This is an interview with Michela MacDonald, who is stepping back from her role as co-lead of the EECS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee after five years.
What would you say are your main achievements in the five years?
I started with Mustafa (Dr Mustafa Bozkurt) at the same time and finished at the same time, after the Athena SWAN Silver application was completed. We handed over to Charis and Habiba (Dr Charalampos Saitis). The Equalities Committee is now more visible as a group. More conversations have been started around EDI, both through staff meetings and through smaller initiatives. I would like to highlight that this work has started but is by no means finished. It showcases to colleagues what is being done and what initiatives are available, e.g. the Women in Higher Education Network. We have made great progress in pulling these ideas together into one platform and sharing them with the rest of the staff. We have also ensured that outcomes are evaluated so that we know whether these measures are actually effective in practice.
We have built a more robust platform that makes it easier to implement other EDI activities. This will make it easier in future for new initiatives. Efforts in this direction will be recognised or acknowledged, and this will be game-changing in the future. This was an important part of the EDI action plan and the Athena SWAN implementation. The workload allocation model is open and should clearly show everyone what colleagues do.
A major thing while you have been lead is the preparation for the Athena SWAN award. Tell me about that.
We expect to hear whether we have received the Silver award on 13 February. Project and people management are important skills that I was learning on the go. Once you find the right people to ask questions of, those people are both helpful and knowledgeable, but sometimes finding the right person was not so easy. Everyone tried their best to help, provide information, and contribute, and that gave me a great sense of collegiality.
The Athena SWAN process is an opportunity to review what we as a school do about gender equality. Collecting and evaluating the data in the context of your region can be really useful if you want to engage with this: what are the issues, and how can we meaningfully address them, given that the whole sector has similar constraints—COVID, lack of money? Some meaningful measures do not require investment but do require people, commitment, and good management. Policies around supporting people returning from maternity leave and around menopause can really help. These policies do not require big investment but instead recognise and support needs. The workload allocation model did not cost money (it was adopted from other schools). These low-cost interventions can have a significant impact on how people experience work. Putting the application together helped coalesce these ideas and formalise work that often takes place in the background, bringing it to the forefront.
Is there anything you feel is “unfinished business”?
We want to collect more data and be able to measure the impact of what we do. We do not have mechanisms to measure success in many cases. For example, some particular datasets are not collected by the school or are not accessible to the people who need them. This can be frustrating, as finding and collating data is cumbersome. We have certainly improved data collection, but there is still some way to go. Athena SWAN, for example, emphasises intersectional analysis (when people have more than one protected characteristic), but we did not have good ways to separate out this data from other data.
Personally, I want to focus on EDI in the joint programmes (programmes with universities overseas), as this aspect has been slightly overlooked. Staff not based in London can be isolated from the main campus, and the rhythm of their work can be different and not reflected in staff surveys and data collection. The distinction between joint-programme staff and London-based staff is significant and often not reflected.
Do you have any advice for the new EDI Committee?
Everything can be changed; you do not have to do things the way we did in the past. Rethink things with a fresh perspective—change is not a bad thing. Be clear in dividing roles and tasks so you know who is doing what. I would like to see more engagement from members of staff who want to get involved. Finding people who are involved and engaged can be hard, but this is key to getting the process going. This will generate more communication and collegiality within the school.
Do you have some final thoughts?
I have learned a lot about the school and faculty. It has helped me develop my own skills, particularly in organising people. It was a learning curve, but I enjoyed it. However, I recognise that it is time to hand over to others.