Over the past year, the UG/PGT Athena Swan working group have been focused on several strands of work.  

Annual Athena Swan Induction Session – this took place on 19th September 2024 for SHW students to discuss equality, diversity and inclusion. This was a hybrid event and was attended by approximately 40 students. The session included: an introduction to SHW and SHW Teaching; an introduction and overview of Athena Swan; an overview of the diversifying the curriculum work: an overview of legal frameworks and UofG Dignity at Work and Study Policy and finally a summary of the role of the Student Support Officer. All students were sent the slides and recordings, and lunch was provided.  

Diversifying the taught curricula - Evidence suggests that optimising accessibility, representation, and decolonising the curriculum improves student experience and may help reduce the attainment gap. Over th past year, efforts have been made to undertake a review of the three core Master of Public Health (MPH) courses with an EDI and decolonisation lens. The complexity and time commitments of undertaking reviews of curriculum, assessment, and reading lists, and effectively co-ordinating updates and developments to address identified issues, is considerable. As such some members of the group in collaboration with interested staff, students and alumni have been working on the three core public health courses. Activities are summarised below.  

Principles of Public Health

  • Approach: Undertake a collaborative curriculum review alongside students engaging the Whose WORDD counts? tool as a guide. Where relevant, suggestions for new learning materials and assessments are further explored and developed with a focus on integrating and amplifying any under-represented views and voices. Students are invited to contribute at each stage of the project and offered opportunities to update and create learning materials collaboratively with colleagues with expertise in online pedagogy development. Updates to the course reading lists during this process improves inclusivity.  
  • Review progress: Weeks 1-5 complete, week 6 in progress, weeks 7-10 scheduled

Introduction to Epidemiology & Statistics (IES)

  • Approach: Using the Whose WORDD counts? tool as a guide all ten teaching weeks of the IES course will be reviewed.   
  • Review progress: The IES team have reordered the weeks of the online learning materials. The review will commence when this has been finalised.  

Research Methods

  • Approach: Using the Whose WORDD counts? tool as a guide all the teaching material across the ten weeks of the Research Methods course were reviewed. 
  • Review progress: Areas of good practice were identified and areas for further development were noted. Changes will be made to the Ethics; Critical Appraisal and Coming Up With Ideas sessions to ensure that diversity is considered in a more meaningful way. 

Student-led cultural event: Black History Month – Laura Sharp and Samuel Owusu Achiaw have been supporting three students with black heritage to offer a Black History Month lunchtime event reclaiming and honouring African narratives. Funding has been secured through MVLS CEDI, UoG EDI, and the SHW Athena Swan team.

If you would like to join this group, please contact the chair Julie Langan-Martin.

First published: 30 October 2024

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