Manju Sharma
In this conversation Manju speaks about her experience with a top down and bottom up approach of processes in codifying behaviour. She introduces the student-teacher led organisation Tools for The Times at HKU, and reflects on the significance of a Code of Conduct in establishing a space of critical discourse, both in the art school and after graduation.
Manju Sharma
Manju Sharma is a tutor at Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU), where the Tools for the Times project, a student-teacher initiative, has been self-organising since a series of xenophobic opinions became apparent in 2018. She was born in India, brought up in the UK, and now lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Sol Archer (SA): Could you tell something about the process at HKU to develop a new code of conduct for the entire school by bringing in external consultants? How can a top-down approach of consultation be aligned with bottom-up processes involving the community that will be affected by any proposed conduct framework?
Manju Sharma (MS): It has been a constant learning process. In the past, at the HKU, we had individual documents for different situations and they were all stored in separate places. If you had, for example, witnessed undesirable behaviour one document would give the procedures for going to see one of the councillors, but an entirely different document addressed undesirable behaviour, which was old and had a very formal quality to it. So, there were several documents, covering different things, none of which were well connected and none were easy to find on the school network.
Each seemed to be very much a case of ‘this is something we are obliged to have, so we will do it and put it on the web,’ but I don’t think anyone looked at them. I think most people, including myself, weren’t aware that they existed.
On the HKU intranet site, there is a lot of information, but as it’s very difficult to navigate, things get hidden. So, this whole process was started by finding out what already existed before identifying what we needed to do in order to get something else in place. This made us realise that we really need to think about visibility and accessibility of the new code because while it may be nice to have, how we make it visible and practice safety is crucial.
This process was initiated from the bottom-up with concerns from students, teachers, lecturers and staff. Students gave the input that they felt unsafe, and teachers and staff recognised that there was a need to talk about the school being unsafe. Pressures were coming from both HKU internally and externally from the Ministry of Education to do something about the safety in the academy.
What the HKU management did was to recognise that we need to re-think the existing social safety procedures, and that we need to put a new Code of Conduct document in place. HKU took a very top-down approach to this. HKU hired a consultancy company to start very broad conversations at the HKU, as one school, even though we have very different departments: the fine arts department, of which I am part, as well as music, design, fashion, product design, illustration, game design, and so on.
Each department is very different and each of which has very different pedagogical needs. And further, we have facilities that very much should be in this discussion, but again have different needs and structures.
In that sense of understanding different needs, it was very nice that they took this cross-departmental HKU approach. These discussions were, however, quite tense because everybody was on guard for the specific needs of their department.
For example, the music department made clear that modes of touch between tutor and student need to be in the code of conduct because contact is part of how breathing techniques are taught and corrected. Different pedagogical techniques require specific considerations. You can’t just say touch cannot happen, you need to discuss where, when, and how physical contact can happen. Sometimes, we really found each other, across these different departments and sometimes it was necessary to dig our heels in and say, no, we really need this to be different or highlighted in the Code of Conduct.
There was a feeling that given the different needs, we would not be able to be on the same page, but there does need to be a code of conduct that comes out of this. And I have to say that the three women who were writing it did a tremendous job of bringing these concerns together and at responding to the feedback.
The HKU plan was to have someone from each department around the discussion table, the idea being that everybody would be represented that way, but unfortunately the HKU forgot the non-Dutch-speaking group. This led to the awkward situation that even though an external advisor was invited, pre-existing institutional blind spots were reproduced. That was an eye-opener. I am happy that these traps were found early, and that the students were proactive about it.
Our suggestion to solve this was to have an interpreter at the table, quite simply a matter of budget, and luckily this was approved.
After these conversations, the writers of the HKU Code of Conduct came back with a really good first draft. We then could work from that and started getting into the nitty gritty. We could talk about its flow, where to put in examples, where to make it clearer, where to highlight certain things.
Also at this stage we could share it with students and get their feedback. This was where the issue of micro-aggression emerged—in the sense that, yes, we recognise that this document is great that it is there to handle a serious case. But how do we manage small everyday interactions?
Quite often what we found is that a Code of Conduct, including the new one that we were writing, rightfully focuses on serious cases, but does not tackle daily interactions, things like micro-aggression and more general behaviour. This gap that student groups identified needed to be filled.
Put simply, what can you do if a teacher or another student makes a remark where you think, ‘that’s a bit off.’ How do you speak up? What can you speak up about? Should you speak up at all? When’s the right time? Things like this which can be difficult to grasp and talk about.
Because the HKU Code of Conduct sessions were organised from the top down, the fine art department felt that it needed to fill the gaps in this approach and took this upon itself, with teachers, and with the platform Tools for the Times, a student-alumni-teacher group at HKU. We have done several sessions thinking through what a code of conduct is, looking into different types of code of conduct—what kind of language they use, using them as a tool for discussion and deep reading.
Primarily when making a Code of Conduct, the question is how can we make it so that it shines on everyone, and how can it be a tool for discussion?
It is important to take on the idea that undesirable behaviour is not just happening in art spaces. Once you leave the academy, such as in employment and other art spaces, there are all kinds of situations that you will need to consider, so it becomes really important to make this discussion part of the education itself.
To develop fluency in this and take it with you into the world after graduation, you have to have a set of tools and ways of speaking up, to communicate, to complain, to know that even when you are in a vulnerable or junior position that there are ways and places that do exist for discussing safety and accountability.
Manju Sharma (MS): It has been a constant learning process. In the past, at the HKU, we had individual documents for different situations and they were all stored in separate places. If you had, for example, witnessed undesirable behaviour one document would give the procedures for going to see one of the councillors, but an entirely different document addressed undesirable behaviour, which was old and had a very formal quality to it. So, there were several documents, covering different things, none of which were well connected and none were easy to find on the school network.
Each seemed to be very much a case of ‘this is something we are obliged to have, so we will do it and put it on the web,’ but I don’t think anyone looked at them. I think most people, including myself, weren’t aware that they existed.
On the HKU intranet site, there is a lot of information, but as it’s very difficult to navigate, things get hidden. So, this whole process was started by finding out what already existed before identifying what we needed to do in order to get something else in place. This made us realise that we really need to think about visibility and accessibility of the new code because while it may be nice to have, how we make it visible and practice safety is crucial.
This process was initiated from the bottom-up with concerns from students, teachers, lecturers and staff. Students gave the input that they felt unsafe, and teachers and staff recognised that there was a need to talk about the school being unsafe. Pressures were coming from both HKU internally and externally from the Ministry of Education to do something about the safety in the academy.
What the HKU management did was to recognise that we need to re-think the existing social safety procedures, and that we need to put a new Code of Conduct document in place. HKU took a very top-down approach to this. HKU hired a consultancy company to start very broad conversations at the HKU, as one school, even though we have very different departments: the fine arts department, of which I am part, as well as music, design, fashion, product design, illustration, game design, and so on.
Each department is very different and each of which has very different pedagogical needs. And further, we have facilities that very much should be in this discussion, but again have different needs and structures.
In that sense of understanding different needs, it was very nice that they took this cross-departmental HKU approach. These discussions were, however, quite tense because everybody was on guard for the specific needs of their department.
For example, the music department made clear that modes of touch between tutor and student need to be in the code of conduct because contact is part of how breathing techniques are taught and corrected. Different pedagogical techniques require specific considerations. You can’t just say touch cannot happen, you need to discuss where, when, and how physical contact can happen. Sometimes, we really found each other, across these different departments and sometimes it was necessary to dig our heels in and say, no, we really need this to be different or highlighted in the Code of Conduct.
There was a feeling that given the different needs, we would not be able to be on the same page, but there does need to be a code of conduct that comes out of this. And I have to say that the three women who were writing it did a tremendous job of bringing these concerns together and at responding to the feedback.
The HKU plan was to have someone from each department around the discussion table, the idea being that everybody would be represented that way, but unfortunately the HKU forgot the non-Dutch-speaking group. This led to the awkward situation that even though an external advisor was invited, pre-existing institutional blind spots were reproduced. That was an eye-opener. I am happy that these traps were found early, and that the students were proactive about it.
Our suggestion to solve this was to have an interpreter at the table, quite simply a matter of budget, and luckily this was approved.
After these conversations, the writers of the HKU Code of Conduct came back with a really good first draft. We then could work from that and started getting into the nitty gritty. We could talk about its flow, where to put in examples, where to make it clearer, where to highlight certain things.
Also at this stage we could share it with students and get their feedback. This was where the issue of micro-aggression emerged—in the sense that, yes, we recognise that this document is great that it is there to handle a serious case. But how do we manage small everyday interactions?
Quite often what we found is that a Code of Conduct, including the new one that we were writing, rightfully focuses on serious cases, but does not tackle daily interactions, things like micro-aggression and more general behaviour. This gap that student groups identified needed to be filled.
Put simply, what can you do if a teacher or another student makes a remark where you think, ‘that’s a bit off.’ How do you speak up? What can you speak up about? Should you speak up at all? When’s the right time? Things like this which can be difficult to grasp and talk about.
Because the HKU Code of Conduct sessions were organised from the top down, the fine art department felt that it needed to fill the gaps in this approach and took this upon itself, with teachers, and with the platform Tools for the Times, a student-alumni-teacher group at HKU. We have done several sessions thinking through what a code of conduct is, looking into different types of code of conduct—what kind of language they use, using them as a tool for discussion and deep reading.
Primarily when making a Code of Conduct, the question is how can we make it so that it shines on everyone, and how can it be a tool for discussion?
It is important to take on the idea that undesirable behaviour is not just happening in art spaces. Once you leave the academy, such as in employment and other art spaces, there are all kinds of situations that you will need to consider, so it becomes really important to make this discussion part of the education itself.
To develop fluency in this and take it with you into the world after graduation, you have to have a set of tools and ways of speaking up, to communicate, to complain, to know that even when you are in a vulnerable or junior position that there are ways and places that do exist for discussing safety and accountability.
“When making a Code of Conduct, the question is how can we make it so that it shines on everyone, and how can it be a tool for discussion?”
SA: Have you established how this code is reviewed over time? Are you programming in set revisions?
MS: HKU will work on the future upkeep of the Code, but this still needs to be finalised. How often it will be reviewed and who is on the reviewing committee still needs to be determined.
To keep it a living and relevant document I imagine it will be necessary to review it at least every two years. There is always a gap. Always the timing is a bit out because urgencies change, and because it takes a lot of time to codify them, it will always be a little out of sync. The world changes pretty fast, so at each review there will probably be a different focus. I like the idea that every time, every few years, you can spotlight and highlight different aspects of whatever is urgent at that particular moment.
While now we have identified an urgent need for handling microaggression, in two years’ time, other urgencies may have become clear. I can imagine that at some point, this will be environmental concerns. We have to think through everything we are making at an art academy. Every material we use. Oil paint, everything, what does this mean, should we be re-considering or stopping the use of certain things? I can imagine concerns in the future being focussed very much on the ecological implications of practices, which I find very exciting.
SA: I think it’s really interesting to think about how to regularise documenting these concerns, even after they have been urgent. If you have a condition which for a year is urgent but you only have a scheduled review the following year, it could feel like you have already dealt with it informally. It could be very easy to assume that you don’t need to write it down.
But bringing it into the document not only historicises what you have done, but also ensures that when the current cohort of staff and students has changed, that that learning itself isn’t lost. Your ideas about documenting that learning are really exciting.
MS: Exactly. Perhaps parallel sessions can be used to cover ongoing concerns, which could be more in sync with urgencies inside and outside the academy. And then a code review is a way to document what has happened.
A Code of Conduct is an official document that requires steps for writing and review, but there might be another platform that we can have in relation to it. This is already there to a certain extent with Tools for the Times. Often the question is just how formalised you want the relationships between more or less formal platforms to be.
SA: In terms of the structural visibility of the institution, do you know how much the new Code that is being developed will dedicate space to highlighting who is in what role, how to find them, and so on?
MS: Yes, that is in the document. Because the Code consists of several pages, it will have a one-page contacts list, so you don’t need to go through the whole thing looking for information. The intention is to make channels available in as unresistant a way as possible. But department specific roles are left to the departments to fill in because each department is different and has different needs.
Accessibility to students is one question, accessibility to staff is another, and to visitors and external people and guests is another. It is important that we consider how we make it visible that such a thing exists and how to bring awareness of what constitutes undesirable behaviour. It could be as simple as including it in the materials you send when you invite someone. You can send them a link, with a standardised sentence, ‘Please be aware of our Code of Conduct that can be found at….’ It could be as simple as that, but should be codified as well.
It is good for any institution to make these safety documents public because it demonstrates that they take their duty of care seriously.
MS: HKU will work on the future upkeep of the Code, but this still needs to be finalised. How often it will be reviewed and who is on the reviewing committee still needs to be determined.
To keep it a living and relevant document I imagine it will be necessary to review it at least every two years. There is always a gap. Always the timing is a bit out because urgencies change, and because it takes a lot of time to codify them, it will always be a little out of sync. The world changes pretty fast, so at each review there will probably be a different focus. I like the idea that every time, every few years, you can spotlight and highlight different aspects of whatever is urgent at that particular moment.
While now we have identified an urgent need for handling microaggression, in two years’ time, other urgencies may have become clear. I can imagine that at some point, this will be environmental concerns. We have to think through everything we are making at an art academy. Every material we use. Oil paint, everything, what does this mean, should we be re-considering or stopping the use of certain things? I can imagine concerns in the future being focussed very much on the ecological implications of practices, which I find very exciting.
SA: I think it’s really interesting to think about how to regularise documenting these concerns, even after they have been urgent. If you have a condition which for a year is urgent but you only have a scheduled review the following year, it could feel like you have already dealt with it informally. It could be very easy to assume that you don’t need to write it down.
But bringing it into the document not only historicises what you have done, but also ensures that when the current cohort of staff and students has changed, that that learning itself isn’t lost. Your ideas about documenting that learning are really exciting.
MS: Exactly. Perhaps parallel sessions can be used to cover ongoing concerns, which could be more in sync with urgencies inside and outside the academy. And then a code review is a way to document what has happened.
A Code of Conduct is an official document that requires steps for writing and review, but there might be another platform that we can have in relation to it. This is already there to a certain extent with Tools for the Times. Often the question is just how formalised you want the relationships between more or less formal platforms to be.
SA: In terms of the structural visibility of the institution, do you know how much the new Code that is being developed will dedicate space to highlighting who is in what role, how to find them, and so on?
MS: Yes, that is in the document. Because the Code consists of several pages, it will have a one-page contacts list, so you don’t need to go through the whole thing looking for information. The intention is to make channels available in as unresistant a way as possible. But department specific roles are left to the departments to fill in because each department is different and has different needs.
Accessibility to students is one question, accessibility to staff is another, and to visitors and external people and guests is another. It is important that we consider how we make it visible that such a thing exists and how to bring awareness of what constitutes undesirable behaviour. It could be as simple as including it in the materials you send when you invite someone. You can send them a link, with a standardised sentence, ‘Please be aware of our Code of Conduct that can be found at….’ It could be as simple as that, but should be codified as well.
It is good for any institution to make these safety documents public because it demonstrates that they take their duty of care seriously.
“To develop fluency in this and take it with you into the world after graduation, you have to have a set of tools and ways of speaking up, to communicate, to complain, to know that even when you are in a vulnerable or junior position.”
SA: Many codes refer to things like collective labour agreements but will rarely give you a link, or will refer to legal definitions without providing them. Is this something that has been engaged with in the Code that is being prepared at HKU? How definitions between what is a criminal act and what is a civil act are defined?
MS: Yes. It’s really nice to see that it’s in there. That was available before this code but it was a separate document and now it’s all in one. And because it’s all in one document these rights and responsibilities get elevated as well.
There is a section that explains very well, the clear narrative between contracts, and criminal and undesirable behaviour, and how to approach the police if something is criminal, which keeps the rigour that was lost by making them separate documents.
SA: Do you have advice or references that you think would be particularly beneficial in conversations about codifying behaviour?
MS: We started by looking at existing Codes of Conduct, so that’s one key resource, looking at what is available in your own institution or community as well as in other places, and doing deep readings to really understand them to identify blind spots.
We invited guest specialists to Tools for the Times meetings because different people can bring different insights. They can help you consider things in ways you have not thought about before.
One specialist we had made very clear to us that a Code of Conduct has a certain language, for example, which you have to be aware of. Because this language is often legalistic, it can be unclear to a general reader and so be a way for perpetrators to hide. It has been really important to bring in the perspective of other people who are looking at these things in many different ways.
If you stick with the same group, it can be really nice and safe, but sometimes you need to bring in someone who isn’t part of the group to help you become aware of your blind spots.
I would like to share also the practice of reading it loud. Then you hear things in a voice, which makes it a listening exercise not just a reading one and with this sensitivity something else happens. Each time we try to approach the material we try to make it also a bit playful.
MS: Yes. It’s really nice to see that it’s in there. That was available before this code but it was a separate document and now it’s all in one. And because it’s all in one document these rights and responsibilities get elevated as well.
There is a section that explains very well, the clear narrative between contracts, and criminal and undesirable behaviour, and how to approach the police if something is criminal, which keeps the rigour that was lost by making them separate documents.
SA: Do you have advice or references that you think would be particularly beneficial in conversations about codifying behaviour?
MS: We started by looking at existing Codes of Conduct, so that’s one key resource, looking at what is available in your own institution or community as well as in other places, and doing deep readings to really understand them to identify blind spots.
We invited guest specialists to Tools for the Times meetings because different people can bring different insights. They can help you consider things in ways you have not thought about before.
One specialist we had made very clear to us that a Code of Conduct has a certain language, for example, which you have to be aware of. Because this language is often legalistic, it can be unclear to a general reader and so be a way for perpetrators to hide. It has been really important to bring in the perspective of other people who are looking at these things in many different ways.
If you stick with the same group, it can be really nice and safe, but sometimes you need to bring in someone who isn’t part of the group to help you become aware of your blind spots.
I would like to share also the practice of reading it loud. Then you hear things in a voice, which makes it a listening exercise not just a reading one and with this sensitivity something else happens. Each time we try to approach the material we try to make it also a bit playful.