Category Archives: TeamTalk

What members of the FMS EDI Team have been up to and what we’re planning next.

TeamTalk

Speaking the Same Language: A Dictionary for Inclusion

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Have you ever used a word and thought, “I’m not sure if I should have said that”? Or do you worry that your everyday vocabulary and dialogue might be misconstrued?

We know that language has capacity to cause harm, which is why we try to avoid saying things that we think could upset other people. But, we can sometimes say the wrong thing to someone without even realising it, and what may seem like ‘a bit of banter’ to one person can be harmful to another. In the workplace, this may lead not only to awkward conversations, but can also create lingering bad feeling, and potentially damage working relationships.

A team led by Amy Fielden from the School of Psychology was awarded funding to run a series of three workshops on “A Dialogue on Language and Labels”. Since Amy has been on maternity leave, Billie Moffat-Knox has been leading on the project with colleagues from Psychology, and has now put together workshops that are designed to help staff and students learn about what words to use, and which might cause offence, when talking about equality and diversity issues. The workshops host guest speakers from both Northumbria and Newcastle Universities (see flyer), who will first talk about their research and/or personal experiences, and then encourage an interactive discussion around particular topics. The aim is to offer some practical guidance around how to avoid being misunderstood, and enable people across the Faculty and wider University to have open and honest conversations about potentially sensitive topics.

The three workshops will be run 4-6pm in The Atrium in FMS on Wednesday afternoons in the first half of October (3rd, 10th, 17th). Whilst Billie acknowledges that the timing may not be ideal for everyone, there have been limitations around finding a collegiate space in the busy teaching timetable. She has organised the workshops so that people with prior commitments are welcome to attend for just the first hour, and if these workshops are successful, Billie will be looking to hold them at times that would be more conducive to all staff and students.

The workshops certainly look like they will be really valuable in helping us have better conversations around EDI issues. All members of the Faculty are welcome to attend, and you can sign up for one or more workshops using the links below. Light refreshments will be provided.

Register for all 3 dates

Register for 3rd October only

Register for 10th October only

Register for 17th October only

For more information please contact Dr Billie Moffat-Knox.

We will be writing about other projects that have been funded by Newcastle University’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Fund (EDIF) over the coming weeks. The EDIF funds awards up to £5K to support grass roots innovative projects proposed by our staff and students that help advance EDI at Newcastle University. There will be another call for applications before the end of the year – perhaps you might want to apply? If so, we are always happy to discuss or help you develop your idea.

TeamTalk

Meet our new Communications Team

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As mentioned in the previous post, this September we’re officially relaunching FMS EDI communications! As part of this relaunch, we have a fabulous comms team and a brand new look.

As well as our existing EDI Team (Candy, Malasree and Ann), we are bringing on board fivemore colleagues with communications experience, to make sure our EDI message is heard loud and clear across the Faculty, and that you’re all aware of the great work which we’re doing! We are excited to introduce…

Dominic Lamb

Dom works in NICR and has experience managing their social media pages and designing their intranet site.

“EDI over a number of years has become more and more embedded in everything we do as a Faculty due to the hard work and effort our EDI team have put in. Having been part of the Faculty and the local NICR team for a couple of years, I wanted to be more involved. I’ll be helping with the ideas and events that will be coming up, with editing the new intranet and developing social media content as my main focus. I look forward to the launch of the EDI communications team and seeing you all at many of the upcoming events.”
Dom Lamb

Elizabeth Amies

Lizzie works in the Graduate School. She was involved with communications in the transfer of Durham University’s School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health to Newcastle.

“I’m excited to be part of the Faculty’s EDI comms team to support the awareness raising and embedding of the great work the Faculty is doing to ensure that EDI is at the forefront of all our activities and thinking. I’m looking forward to being able to support a calendar of events being developed across the Faculty, and to showcasing the enthusiasm and energy for EDI that we all have.”
Lizzie Amies

Ann Fitchett

Ann Fitchett is the Events, Engagement and Outreach Coordinator for IoN, which includes organising their events and managing their social media.

“It’s really important that the work of the EDI team is visible to demonstrate how committed the Faculty is in supporting all its members to reach their full potential. It’s easy to become trapped in your own small bubble so to help spread the message to all the different units is a very exciting challenge.”
Ann Fitchett

Joanna Matthan

Jo is one our Lecturers in the School of Medical Education. S has expertise in social media and is a member or their EDI team.

“I’m really excited to be joining the FMS EDI Comms Team. I’ve partaken in EDI committee meetings on a school level for a few years, but the opportunity to have a wider impact as part of a dedicated and innovative team means taking my passion for equality, diversity and inclusion to a new level. Being part of the EDI Comms team will, I hope, help to widen our scope of what we currently perceive as EDI and to become even more inclusive as a University.”
Jo Matthan

Bana Abdulmohsen

Bana is a Teaching Fellow in our School of Dental Sciences (SDS) and a member of the SDS EDI Team. Currently, she is organising the SDS cross-cultural awareness training for students and staff.

“I am excited about becoming more involved in EDI as part of the Faculty’s EDI Comms Team. I have received support from the EDI Team, and am eager to help promote and cascade the EDI ethos, activities and events so that other staff across the Faculty can benefit too.”
Bana Abdulmohsen

As well as our excellent new comms team, we also have a brand new look!

  • Our blog has been completely refreshed, to keep you up to date with everything that’s going on with FMS EDI.
  • We have a new intranet site where you’ll find all the information about what we do, the support available to you, and our upcoming events.
  • Our Twitter will soon have a specially designed new profile photo, to set us apart from everyone else.

We’re really excited for the upcoming year in FMS and can’t wait to show you all what we have planned!

TeamTalk

Improving Communications around EDI: What do we do, and why?

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Whilst many of us have been taking holiday over the summer break, our FMS EDI Student Interns have been working hard to make sure that we can improve our communications about the equality, diversity and inclusion work going on in the Faculty.

Feedback form various surveys and focus groups have told us that we need to do more to let our staff know what we are doing, and why. For example, staff in the EDI Focus Groups that we ran in January, scored us only 4.6 out of 10 on our comms, which has an impact on their ability to engage with what we’re doing. People wanted to know more about what we are actually doing, and why, and have access to more information about the support that is offered and the benefits that it brings.

We hear you!

Over the summer, we recruited two student interns, Georgia and Joe, to help us out. We first set up an EDI Comms Team, committed to ensuring that key messages are communicated effectively, through a variety of different routes. We’ve taken advantage of the new intranet pages to develop our own Faculty EDI site: you can find a wealth of information on it for staff and for students, including an events calendar, and we’ll continue to build resources over the coming months. Let us know if you think we’ve missed something!

Our blog has also been revamped so that we can use it more this year to tell you about who our EDI team are, about the activities and events we will be running, and about projects we are working on and that you can get involved with. Some of the blog series we have planned for the next few months will showcase some of the projects are staff are running with support from the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Fund, give you some insights into what it is like to be in the senior management and leadership team, and how some of our staff manage working part-time. We are always looking for ideas for blogs or why not write something for us?

Finally, we continue to develop our twitter feed @FMSDiversityNCL. We see this as an important way to keep up to date with what’s happening around the University and across the sector, and to bring in ideas to stimulate our thinking. We also use it to advertise events and keep followers up-to-date with what we’re working on. We have nearly 1000 dedicated followers, so why not follow us?

We are also going to try out some new routes of communication – hopefully, you’ll see some of our new posters in our public spaces – these will be regularly updated. We’ll also be making more use of the screens to help advertise our events and activities. You can also follow our FMS EDI intranet site to make sure that you are first to know about the latest developments, and sign up to training and networking events.

If you want to contact the new EDI Comms Team to tell us some good news, an idea for a blog, an event you’d like us to promote for you, or just give us some feedback on how we’re doing, do get in touch: FMS.EDIPlanning@ncl.ac.uk

LGBT+, TeamTalk

Do you want a Rainbow Lanyard? 

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A few weeks ago, as part of Newcastle University’s Pride celebrations, a small number of rainbow lanyards were distributed around the Faculty and University. The response to them was overwhelming, so we’ve ordered a lot more! Over 2000 of these colourful rainbow lanyards are now being distributed, so keep an eye out across the campus to make sure you get one!

However, these aren’t just a fashion accessory: wearing one shows your support for our LGBT+ staff and students across the University. We admit that they are very pretty and the colours are certainly striking, but they also have meaning: the lanyards sport the six colours of the rainbow flag, with the addition of brown and black to promote inclusion of Black and Asian members of the LGBT+ community. Wearing a rainbow lanyard signifies your commitment to provide a working and study environment where our LGBT+ staff and students feel safe, comfortable and included.  

The lanyards were designed by our new Rainbow@ncl Network to raise awareness around LGBT+ issues, and we will be working closely with them over the coming year to make our Faculty more inclusive.

If you would like to know more about what the rainbow flag represents, and why it’s important to take pride in wearing a rainbow lanyard, you can read an earlier post or see our flyer.

If you have any further questions about the rainbow lanyards or our Faculty’s work around LGBT+ inclusion, please don’t hesitate to contact our Faculty EDI Team. And if you want to join the Rainbow@ncl Network, contact Gareth.Longstaff@ncl.ac.uk.

And make sure you get your hands on a rainbow lanyard as soon as they arrive, as there are only 2000 to go around!

TeamTalk

Our Student Interns

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As some of you may already know, this summer our team has taken on three student interns to help with the promotion of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Faculty of Medical Sciences…

I (Georgia Spencer) am one of the two Communications Officers. I have just completed my History undergraduate degree and am continuing my studies at Newcastle University in September with a Masters in Cross-Cultural Communication and International Marketing. So far in my role, I have completely redesigned this blog, to make it more attractive and easier to navigate. I’ve worked on a number of blog posts around Pride and the recent raising of the rainbow flag at Newcastle University, and I’ve also spoken to members of several staff networks to help produce promotional materials for them.

Currently, I’m working on designing a brand new internal site for FMS EDI on NU Connect, which I intend to complete by the end of my internship. I have also created a calendar with awareness days to plan events around, and intend to produce promotional material for events such as International Men’s Day and National Mentoring Day based on this. I’m also planning a blog series on staff in FMS who’ve been successful in their careers while working part-time, to raise awareness of flexible working – if anyone in FMS would be interested in speaking to me for it, please get in contact!

I am excited for the rest of my internship as it’s giving me great experience for my Masters and a career in communications. I’m also really enjoying developing some of my existing skills, such as writing, while also using them in new platforms I’ve learnt about, like SharePoint. Finally, I’ve gained a lot of knowledge about EDI issues specific to FMS, as well as being able to raise awareness of broader EDI issues that are important to me.

Lorna Britten is a Data Analyst Officer. She is a Maths undergraduate, beginning her final year of study in September. In her role, Lorna has been studying data about students and staff in FMS and presenting it in bar charts and graphs. In particular, Lorna’s work has focused on ethnicity (which has not been done before for FMS), looking at data regarding headcount, attainment, offer rates and acceptance rates. She has also looked at intersectionality, to see how other factors such as gender and disability affect these statistics.

In the second half of her internship, Lorna will be comparing her findings against national averages and trends, to see where Newcastle University falls within these. She will also more carefully examine the admissions and acceptance data, to make her findings more accurate. Finally, she hopes to present her findings as a series of infographics, in order to make the data more readable and impactful.

Lorna is enjoying her internship, as she feels she is learning important new skills and gaining experience, while also being able to help with a task that will hopefully encourage change, making Newcastle University a more equal place to study and work. She is also interested in potentially becoming a Data Analyst when she graduates, and believes this internship is providing her with relevant experience and helping her discover if it would be a career path she is interested in.

The third student intern is Joe Robson, who is also working as a Communications Officer. He’s a History and Politics undergraduate, who, like Lorna, is moving into his third year in September. During his internship, Joe has been preparing a series of blog posts on EDIF funded projects, speaking to those involved and drafting the posts. He’s written a report on our FMSDiversity Twitter account, looking at who follows us and using analytics to make recommendations about how to reach more people. He’s also been working on flyers about the rainbow Newcastle University lanyards.

By the end of his internship, Joe hopes to have produced more flyers and blog around future events and initiatives, such as International Women’s Day. He also intends to review the externally facing FMS EDI website, as well as complete his work on an FMS EDI logo.

Joe believes his time as a Communications Officer will give him experience in the communications and publicity fields, as well as providing him with transferable skills such as teamwork. He also hopes to gain a better sense of the EDI issues within his own University, as well as in Higher Education more broadly.