Assessing the climate of a department for underrepresented groups is notoriously difficult to do. Individual experiences vary within a department even for those who share a social identity. Further, those seeking jobs (or tenure, or promotion) may be understandably cautious about participating in any sort of climate questionnaires, even ones that are anonymous, and this fact can skewer results. And negative assessments about departments generated by surveys can be complex to interpret: for example, in a department with a strong feminist presence, there may be more reports of sexual harassment because students feel more empowered to report such problems than in departments with fewer women or fewer feminists.
Despite these intrinsic difficulties in assessing climates, it remains the case that department climates and cultures vary, and not all are equally hospitable, or equally hostile. Sometimes the cause is ill-will, but often the cause may be cluelessness. Problems are not always large scale or overt; persistent micro-aggressions and micro-inequities can produce such alienation that leaving the discipline feels necessary for one’s mental health.
We want to encourage all philosophers at all levels to make an effort to understand what makes for a hospitable, or hostile, climate and how to improve their own departmental climates. Philosophy is one place where climate change should be welcomed.
Toward this end, we intend to make the Pluralist Guide a resource for climate activists.
Below is a short start-up guide. Readers should note that various under-represented groups have different problems and may need different mechanisms.
A How-To Guide for Climate Change in Philosophy
1. Climate Change Resources
The American Philosophical Association has a load of resources now on its webpage. This is the result of years of agitation and activism from various constituencies, but with eventual success! These resources are available to all members (and remember, the student rate for becoming a member is quite low). One can find up-to-date syllabi suggestions, articles, blog-posts, and data.
APA Resources on Diversity and Inclusiveness
The APA also has a number of newsletters available online formed by the varied advocacy groups that operate within the APA. These newsletters go back decades and have a wealth of information, including syllabi, book reviews, conference reports, data reports, and philosophical analyses of the debates over diversity. These can be useful places to publish climate change news and analysis.
The APA has also issued several important reports and policy statements, developed from lengthy investigations by leading philosophers, such as this special report on ‘best practices’ in regard to sexual harassment.
We Can Act: Report On Best Practices To Be Implemented Regarding Sexual Harassment
2. Climate Surveys
Assessing departmental climates through surveys or other means should not be taken as a necessary condition for pro-active steps. There are legitimate reasons not to engage in climate studies, not simply because of their methodological challenges but, more importantly, because they ask the most vulnerable populations to take the largest risks. Think about how many persons of color and/or out LGBTQ persons are in your department, and now think about trying to assess how they are experiencing the departmental climate. Anonymity is basically impossible in such situations.
A further consideration to keep in mind is that working on climate issues is typically significantly undervalued service work that is typically done by women. Check out the essay by Sharon Bird, et al “Creating status of women reports: Institutional housekeeping as ‘women’s work,’” as well as the other useful articles on the work of institutional diversity, in the Spring 2004 issue of NWSA Journal Vol. 16, No. 1. Faculty members and graduate students who do choose to take one for the team and do this work should receive better support from their colleagues and their institutions, not to mention the profession as a whole. NSF’s Project Advance supports institutional climate research with course release, money to pay for the implementation and analysis of climate surveys and money to pay for the transcription of qualitative data.
Still, climate studies can be productive avenues for uncovering problems, generating discussion, and motivating action. To address the problem of achieving anonymity, experts suggest the use of online surveys that can anonymize answers; none of the raw data should be released publicly; and respondents should not be required to identify themselves by gender, race, sexuality, etc.
Gathering climate information should be a normal feature of departmental websites. Here is an example from the Rutgers Department of Philosophy, as well as a template for a climate survey:
3. Guidance for Individuals Experiencing Difficult Climates
What to do when one has moved across mountains to attend or begin work at a particular philosophy department and finds oneself in a rather unpleasant, difficult, or downright hostile climate? It is important for individuals to realize that their experiences are far from unique. Two websites have been developed in recent years to gather stories as a way to educate the profession at large about the systematic nature of the problem:
What Is It Like To Be A Woman In Philosophy?
What Is It Like To Be A Person Of Color In Philosophy?
So, what is one to do? Moving may not be the answer, given the national nature of the problems in philosophy. Surviving requires careful strategizing, as one might do to win a chess match. Here are some strategies of survival:
Wait long and hard before you decide who can be trusted to help. Like a year.
Cultivate friendships and intellectual collaborations outside of the philosophy department when possible. University-wide service work may be looked down upon by typical philosophy faculty, yet may provide critical respite from the strains of a dysfunctional departmental family.
Know your rights, and know the local procedures in regard to matters such as sexual or gender harassment. Know who at your institution have been the advocates in these kinds of cases, and who knows where the bodies are buried. Ask them for advice if you need it, not just your chair or mentors inside the department.
Travel to conferences, workshops, and other venues for philosophical work in which you might find more like-minded compatriots. Pursue peer mentors.
Reach out to more senior people in your sub-field for mentoring. They want you to succeed and stay in the profession.
Succeed, and stay in the profession. Funnel frustration into determination. Change is on the horizon.
4. Guidance for Departments
At this point there are good leads on pro-active steps departments can take. First and foremost, go to the APA’s website and check out the many resources they provide.
Financially support and back the creation of groups—such as all women groups, all minority group, etc—that will meet regularly for snacks and coffee, 1-2 times a term, with an agenda of getting to know one another as well as sharing papers, discussing topics in seminars, and discussing common concerns. This is a way to create a peer based mentoring system.
Bring in senior philosophers to the colloquium series from outside the usual identity domains.
Organize a retreat or workshop to discuss in more depth issues such as implicit bias, tackling the pipeline problem, mentoring, and general strategies for improvement.
Learn about the resources that strengthen the philosophy pipeline: PIKSI, the Rutgers Summer Institute for Diversity, CUSP, and others. Encourage students and faculty to pursue these opportunities.