Vicki Collins is a student that Brad, a professor, begins to mentor yet eventually attempts to become romantically involved with. He crosses the line when he offers to take him on trips and basically propositions her in a car on the way to a Kinko's. Brad could easily be fired for this yet he needs to have his tenure revoked and do sexual harassment training.
Organization Development and Change
Case Analysis:
Vicki Collins: Mentorship or Sexual Harassment?
Defining the Problem
Brad, the professor who attempted to mentor Vicki Collins, allowed his feelings for her to overtake the role of academic mentor. And from that point the relationship became more romantically inclined, despite his claims it wasn't. The evidence of his feelings for her illustrate that he was, in his mind, having an affair with her. Affairs can occur even if they are no consummated through sexual relations; they can be purely emotional as this one is. He crossed the ethical line of a mentor when he considered and then asked her to go on trips with him and also made him an assistant. Mentors need to keep their relationship confined to the academic aspects of the relationship alone, not begin to allow intrusion into personal lives. His letter to her is more of a plea to not end the affair than it is to actually pursue her education. He's using the plea of making more of herself as a plea to get back together.
Defining the Contributing Factors
Brad had begun the relationship as a responsible instructor, attempting to help a student overcome challenges of passing one of his classes. Vicki Collins obviously began to see Brad as a confidant for her challenging circumstances of attempting to re-enter school and earn a degree. By allowing the relationship to get beyond just the academic factors and also allowing her to dominate his time, he was sending a message to her that she was a very high priority in his life. Whether this was intentional or not is beside the point. It happened and even his wife noticed it. This investment of time, even at the expense of time spent with his own family, is cause for concern. In terms of quantifying the aspects of this case, the time spent with Vicki Collins from an office hours standpoint alone needs to become part of the guidelines for professors in the future in sexual harassment training programs.
Additional contributing factors is Brad's not stopping the relationship's direction when Vicki Collins invites him out with her friends on Friday nights, in addition to biking and hiking outings as well. This should have been a very clear message to Brad that they were getting too close and he should have pulled away and began to restrict her time with him by making time for more of his students who complained he wasn't accessible enough. One can see that his perspective on serving his class was completely overtaken by serving her and taking care of her needs alone. Again the time spent with other students relative to her, as could be seen from office hour logs and records, also shows how Brad is thinking. These quantified measures of behavior are unerringly accurate in defining how people see their priorities. Where a person's priorities are is where they will invest their time, and this is certainly the case with Brad. Instead of slowing down the time spent he accelerates it with offers of trips to Chicago and San Francisco. In conjunction with this development, the relationship was beginning to move closer to a physical dimension with the Ropes Challenge Field Day and photographs of her there too. The apex of confusion for this relationship is his visit to her duplex which showed just how confused he was about the relationship and how he had let it get out of hand. His shock of her dating Ben shows he was having an affair with her in his mind already, and the comment in the car about "jumping her bones" while said in jest and negatively foreshadows what he is really thinking. He wants to consummate the relationship and have sex with Vicki Collins, and the pleas to stay with her education is actually part of his need to keep her close to him. All this begin said, he has well crossed the line of being a mentor and sees himself as a competitor to Ben and her other love interests. She sees this and immediately files a sexual harassment claim as evidently she never viewed the relationship in this light.
Identifying Possible Solutions and the Pros and Cons of each Solution
The possible solutions to this problem range severe to consultative. The severe solution to this is to fire Brad and make him an example of how not to mentor a student. His comments in the car would be considered a sexual proposition in some of the more strict states' courts. A mid-range solution to this problem is to censure Brad, take away his tenure and still allow him to teach, while having his class office hours monitored. He needs to complete sexual harassment training badly as well. The third consultative approach is to make Brad complete sexual harassment training and also become certified in the subject, and also lead the university's training program in these areas.
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