Power imbalance rules out student-supervisor relationships

For the first time universities have a blanket policy against relationships between academic supervisors and their students.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins. Picture Kym Smith

For the first time Australian universities have adopted a blanket policy saying that sexual and romantic relationships between an academic supervisor and their research student are not appropriate because of the potential for a power imbalance.

Agreed principles on “respectful supervisory relationships” to be released today say that such relationships are a “conflict of interest”.

The principles, which have been agreed with the National Tertiary Education Union, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, and the Australian Council of Graduate Research, are designed to protect safety and wellbeing of both students and staff, said Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson.

The principles, which apply to graduate students who have academic supervisors, do not ban such relationships but say that universities much be able to supply an alternative supervisor should such a supervisor-student relationship occur.

Some universities already have policies requiring other supervisory arrangements to be made if a supervisor-student relationship exists, but the new policy means such principles have been nationally endorsed by the bodies representing universities, academic staff, postgraduate students and academic research leaders.

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, which represents postgraduate students, has long pushed for such a policy and its president, Natasha Abrahams, welcomed its adoption.

“We now have a united viewpoint across the sector that romantic relationships between supervisors and students are unethical, just like any other power-imbalanced relationship such as that between a doctor and their patient,” she said.

In a separate development, Universities Australia says universities have responded with more than 800 initiatives to combat sexual assault and harassment in the 12 months since the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said that such incidents on university campuses were occurring at an unacceptable rate.

Ms Jackson said the initiatives included education programs, counselling, increased access to support and emergency lines, better online reporting tools, and improved orientation information for international and residential students.

The responses also included some major reviews of policy and procedures, awareness campaigns, training for counsellors and support staff, and new partnerships with residential colleges and accommodation providers.

“Student safety is our utmost priority,’’ Ms Jackson said.

‘‘This work doesn’t stop. It’s an ongoing process to be renewed and repeated at the start of each year when 300,000 new students join our university campus community.”

The AHRC’s “Change the course” report, released on August 1 last year, said that one in five students had been sexually harassment in a university setting in 2016 and 1.6 per cent of students had experienced sexual assault in a university in 2015 or 2016.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins said it was encouraging that universities had made “significant steps” to address the problem.

“It is vital that universities maintain momentum for this work and that they are transparent about their progress,” Ms Jenkins said.

“As we have seen over the last year, sexual assault and sexual harassment continue to occur at unacceptable rates not only within universities, but across our society at large. “

She said the AHRC was committed to working with universities and residential colleges to implement change.

Ms Jenkins said that all 39 university members of Universities Australia had committed to conducting the AHRC’s national survey on the prevalence of sexual assault and sexual harassment every three years.

However she said that not all universities had yet committed to implement all of the recommendations in the “Change the course” report.