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  1. School of Physical and Chemical Sciences
  2. Astronomy Unit
  3. About the AU
  4. Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct

AU Code of Conduct for Staff, Students, and Visitors

The AU is committed to creating a work environment that is safe, professional and of mutual trust where diversity and inclusion are valued, and where everyone is entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect. We will not tolerate harassment in any form.

Please follow these guidelines:

  • Behave professionally. Harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary comments or jokes are not appropriate. Harassment includes sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, sexual attention or innuendo, deliberate intimidation, stalking, and photography or recording of an individual without consent. It also includes offensive comments related to individual characteristics, for example: age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, nationality or religion.
  • All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual or sexist language and imagery is not appropriate.
  • Be respectful and do not insult or put down other School members, attendees or facilitators of an event. Critique ideas not people.
  • Should an AU member witness events of bullying, harassment or aggression, we recommend that they approach the affected person to show support and check how they are. The witness may also wish to suggest that the person report the inappropriate behaviour. However, it is up to the affected person alone whether or not they wish to report it.
  • If School members, and participants of seminars or lectures, wish to share photos of a speaker on social media, we strongly recommend that they first get the speaker's permission. School members may also share the contents of talks/slides via social media unless speakers have asked that specific details/slides not be shared.

The AU has two designated contact persons: Dr Alkistis Pourtsidou and Dr David Mulryne. AU members can report any violation of these guidelines to these designates in confidence. If asked to stop inappropriate behaviour School members and participants of events are expected to comply immediately and, in serious cases, may be asked to leave the event without a refund. The AU will not tolerate retaliation against anyone reporting violations of this code of conduct.

Acknowledgments: This code of conduct is based on the "Code of Conduct for ESO Workshops & Conferences" and is in line with the following policies:"The ESO Way and the EAS Ethics Statement and Guidelines for Good Practice" (January 2018). It was adapted from the London Code of Conduct (by A. Pontzen and H. Peiris), which was derived from original Creative Commons documents by PyCon and Geek Feminism. It is released under a CC-Zero licence for reuse. To help track people's improvements and best practice, please retain this acknowledgement, and log your re-use or modification of this policy at https://github.com/apontzen/london_cc.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)

The School of Physics and Astronomy has a committee dedicated to monitoring and shaping its EDI environment. Information about the committee and its members/activities/policies can be found here. The Astronomy Unit actively particitates in this, with several committee members and representatives: Dr Edward Gillen (EDI Deputy Director), Dr Karim Malik (BAME Champion), Dr Tessa Baker (Gender Champion), Dr David Mulryne (committee member), and Theo Anton (PhD Student Representative). If you have any questions or concerns about EDI issues or would like more information feel free to contact any of these people.

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