Over the past few days, past and current members of the S-USIH Executive Committee have received two separate reports of harassment that occurred at our 2017 conference. We wish to make clear that any form of harassment or bullying is inexcusable and will not be tolerated at any USIH-sponsored event. If an attendee at past USIH conferences experienced any form of harassment or bullying, please consider getting in touch with the Society’s president, a member of the Executive Committee, or past conference chairs. We will keep all identities in confidence and will share only those details with members of the Executive Committee that we have permission to disclose.
We appreciate your participation in our annual meetings, and we look forward to welcoming you to our conference this fall in Chicago. With that in mind, and in accordance with Article III, Section II of the Society’s constitution, President Sarah Gardner has created an ad hoc committee to draft a formal conduct policy that will be in place by 1 October 2018.
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It’s unfortunate that a small conference like ours has these sorts of occurrences. You would think we could police each other and ourselves. But such as it is, I totally agree with this statement and policy. Sad but necessary.
Surely no one in this organization is interested in policing anyone else. Rather, as a professional organization, we are interested in discouraging wildly inappropriate and unprofessional behavior at our meetings and events.
As the chair of the 2017 conference, I could not be more appalled by these reports, nor more encouraged to see the USIH leadership immediately take proactive steps to clear up any confusion about our members’ and attendees’ mutual obligations to one another as decent people who are working for one another’s good and for the good of our profession.
Thank you, Sarah, for your leadership.
Completely agree. Relying on informal peer-to-peer policing is not a good overall strategy for preventing such behavior. Thank you to the S-USIH leadership for acting upon this.