Teach me, I forget, Show me I remember, Involve me I understand.

Hello 

Welcome to the University’s equality blog and the start of a new academic year. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that we haven’t posted for a while. I, mistakenly, thought lockdown would provide more time. I quickly realised that the same time was available, just perhaps greater flexibility in how to spend it! I also learnt quite quickly the difference between working from home and working at home during a global pandemic. 

If you’re new to the blog, welcome. We use this space to share information on what the University is doing to address inequality and create more diverse, inclusive environments. However, it’s not just about us sharing information. It’s also an opportunity for you to share. If there’s something that you are interested in, or feel passionate about, on any aspect of equality, diversity or inclusion, please get in touch via equality@glos.ac.uk.  

As it’s the start of a new term, I thought I’d share the University’s commitment to equality, taken from our Equality and Diversity Policy: 

“The University is developing a culture that actively respects and values differences, recognising that staff and students from different backgrounds, cultures and experiences bring valuable insight to the University”. 

We work to achieve this through our 3 strategic priorities: 

1) Recruit, retain, develop and support a diverse workforce. 

2) Improve our students’ experiences; and 

3) Aspire to, embed and celebrate our successes. 

We have thriving and influential networks that inform our work and shape our priorities: Our Women’s Network has organised valuable developmental events which supports work to close our gender pay gap; and our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic student and staff Network guides actions in support of Black Lives Matter and reducing our awarding gap. Members of this latter Network also lead our Learning Innovation for Tomorrow (LiFT) Project focusing on ‘De-Colonising the Curriculum’. 

We work hard to celebrate a range of culturally diverse events and dates from Eid through to International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and BiPhobia. With current restrictions, these are likely to take place online this year. Again, if there’s events you feel we should mark, please get in touch. 

We have a proactive Student Union and large number of student societies who support the University in all aspects of its equality and inclusion work. The Afro Caribbean Society were instrumental in the curation of a suite of resources to educate on Black Lives Matter. 

The University takes is community leadership role very seriously, and it’s an integral part of the local community. At the start of 2020 we achieved the Disability Confident Leader status and were recognised as an ‘Exemplar Employer’ by the Going the Extra Mile (GEM) Project. We’re proud to have been nominated this year for a “We Are One Organisational Upstander” Award. We’re awaiting the outcome of the judges’ decision to find out who the winners will be. 

We’ve had some significant achievements, but recognise there’s always more to do. Why not get involved. 

Don’t forget you can follow us on twitter @UoGEquality