Harassment

The Faculty has renewed discussion of its procedures for handling sexual harassment in its first official action on the subject since charges were publicized that a Government professor harassed a junior faculty member and a graduate student.

The Faculty Council--the Faculty's executive steering committee--yesterday began discussing the issue in its first regularly scheduled meeting of the year. The deliberations--which could last months--had been scheduled even before the recent allegations against Latin American specialist Jorge I. Dominguez, administrators said.

Last year the Council, made up of 18 tenured and non-tenured professors, discussed issues involved with sexual harassment of a student by a faculty member, with Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky writing a letter to the community on the subject.

But the Council still wanted to discuss the issues involved with sexual harassment by one faculty member against another. In addition, the Council is slated to discuss a campus-wide survey on harassment conducted under the auspices of Associate Dean of the Faculty Sidney Verba '53.

Among the issues expected to come up in the council's discussions are whether details of cases ought to be publicized and whether the current grievance procedures are adequate.

In other action, the Council considered a proposal for a Ph.D. program in Decision Sciences: discussed the Dean's budget letter scheduled to be released in November; and discussed pending long-range plans concerning computers.