Category: EDI

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Nadia Karim on Newcastle University’s Summer School

Spending a week at Newcastle University’s Partners’ summer school, gave me a helpful insight into university life before starting the course in September. We were introduced to the style of lectures and seminars, as well as being taught how to reference and cite sources, which became extremely helpful when writing my in-course assessment during my first year.

The summer school gave me an opportunity to make friends with many of the people on my course and explore the campus and the city; allowing us to find our favourite places around Newcastle. This made the transition to university easier, as we were surrounded by familiar faces and places. Participating in Partners’ scheme confirmed that Newcastle University was the uni for me. Once I completed and passed the summer school, it helped to ease the pressure of A Level results day.

Now, I am a first year dental student and have become best friends with many of the people I met at the summer school. The experience of summer school meant that I was more relaxed and confident at the start of uni, since I already knew my way around the dental school and the expectations of the course.

Partners
• Gave insight into uni life
• The style of lectures and seminars
• Chance to meet people on the course
• Make friends
• Made the transition to uni easier
• Easier seeing a familiar face on the first day
• Completed the Partners’ Summer School essay – very helpful opportunity, helped us with referencing and citations – something I had not previously been taught
• Explored campus and the city

I am thoroughly enjoying my first year as a dental student. As the course is relatively small, it means that it is a close-knit community, across all five years of students. The peer-mentoring scheme means that first year students always have an ‘older’ student to turn to for advice and guidance if they have any issues or questions about exams, assessments and general uni life.

The course is extremely interesting and I have found myself being introduced to many new areas of study, including learning through practical anatomy sessions; undoubtedly my favourite part of first year. I hope to continue to enjoy the course and its challenges!

Nadia Karim, Stage 1 BDS

 

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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the Dental School’s student representation system.

We have an Academic Representation system in the University that allows students to feedback on their course and experiences in their learning community, these structures are termed the Student-Staff Committees (SSC) that each School and Institute possess.

Our University campus is now characterised by diverse nationality, ethnicity, ability, age groups, and educational backgrounds. It is vital that we engage such students in our representation systems to ensure that they are being fully represented and so that all groups benefit from the consequences of such engagement. Where staff meet students on an equal level, the representation system is a sound platform to welcome and engage diverse populations of students.

True representation should be the embodiment of EDI, however, we want to know just how ‘representative’ we are in our Dental SSC and do we truly represent all student voices? Therefore, we (Luisa Wakeling (SSC Staff facilitator) and Paula Waterhouse (EDI Staff Rep)) applied to the Faculty Education Research Development and Practice unit for some funding to employ a student intern to help them investigate just that.

As part of this project, we will be recruiting student Equality Reps to help us review the inclusivity of our SSC, recruitment and training, and champion EDI in our curriculum and learning community.

Dr Luisa Wakeling

Lecturer, Dental Sciences

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EDI Week – Staff Profile – Dr Bana Abdulmohsen

As part of EDI week (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) and to showcase the positive benefits to staff that the University’s policies can have, Dr Bana Abdulmohsen has written a short post about how it has affected her working life…

Dr Bana Abdulmohsen
I joined Newcastle University in 2015 as a Teaching Fellow in the School of Dental Sciences (SDS). This was after completing a PhD in Dentistry at Bart’s and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London.

To begin with, one of the main challenges I faced was to ensure a high standard of teaching delivery due to having worked many years in a purely research environment. I have been privileged to be supported by many colleagues and have learned a lot from them in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. I understood that making mistakes is not something to feel shamed about, but it is a something to learn from, reflect on and aim to improve. Later on, my teaching skills were refined to a large extent through the Newcastle training I had for my Fellowship in Higher Education (FHEA).

Last year, I had my second child and faced a new challenge; balancing between life and work on my return from maternity leave. I was very blessed having had great support from the FMS/University when I was awarded the FMS Returner’s Support Programme fund to attend and present my research in a prestigious international conference (International Association of Dental Research and Pan European meeting IADR/PER general Session 2018, London, UK. https://iadr2018.zerista.com/event/member/492167). This was an opportunity to network with experts and I learned about the recent innovations in my research field.

The Head of School and the School Manager were both supportive in changing my pattern of work and provided me with the facility that allows me to continue breastfeeding my baby. Not to forget the benefits that NU parents can get from the Childcare Voucher Scheme for Nursery/School clubs vouchers for my two children.
Being involved as a member in the SDS Equality Diversity & Inclusion EDI Committee helps me to understand and appreciate the efforts exerted to respect the diversity and ensure fairness among all employees. All of the above makes me feel satisfied and happily committed to my work at Newcastle University.