I am committed to nurturing a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion for all staff and students in the faculty. I was on the committee overseeing the university's successful institutional Athena SWAN (Silver) submission (2017) and our pending Gold submission (2023), and contributed to our successful Race Equality Charter (Bronze) submission (2021). I am proud of the work the faculty has done to decolonise and diversity its curriculum.
I have worked to demystify and make more transparent the university's promotions process to colleagues and have encouraged more women and more colleagues on the Teaching and Curriculum Leadership pathway to apply. I have been delighted to see that over the last five years we have been able to make a real difference (improving the gender balance for promotion to all levels, and a number of colleagues promoted to full T&CL professorships).
When I joined Nottingham, all the portraits in the university's principal meeting rooms were of (dead) white men. I instigated and led on a project which has replaced those with photographic portraits more representative of our community, including living women who have made an impact on the university (including estates and technician colleagues as well as academics and alumni) and international colleagues. These have been very well received and I have been pleased to hear from colleagues who say they now feel more connected to the university when in those spaces. I have learned that some quite small interventions can make a large difference.
Part of fostering a diverse and inclusive community is to widen the number of colleagues involved in decision-making. I bring to the role a deep interest in developing leadership within the faculty and in fostering a values-driven workplace. I encourage decision-making to be as agile as possible, and encourage openness, transparency, and empowerment. I seek to advance a truly inclusive environment, celebrating success, and finding ways of making colleagues feel part of a single community.
I look forward to working with the Faculty EDI Committee to further our objectives.