2020-04-29

We covered updates from DMT and Faculty Athena Swan. Items from DMT that are relevant to EDC was a discussion around how the flag display will work. Flags are political symbols and people have different views of them. This may create disagreements. EDC agreed to ask for clarification on acceptable flags and a process for any conflict resolution that may arise.

From the faculty Athena Swan it was noted that the new Dignity in the Workplace policy for students will be rolled out. A staff version will follow.The committee then discussed how the new accountability structure is representing EDI and how EDC fits within or alongside this. Discussions are ongoing on this, but the committee noted it was positive to see clarification of roles within the department.

The committee discussed how the COVID19 issue might affect data collection for the Athena Swan application in 2021. We agreed that some methods would not be viable, but we could expand others to fill in for the lack of data.

Finally, the committee discussed some issues raised by staff in terms of online meetings and working hours not overlapping, hence feeling excluded. It was noted the next staff meeting is outside of core working hours (as a one off). We also agreed a summary of the discussion from
each meeting is posted on the departmental wiki for all staff to see. If you’re reading this, we’ve done that!