Earlier this month, 50 UofG staff and students took part in a workshop on how the University deals with sexual violence. They learned about the work to date of the University's Strategy Group on Gender-Based Violence, looked at existing good practice and approaches from elsewhere, and took part in group discussions of case studies. Their very productive contributions will feed into the University's development of an institution-wide action plan to bring about the necessary culture change to address these issues.

Devised by the Strategy Group, with Rape Crisis Scotland and Police Scotland, the workshop was developed in response to the recommendations of the Universities UK (UUK) Taskforce to examine violence against women, harassment and hate crime affecting university students. The recommendations cover both prevention activities and how universities can respond to these issues more effectively in future.

Institution-wide approach

A key recommendation is that all universities need to take an institution-wide approach. To this end, workshop participants included a mix of academic staff, professional staff from Colleges, Schools and University Services, and students from SRC, QMU,GUU and GUSA.

Feedback from all groups was very positive: participants felt the workshop was worthwhile, interesting and informative, and appreciated the format of brief presentations and facilitated discussions.

Student partnership

Participants also appreciated the strong input and leadership from the SRC in this work, and recognised how fortunate we are as a University to have such a committed and effective student body, and a genuine SRC-University partnership.

Get involved

To find out more about the Strategy Group workshop, and future opportunities to get involved, contact Christine.Lowther@glasgow.ac.uk.

The student-led workshop 'Let’s Talk About Sexual Violence' will return next session. This very highly rated workshop was devised by the SRC with Rape Crisis Scotland, and delivered by students for students. Clubs, societies and other student groups can contact vp-support@src.gla.ac.uk to arrange their own sessions.  

Find out more

First published: 28 March 2017

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