• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

FAUSA

Globally Connected, Locally Active

Log in

  • Home
  • About
    • Events & Activities
    • FAUSA Board & Teams
    • FAUSA Communications
    • History of FAUSA
  • Membership
    • Join or Renew
    • Gift Membership
    • FAWCO Rep Information
  • Philanthropy
    • Supporting & Fundraising
    • The FAWCO Foundation: Awards and Grants
    • Target Project
    • UN SDGs
  • Getaway
    • Quilt Fundraiser
    • FUNdraiser
    • Past Annual Meetings
  • Repatriate
  • News
    • Newsletters
    • Highlights Magazine
    • Inspiring Women
    • Philanthropy News
    • Virtual Activities News
  • Members
    • Member Directory
    • Update Profile Details
    • Annual Reporting
    • Obituaries
  • Contact

Rice STRIVE Panel on Sexism in Academia

March 29, 2021 by FAUSA Webmaster

In 2018, members of the Houston FAUSA group attended a talk by Allison Vogt describing the work of The Sexual Assault Free Environment (SAFE) Office at Houston’s Rice University. Ms. Vogt spoke about the ways the program addresses interpersonal violence on campus and provides prevention education to the Rice community on sexual and domestic violence, sexual harassment, stalking and Title IX and Clery Act requirements.

Being impressed with the intention and vigor with which Rice was addressing these topics, Houston FAUSA sought a way to support the university’s attempts to protect its community from interpersonal harm. Ms. Vogt expressed the SAFE office’s desire to evaluate the prevalence of sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduate programs at Rice. Because the numbers of female professors and mentors in these programs remain low, female students find themselves particularly vulnerable to gender related discrimination and harassment.

Accordingly, FAUSA Houston collected donations from individual members, and FAUSA national made up the difference toward a $2000 donation to Rice to fund the event described below.

Students Transforming Rice Into a Violence-Free Environment (STRIVE) 

On September 10th, 2019, the Rice student organization, Graduate STRIVE, held a panel discussion entitled “Sexism in Academia,” consisting of four female professors working in the Psychology, Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Earth Science Graduate Departments. The event was designed to “create a space for discussion around the topic of sexism in academia and how it impacts” both students and faculty.

STRIVE Coalition is a dedicated group of students addressing sexual and domestic violence on the Rice university campus. The Coalition consists of an executive board, liaisons to colleges and graduate programs, representatives to a variety of student groups, and volunteers. Graduate STRIVE liaisons provide support on issues such as off/on campus sexual harassment, concerns about Title IX policies, interpersonal violence, stalking, discrimination based on gender, sex, or pregnancy and dynamics of healthy relationships.

The STRIVE panel addressed topics including:

  1. The effect of female to male ratio in academia and science careers;
  2. The pressure and expectations women may face in attempting to balance work and home life compared with male colleagues;
  3. Actions that can help address the prevalence of gender and sex based discrimination in academia;
  4. Effective male allyship in and outside of the field;
  5. Gender-based disparities in opportunities; and
  6. The consideration of intersectionality in gender and sex discrimination.

In conjunction with the panel discussion, graduate students, post doctoral students, staff, and faculty participated in an online survey related to their personal experiences with the above matters in their respective departments. The questions in the survey were designed to help identify the prevalence of gender and sex-based discrimination, particularly in STEM departments at Rice University. The survey findings and outcome of the panel discussion helped inform the development of Rice’s Policy 830, Sexual Misconduct Policy for Faculty, Staff and Students. FAUSA’s contribution provided the opportunity to collect data that directly impacted the content of this policy designed to keep members of the Rice community safe.

Interestingly, one of the films in the FAUSA virtual LUNAFEST® fundraiser, benefitting the FAWCO Target Project, addresses a similar topic. “The Scientists versus Dartmouth” by Sharon Shattuck tells the story of a young neuroscientist and her colleagues who make a life-changing decision to speak up for women like themselves in Dartmouth’s science graduate programs who are being subjected to sexual harassment and assault by male professors.

Learn more about the challenges faced by women in STEM, support female filmmakers and benefit the Target Project by joining FAUSA for this exciting event. See details in the article in this newsletter.

SAFE: https://safe.rice.edu/meet-our-staff

STRIVE: https://safe.rice.edu/graduate-strive-students-transforming-rice-violence-free-environment

Policy 830: https://policy.rice.edu/828

Filed Under: Philanthropy News

Footer

Proud to Support

2025 Biennial Conference Sponsors

We are thrilled to support and welcome our sister organization, FAWCO, to the USA for their 2025 conference! This celebration wouldn’t be possible without the incredible support of FAUSA members and the generous contributions of FAWCO’s sponsors listed below.

Diamond Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Bronze Sponsor

Copyright © 2025 FAUSA · Website by DesignME Creative Group · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. You can opt-out of feature. ACCEPT REJECT Privacy Policy
Privacy & Cookie Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the ...
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT