Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Culture
EDI Bookcase
Our department now hosts an EDI bookcase! Staff and students can borrow a variety of fiction and non-fiction books touching on topics related to equality, diversity and inclusion. You can also suggest to us more titles you think we should add to the collection.
EDI in Engineering Module
In 2022/23, the department is trialling an optional module titled ‘EDI in Engineering’. This module is a product of an undergraduate research opportunity programme (UROP) project that proposed and designed the module.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is an important part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and is something we consider in our stragetic decisions and everyday activities. With staff & students dedicated to the fair processing of essential activities, we strive to encourage equality in everything we do; from admissions & recruitment and supporting our existing staff and students in their studies and career ambitions, to working with other College teams and external training providers to ensure that all members of the department are active bystanders and trained in unconscious bias.
On these webpages you can find out about some of the work that the Department has been working on, in conjuction with our Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Culture (EDIC) Committee, including:
- Initiatives for staff and students
- Department actions towards Race Equality
- Information about Gender Equality, our Athena SWAN award and 2019 action plan
- EDDCC membership and key contacts
The Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Culture (EDIC) Committee
Our EDIC membership comprises of individuals from all areas in the department, including the student cohort. Equal opportunities and a progressive culture is embedded in many of our processes, with strong links to the Departmental Management Committee and support processes. Current membership of this committee can be found via the link on the left-hand side of this webpage.
We welcome feedback from current staff and students on Departmental practices. Staff and Students who wish to submit feedback and/or ideas to the committee for consideration can do so using the form below. Comments will be considered in the next committee meeting.
Current Students and Staff can submit their feedback and/or suggestions here.
Accordion
Gender Equality in Mechanical Engineering
Gender Equality is something that we have strived to improve in the Department for a number of years.
Our actions and progress towards gender equality can be seen in our Athena SWAN action plan.
Race Equality in Mechanical Engineering
The inclusion of staff and students from the BAME community is at the forefront of our admissions and recruitment policies. Our Academic posts are advertised on a wide range of websites in order to attract global applicants as well as individuals from within the UK from underrepresented groups.
FELIX article, 2020
In September 2020, a group of students from our department published an open letter about the provision of support to specifically BAME students. In response to this open letter the Department has committed to the following actions:
- Provide training, as appropriate, for our wellbeing advisers in mental health support for Black, minority ethnic, and other underrepresented students, and seek ways to expand our provision, if we see that further resource is needed.
- Supplement our unconscious bias and active bystander training with race and race equality training without losing sight of other EDI-related challenge areas, such as gender and disability. Forty staff members will partake in 'Let's talk about race' training on 10 Feb and 4 Mar 2021.
- Involve our students within the Equality, Diversity, and Departmental Culture Committee (EDDCC) by inviting two representatives to sit and contribute to the committee.
- Create a new full-time post, likely to be shared with one more other departments within the Faculty, to implement the vision of the EDDCC committee. For this role, we will get student input to help define the job advertisement and person specification.
- Set up a regular schedule termly of departmental "town hall" events with students, with representation from the Departments' leadership, to share progress and seek feedback.
- Share data on student demographics relating to student access, continuation, and attainment. We have already collected these data from Registry and will share (in a suitable format) at the next town hall meeting
- Share data on department staff recruitment in terms of race (and other EDI-related categories) for job applicants and job offers (in a suitable format)