THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Q&A with Sarah Klaper, University Ombudsperson

Northwestern University's Office of the Ombudsperson serves the community as a confidential, impartial, informal, and independent resource for navigating life at Northwestern.

Sarah Klaper, Northwestern's ombudsperson, plays a key role in resolving concerns and working through issues. She helps with resolving university-related concerns, is independent of the University's formal administrative structure, and considers all sides of an issue impartially.

Read below to learn more about Sarah and her level of support.

• Can you describe your role as Northwestern University’s Ombudsperson? 
  As University ombudsperson, I am a confidential, impartial, informal, and independent conflict resolution resource for the entire Northwestern University community. I help office visitors to identify their concerns, understand relevant policies and processes, determine who can be helpful for their issues, think through how to talk with those individuals, develop strategies for options for addressing concerns, facilitate difficult conversations, and mediate conflicts. I also advise leaders across the university about trends and concerns that I am observing based on my work.
• Can you tell us what inspired your decision to engage in this work? 
  My background is in public interest law, which I truly enjoyed. However, law is frequently adversarial by nature. I much prefer a collaborative environment where relationship-building is an essential component of the work. In this role, I still work with policy, process, and strategy. However, the position is just as much about empowering individuals to advocate effectively for themselves and building relationships and collaborations with decision-makers across the university to get issues addressed and to get things done.
• What resource(s) can you and your office provide for graduate students?
  The Office of the Ombudsperson is a place where graduate students can safely talk through their concerns and issues with someone knowledgeable about university processes and structures. I can help them develop strategies and options on how to approach their concerns in a way that will be effective for them. How they ultimately handle the issue stays in their control, but I can help them figure out the most effective ways they can go about it, who is a good resource for them, how to approach that person, etc. We also can facilitate or mediate difficult discussions with advisors, committee members, colleagues, or TGS. Finally, we provide workshops on conflict resolution, leadership skills, disagreeing and maintaining relationships, and giving/receiving feedback in a professional manner.
• How can graduate students most easily contact and/or make an appointment with you?
  If you are ever thinking that you don’t know how to move forward with a situation; that you don’t know what policies or processes apply to your situation; that something feels unfair, but you don’t know how to deal with it; that a conflict is heading your direction, but you don’t know what to do to minimize it; or that you are in the middle of a conflict, and it is getting out of control, please reach out to the Office of the Ombudsperson by emailing ombuds@northwestern.edu, calling (847) 467-2430, or visiting our website. We are happy to meet with you in person in Evanston or Chicago, or on Zoom.
• What’s one fun fact you can share about yourself?
  Right before the pandemic, I decided to fulfill a long-held dream to try out for a roller derby team. Sadly, I was not coordinated enough to be successful. However, I did referee for that team for a bit before the pandemic shut everything down. I still think that roller derby is incredibly fun to watch, and the community there is fantastic. 

Categories: Around Campus