What was the key change/highlight within your department to receive your Silver award?
There was no single change within the Department, but an overall improvement in it as a place to work. That said, we do highlight the improved gender balance of the academic staff since the previous Athena Swan award, as well as consideration of equality at every level, from hiring practices, to provision of facilities and representation in invited speakers.
Why does your department feel this is an important agenda to contribute to?
We believe that a fairer and more equitable Department benefits everyone within it – including our students. The Athena Swan initiative is seen by some as a tick-box exercise that doesn't always lead to real change - but that has not been our experience. Drafting an Athena Swan award application forced us, as a department, to sit down and carefully and quantitatively evaluate how we are doing in terms of gender equality.
This enabled us to identify the areas we are doing less well on and come up with solid plans to address them in the future, as well as assess if changes we make are successful or not. Another criticism levelled at Athena Swan is that it is too focussed solely on gender and doesn't consider other protected characteristics - however we've found that many of the changes we've made, and will continue to make, will improve our Department for under-represented groups in general, rather than exclusively benefitting a single group.
How does/has this benefitted your staff?
Improvements within Equality, Diversion and Inclusion (EDI) have offset some of the extra stresses imposed by Covid-19 and the current economic crisis. Specific examples that some staff have already benefitted from include:
How does this positively impact current/prospective students and staff?
Our termly EDI bulletin consistently reminds staff and students that their opinions are valued and acted on by encouraging feedback/suggestions through EDI reps for each year group as well as an anonymous feedback box. Our EDI values are highlighted in all admissions and Open Day materials, so prospective students are aware of the value we place on them, and that we are working to make our department a positive place to work or study for everyone, independent of their background.
We hope that our staff and students can take pride that they are part of a Department that is striving to be the best place it can be for its members. We may have a long way to go on the journey, but we are pleased to be heading in the right direction.
How does your department plan to build on this for future?
There are many initiatives in our Athena Swan Action Plan, some of which we have already started to act on. We also intend to help other departments within the University and other Earth Sciences departments within the UK, by sharing our successful Athena Swan submission as an example of good practice. This process has already begun; we have shared some of our work with another Earth Sciences department. The current departmental Athena Swan lead is also acting as a mentor for other academic departments through Advance HE.
Find out more about Earth Sciences
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