Code of conduct
What we expect of everyone at chapter events, online and in person, and what happens if someone falls short.
Draft page. Review this with the chapter committee, and check it against the national society's own policies, before adopting it. Everything in square brackets is a placeholder.
Adopted: [date]
Who this applies to
Everyone at a chapter event: members, guests, speakers, students, volunteers, and officers. It applies at lectures, the banquet, judging, committee meetings, video calls, and chapter mailing lists.
What we expect
- Treat other people’s work seriously and their persons courteously. Hard questions about the science are the point; contempt for the person asking is not.
- Give students and early-career researchers room to speak and to be wrong.
- Respect stated names and pronouns.
- Ask before photographing or recording someone, and before posting a photograph of them.
- Respect unpublished work shared in a talk. Do not circulate slides or data without permission.
What is not acceptable
- Harassment, including sustained disruption of talks, unwelcome sexual attention, and following or photographing someone against their wishes.
- Demeaning or exclusionary remarks relating to age, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, or institutional affiliation.
- Using a position as an officer, judge, reviewer, or supervisor to pressure anyone.
- Retaliating against someone for raising a concern in good faith.
Reporting a problem
At an event, tell any officer; officers are identified at the start of each meeting. Afterwards, or if you would rather write, contact sigmaxisd@gmail.com, which is read by the chapter officers.
If the concern involves an officer, write to the [president or named alternative] instead, who will keep it away from the person concerned.
Tell us what happened and what you would like to happen. You do not have to have decided that in advance.
What we do with a report
We acknowledge reports within [number] working days. We share the details only with the people who need them to respond, and we will not identify you more widely without asking you first. Anonymous reports are accepted, though they limit what we can do.
Depending on what we find, the committee may ask someone to stop a behaviour, ask them to leave an event, decline to invite them again, or end a membership. Serious matters are referred to the national society or, where a crime may have occurred, to the police.
We cannot promise confidentiality without limit: safety obligations and the law come first, and we will tell you if that point is reached.
In an emergency
If someone is in immediate danger, call the emergency services on 911 in the United States, then tell an officer.