Men contact confidential advisor more often
The total number of reports increased from 144 in 2018 to 171 in 2019. They were mainly about ‘personal issues’ like working conditions, and less about inappropriate behaviour.
In the report, the bureau says this cannot be called a trend or a development, since the group of people reporting is too small for that compared to the total number of students and staff (thirty thousand and seven thousand, respectively).
According to the bureau, one possible explanation for the increase is the fact that the university raised awareness of the confidential advisor in 2019. Workshops about inappropriate behaviour may have played a role as well.
Supervisor conflicts
The number of reports of personal issues rose from 80 in 2018 to 94 in 2019. Most of these reports concerned conflicts with a supervisor (they rose from 27 to 40) and dissatisfaction with working conditions (which rose from 16 to 26).
In this last category, people reported the use of confidential information in normal communication between employees, as well as the feeling of being sabotaged by colleagues or supervisors without being able to prove it.
Internationals
The rise in reports by internationals is also noteworthy: they contacted the advisor 69 times in 2019, up from 48 in 2018. Over 40 percent of the reports by internationals concerned inappropriate behaviour such as harassment and intimidation.
The bureau started keeping track of whether a report was filed by an international employee or student two years ago. Since then, they’ve seen a steady increase in the number of reports by internationals.