Consider Discussing your Concerns with a Trusted Party and Evaluate the Nature of your Concern

Deciding to raise a concern within the music department, particularly when it relates to interpersonal behavior, can cause you stress. An important first step is to connect with a faculty or staff member whom you trust and with whom you can make some key decisions about the nature of your concern and the options that are available for a resolution. 

  • A trusted party within the department may include:
    • The Staff Graduate Advisor
    • The Faculty Director of Graduate Studies 
    • Your Dissertation Advisor / Performance Instructor or other committee member
    • The Department Chair or Vice Chairs
    • A Member of the Executive Committee: this committee consists of the Chair, Vice Chair, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Graduate Studies, and Chair of the DEI Committee
  • If you feel unsure about whom to contact with your concern and would like to discuss your options in a confidential manner prior to voicing your complaint within the department, we recommend reaching out to the Ombuds Office, as a first step. 

During your preliminary conversations about your experiences, faculty and staff will—to the extent permitted by UC policy and the law—try to keep all information confidential until you feel comfortable pursuing a particular course of action. Please note that if a matter involves incidents of sexual harassment, sexual violence, and/or discrimination on the basis of sex and/or gender, University employees are required by law to report these incidents to the Title IX & Sexual Harassment Policy Compliance office. We mention this not to deter you from contacting department members, but to make you aware of your rights as students and the responsibilities of faculty and staff. If you are wanting to discuss incidences of sexual misconduct in a confidential setting, we recommend that you contact CARE at 805-893-4613.

 

How to Start the Conversation

While the conversation with your trusted department member or Ombuds person may not lead to an immediate resolution of your concern, these initial conversations should help to develop a clearer sense of where best to address your concern to achieve an effective improvement to your experience. During your conversation, you may want to discuss the following:

Review the issue at hand and determine where it might fall on the spectrum of complaints, as this will determine the most effective outlet or office for resolving the problem based on your needs. The following document provides an overview of how to evaluate the nature of your complaint or labor grievance, but you will likely want to make the determination with your trusted party, especially if you are feeling stressed by your current working conditions. Another helpful resource is the Holistic Approach to Conflict and Adversity wheel published by the Graduate Division.

 The answer may vary, but it will determine the best course of action. For instance: if your complaint is about the physical conditions of your workplace, the likely resolution would involve staff in Facilities Management. If it involves a mentor, there are potentially two affected parties. In a course setting, the affected parties could include other students, and an effective resolution might involve multiple parties. 

Once you have determined the nature of your concern and the affected parties, your trusted department member can help you explore your options for next steps. 

Complaints can sometimes take time to resolve; as changes can be slow to enact. The formal grievance process involves outside campus offices following fixed procedures, which have their own timelines. It is important that during this period you have the support you need to continue your education at UCSB. With your trusted department member or Ombudsperson, you can discuss campus resources that can provide you with support for your mental and physical health, and/or short-term possibilities for diminishing the impact that your concern has on your wellbeing. Additional campus resources for supporting your emotional and physical wellbeing are provided in the “further resources” section.

Outcome of Discussion with your Trusted Department Member

After this discussion, your trusted department member will send a note to the Department Chair (or in the event that the complaint is about the Chair, the Vice Chair) noting that they have discussed a complaint with a student. As the student, you can inform your trusted department member how much information they may provide the Department Chair or Vice Chair at this time, except in incidences of mandatory reporting, which faculty and staff are required to report to the Title IX office. Your trusted department member will follow up with you via email in a week to check in with you, should you wish to further discuss steps for resolving the issue at hand. 

Because of the nature of graduate instruction—which typically involves individual mentorship—many complaints begin as incidents of miscommunication and misunderstandings. We thus outline a few possibilities for handling complaints between two individuals below.

Discussion and Negotiation between Affected Parties

If you decide to raise your concern with the other department member directly, you can request a meeting in writing via email, voicing the nature of your complaint, and then follow up with a meeting in which you discuss how to resolve the conflict and improve the working relationship. If this option feels too intimidating due to power dynamics or otherwise, there are other options below.


 

Discussion and Negotiation between Affected Parties with an Internal Observer

You can propose a meeting with the other department member in the presence of another department member, who could serve as a neutral internal observer of the meeting. Potential internal observers could be the trusted party with whom you initially talked through your concerns, another member of your committee, the Department Chair, Vice Chair or member of the Executive Committee.


 

Discussion and Negotiation with an Outside Mediator from the Ombuds Office

The Ombuds Office offers mediation and/or conflict resolution services. You could work with the Ombuds Office to coordinate and facilitate a meeting with the other department member.


 

Intervention on your Behalf by the Chair

You could meet with the Department Chair privately to voice your concerns, and decide whether you wish for the chair to talk with the other party, either with or without your presence. This option may be ideal for complaints involving multiple students in a course, or for incidents where you wish to reduce/eliminate contact with the person who is the subject of your concerns while the matter is being handled by the department or university.