University of Bath Students’ Union

University of Bath Students' Union pick up their Equality and Diversity Award

University of Bath Students’ Union pick up their Equality and Diversity Award

NEW-NUS-Awards-2014-winner

Winner - Equality & Diversity
University of Bath Students’ Union

“The University of Bath Students’ Union strengthened its commitment to equality and diversity , along with supporting structures over the past year, by committing to the Investors in Diversity Award.

After feedback from the initial three surveys to external stakeholders, staff and students a comprehensive action plan was developed. A further set of questionnaires were sent out to assess attitudinal changes and to see if the comprehensive work undertaken by the Students’ Union over the last academic year has made a difference to our membership. We’ve already been told we have the Award. Final assessment day is on 8th May 2014, after which we will have feedback from these surveys.

We have undertaken an enormous amount of work this year, much of which has gone above and beyond normal expectation:

Training/Awareness
• Policy - Equality and Diversity Policy reviewed and redrafted - http://www.bathstudent.com/diversity/policies/
• Training - University agreed all SU student staff, 200 student leaders and all Academic Reps trained via the on-line
Equality Marshall Training module
• Regular features in Staff Newsletter about diversity issues e.g. Mediation Network, SU and University policies
• Staff/Student Officer Half Day of training on Diversity included student panel and NUS Lad Culture presentation
• Staff Forum – regular presentation on progress re diversity/equality
• Staff Teams agreed three areas they will work on in 2013-14
• Freshers’ week - crew and captains trained in diversity, as well the bar staff

LGBT
• Our sexuality: Not Your Fantasy campaign- http://people.bath.ac.uk/su4lgbs/desexualisinglesbians.php
• Two extra delegates to National Conference
• Gender-neutral dress code introduced for graduation - students can list their title as the gender neutral Mx
• LGBT Cafe event – LGBT students and staff to socialise, as well as discuss issues and campaigns.
• LGBT joint social events with Bristol and Bath Spa LGBT groups
• Trans inclusion in sport. Trans roadmap created to be distributed by the university

Lad Culture
• Jordan Kenny, incoming President, part of national group (NUS)

Race Equality
First year we have successfully engaged with Black and Asian students with a student-led photo campaign dispelling stereotypes on facebook - achieved an enormous amount of support.
• http://wearebath.tumblr.com/
• Race equality group planning to put on ‘Black History Month’

Disability
• Successful disabled sports day - http://www.bathstudent.com/sport/ouroffer/disabilitysport/ and https://www.facebook.com/events/1470752413143540/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
• Lobbied for better access reporting mechanism regarding physical access. Students now report any concerns directly to estates via the ‘Gold Button’ www.bath.ac.uk/estates #diversity
• Disabled students support groups eg for students with aspergers

Typical Student Campaign
“No such thing as a typical student”campaign - to show how diverse the student body is. Idea of the Diversity and Support Exec meeting when the topic was raised of people feeling
excluded from societies due to other people’s assumptions. Two main aims, firstly, to produce a resource pack that would help societies become more inclusive to various minority (and non-minority) groups. The second was a visual campaign to show there’s no such thing as a ‘Typical Student’ and hopefully get people thinking about their assumptions. Visual campaign features images of students of different race, gender and age participating in a range of activities.

Disclosure
Disclosure process was reviewed and publicised - http://www.bathstudent.com/diversity/disclosure/

Diversity Webpages
Updated - http://www.bathstudent.com/diversity/

Accessible Venues
Research on Bath accessible venues - http://www.bathstudent.com/diversity/

Effective Behaviours Framework – embedding the inclusivity value throughout the SU .
Focus Groups - three student groups; Black, Chinese and Disabled students. Reports and action plans to follow.

Campaigns
• Lobbied successfully for anonymous marking to be introduced - http://www.bathstudent.com/your-union/campaigns/anonymousmarking/
• International students campaign for fixed fees http://www.bathstudent.com/isa/fixintfees/
• Campaign against the immigration bill and NHS charges for International students http://www.bathstudent.com/isa/nhs_charges/ - engagement locally on the immigration bill. Don Foster MP agreed to do what he could to support students being exempt from landlord charges, and Lord Tugenhadt (University Chancellor) signed an amendment, after we wrote to him about it
• Accessibility to Campus (again a more local campaign) - http://www.bathstudent.com/your-union/campaigns/accesstocampus/
• International Conference Representatives went to their national conferences consulted and wrote reports.
• National Conference Representatives ran campaigns. Toolkit being created to support them. Disability rep met with Bath Spa, UWE, and Bristol reps to talk about regional campaigns; Race Rep ranblack students sessions and developed the Race Equality group. Also talked to the University about BME attainment.
• Time to Change Campaign on Mental Health issues - http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2014/02/25/pledge-of-support/
Student Representation
• Membership of the University trans working group
• Membership of the Inclusive Curriculum project working group.
• Diversity and Support Exec has been well attended all year and they ran a sub-group wide campaign and are feeding into Freshers’ Week a lot.
• Action plan in place for women in leadership, particularly as there is an all-male team 2014-15
• Sports Exec increased the number of women and this year was the highest number of female sports chairs
SU Constitutions for Clubs and Societies
• All updated to include equality and diversity statements.
• Inclusivity accreditation - Diversity and Support Exec developed a resource pack to enable activity groups to reflect on what barriers exist in their clubs.

Events
OneBath - not just culture but included women, LGBT, different types of diversity

Religion
Faith support is now more clearly promoted on university webpages and hopefully a solution will soon be found to the Friday prayers problem

The overall effect of all this activity has been a greater engagement with all the support and representation groups, more knowledge generally about the issues different groups face and a tangible culture change where the commitment to engage with equality/diversity issues has grown; staff and students. The University, as shown above, has also made changes as necessary and perceives the SU as the voice of minority groups far more than they did previously. Students are realising they can make changes, whatever their background.”

Nominated by Mandy Wilson-Garner, Students’ Union Staff

What some of the judges said…

“Bath have done outstanding work this year, improving equality and diversity across many areas by embedding principles of inclusion across the work of the union. From successfully lobbying the university to introduce a gender neutral dress code for graduation ceremonies to promoting disability sport, the union have had a clear impact on a range of issues that will make students’ lives better.”
Dani Beckett, Amnesty

“Truly inspiring work. A full, comprehensive, and targeted approach to Equality and Diversity. This Student Union has covered so many issues, worked hard to increase representation and inclusivity of various groups and has employed innovative and appropriate solutions to the problems people face.” Rebecca Gowland, Oxfam

Some comments from the night…