Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
The English Department is committed to core Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and Dignity and Respect values for all our staff and students. The Director of EDI (DoEDI) oversees our Department priorities, which are spread across all our activities. Reporting and discussion take place at Department meetings, while independent concerns can be raised in confidential one-to-one conversations with the Director. The DoEDI reports to the Faculty Wellbeing, Inclusion, and Culture Committee (FWICC).
As a Department, our core EDI values include:
- To further embed principles of equity, diversity and belonging into our practices for students at all levels: from recruitment and admission, through their time studying with us, to the point of graduation and beyond, into their lives as alumni, to ensure students from all backgrounds and of all identities are able to thrive during their time at Exeter and beyond.
- To create positive and supportive learning environments where all feel empowered to contribute and feel valued and heard as part of the learning community, where no one experiences exclusion, denigration or discrimination in any form.
- To diversify our curricula to better reflect our interconnected world and global social justice priorities.
- To celebrate difference and create spaces of community where historically disempowered and marginalised groups can meet, share experiences, and access forms of support and advice.
- To ensure a parity of experience in accessing physical, intellectual and community spaces.
- To continue to develop support tailored to the needs of students and staff from under-represented backgrounds and groups (especially, but not limited to, those with protected characteristics and from first generation university backgrounds, non-native English speakers and care leavers).
- To ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion inform the practices by which we recruit, appoint and induct new colleagues, scrutinising our practices to ensure they are robust and up-to-date, equitable and transparent, so that staff from all systemically marginalised and/or minority groups can thrive and belong as equal members of the academic community.
- To further extend EDI considerations in our policies for career development, ensuring that all have an equal chance to succeed and removing obstacles to advancement for particular groups (especially, but not limited to, those with protected characteristics and with considerations of social class).
- To ensure that physical and digital accessibility are top priorities and that and staff and students’ accessibility needs are supported and met, especially those in protected characteristic groups.
- To continue to develop carer and family-friendly policies which recognise the needs of carers, and to address and mitigate difficulties around the conflicting demands and needs they may experience where it lies in our power to do so.
- To run EDI considerations through our research culture, to encourage diversity in research itself, and to ensure that this is reflected in the ways we evaluate and support it.
- To continue to build a supportive culture around mental health and wellbeing in line with Exeter’s University Mental Health Charter Award.
- To persist with our Anti-Racism action plan in accordance with the University’s Race Equality Charter (REC) Bronze Award.
If you'd like to discuss the Department's EDI priorities, please get in touch with Professor Jane Poyner (DoEDI).
Current EDI priorities in English & Creative Writing include:
- LGBTQ+ inclusion
- Anti-racism
- Neurodiversity
- Disability and physical access
- Widening participation with particular attention to race, social class, disability and care leavers
- Diversifying student and staff recruitment
- Implementing action plan from Athena Swan application, including Champion roles (LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Pregnancy, Pregnancy Loss and Menopause Support)
EDI funded Department and community project collaborations:
The Roots Resistance, Africa Writes Exeter and Bookbag An Evening of Words, Music & Performance.
The Roots Resistance is a multidisciplinary collective of creatives based in Exeter seeking to engage with the arts as a means of transformative expression. Through creativity, discussion and the exchange of ideas, the Roots Resistance is a project that brings together Black and POC communities, and their allies, in Exeter and beyond.
Annual Teagarden lecture
This Annual lecture series funded by an anonymous donor features speakers working in UK universities, with a Black British background. The inaugural speaker in 2023 was Dr Josie Gill, Associate Professor in Black British Writing, University of Bristol.
