The Faculty’s progress towards our EDI strategy

11 Feb 2022

How can you get involved in developing inclusion within Humanities?

Colleagues across the Faculty of Humanities have been developing a strategy for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) over the last year to bring together ideas and experiences from students, staff and stakeholders, build on best practice, and consult with senior leaders. The Faculty of Humanities EDI strategy will help us to achieve our vision of creating an inclusive culture in partnership with staff and students, recognising that equitable policies, practices and structures are central to achieving excellence. It will enable us to measure the impact of the actions we take as we work to achieving our vision for EDI.

Dr Susie Miles, Associate Dean for EDI and Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education in SEED said: “EDI is a term that we use to focus attention on, and address, inequalities in structures and processes for all staff and students. For the University, and the Faculty of Humanities, it means we’re committed to taking action to ensure greater diversity among University staff, and continuing to introduce more inclusive ways of working, teaching and learning.”

Since we began this collaborative process of identifying ways of speeding up the pace of change in Humanities, a new EDI governance structure has been created with the appointment of the University’s first EDI Director, Banji Adewumi, in August 2021, who is directly accountable to Patrick Hackett. The four School EDI leads - Eloise Moss (SALC), Dimitris Papadimitriou (SoSS), Jenny Rodriguez (AMBS) and Laura Winter (SEED), and the PS EDI lead, Alison Wilson, are represented by Susie at the University EDI Committee chaired by Nalin Thakkar.

Susie added: “The Humanities strategy has been evolving in line with the development of a University-wide long-term EDI Strategy, and we’re looking forward to sharing our work with Humanities colleagues in the next few weeks. There will be a strong emphasis on embedding EDI into everything we do, and on creating a clear EDI governance structure in Humanities.”

The four key areas of the strategy are:

• leadership and staff development;
• staff entry and progression;
• student entry and progression;
• building an inclusive culture.

If you would like to share any comments or ideas around these four areas, or if you have any questions, please email Susie Miles or your School EDI lead, who will welcome and value your input.

Watch out for an upcoming feature by Susie in eNews which will give an insight into the EDI strategy and showcase some of our achievements to date.