Equalities Action Planning: Shifts and Continuities Dr Meena Dhanda HLSS Equality & Diversity Coordinator 29 April 2008

Beginning with Race Equality Action Plan 1. Area Activity 2. Outcome: What we want to achieve 3. Action: What we will do 4. Time-scale: By when 5. Impact: High/Medium/Low 6. Persons/group responsible: Who will ensure that it happens 7. Monitoring: Who will judge achievement or lack of it 8. Follow-up: What we intend to do next

‘Area Activity’ in REAP Organised around ‘Student Life Cycle’  Marketing  Open days  Admissions  Induction and Enrolment  Teaching, Learning and Assessment  Student support and Guidance  Progression  Employment Opportunities Staff Experience  Advertisements and Job Descriptions  Short-listing candidates and Interview Panels  Induction of new Staff  Staff Development Opportunities General  Culture and Communication  Community links

HLSS Equality & Diversity Action Planning New format, potentially covering all equality strands  Race, Disability, Gender, Sexuality, Religious Belief, Age Using indicators of success from the University Equality and Diversity Strategy, working towards:  A diverse staff (not just ethnically diverse)  A diverse student body (not just ethnically diverse)  Consolidate and embed the School’s response to developments in the national diversity and equality legislative framework  Equivalent levels of satisfaction for all groups of students  Good progression rates for all categories of student

Shifts and Continuities Plan not organised sequentially over ‘student life cycle’, even though still covering aspects of marketing, induction, teaching and learning, student support, employability etc. More closely aligned with University ED Strategy New HLSS Equality and Diversity Group All aspects of student life cycle covered by/through the membership of EDG, including representatives from all School Committees and Student representation from the student council Impact Assessment now over all strands

Where do we go from here? Retain action priorities from REAP  BME progression seminar  Analysis of Staff recruitment Broaden scope of ED action planning by building in action priorities to gradually cover all strands  Foster staff awareness of LGBT issues  Train Staff to make teaching, learning and assessment inclusive by increasing awareness of learning needs relating to disability

Conclusion Readjustments to policy making and implementation are the concomitants of institutional measures seeking compliance with Government legal directives. They are not the whole story. Mere compliance does not produce an ethos of genuine equality and diversity, but merely a simulation of it. Our analysis of what we are doing right and correcting our wrongs must aim beyond compliance with legislation We must genuinely engage with understanding diversity whilst recognising the limits of such engagement