by professor, support staff member by support staff member and student by support staff member.) Mendelson cautions, however, that given that the number of students greatly outnumbers the number of professors, alleged sexual harassment of students by faculty is, proportionately, far greater than students by fellow students. While the officers recognize the need for the sexual harassment office, their hope is that education will do more to end sexual harassment than will the threat of sanctions. Education, in the form of seminars to departments and residences, has been an important part of the office's work almost since its inception. Part of the $20,000 budget -- a substantial increase over last year -- will free the co-ordinator from teaching one course per year, in order to do work related to the office, such as conducting seminars. Bezeau commends Vice-Principal (Academic) Bill Chan for his support of the budget request. "We got the amount we asked for." Bezeau, who has been a sexual harassment officer for the past two years, found that in the seminars she has run with Mendelson, "some people felt intimidated, aggressed, but at the end, most were happy or relieved that this is out in the open. They know the process, so there is less fear on both sides."