The Athena SWAN Awareness Event held on 19th September had a note of celebration, as well as a focus on the important issue gender equality in the Sciences, as it was the first awareness event held since Kent was awarded an Athena SWAN Bronze Award in April. The award recognised Kent’s commitment to developing employment practices which support the career progression of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM)
Opening the event was the Dean of Sciences, Professor Mark Burchell, who reflected on the award and the work which was started by the Athena SWAN Working Group in 2010. He also stated his intention that this would be but a single milestone in an ongoing journey towards creating an environment where female scientists are nurtured and all staff are valued.
Good Practice Benefits All, was the theme of the event and this was really bought home to attendees in the speech given by Dr Kate Horner and in the panel discussion. Kate is a member of the Athena SWAN Committee at York Chemistry Department: a department which has held an Athena SWAN Gold Award since 2007. Both Kate and the panel reflected on the importance of mentoring (by both men and women), flexible working, and an inclusive culture. Kate also spoke about how unconscious bias can be a pernicious invisible barrier to progress.
Unconscious Bias was the theme of one of the six workshops run on the day. These covered themes as diverse as promotion, career planning, and how other Kent departments and public organisations are changing culture. These workshops were designed to inform or be of practical use and the lively, frank debate which was generated by the panel discussion continued into these breakout sessions.
The Athena SWAN event gave staff a chance to reflect on the work that’s been done at Kent and inspired participants to tackle this issue with renewed energy, understanding and commitment. It helped identify the challenges that are currently affecting staff, and these will be fed back into the work of the Athena SWAN Working Group. Because having an environment, policies and procedures which don’t work for women; means that they just don’t work.