Union of UEA Students

Diversity Award

1. How has the students’ union demonstrated and strengthened its commitment to equality and diversity in the past year?

At UEASU we’re about students: transforming - we want the maximum diversity of students to experience our educational activities and we want students to lead on changing attitudes and practices across the university, the community and the world

• We changed our governance structure to introduce a Welfare, Community and Diversity Officer and committee along with liberation caucuses
• We changed our staff structure, introduced a Liberation, Diversity and Welfare Coordinator to increase activity in the work of equality within the organisation
• We increased support for Liberation part time officers to give them better support in their campaigns and greater prominence of equality work amongst students
• We carried out a detailed diversity analysis of our 300 strong student staff, 100 strong career staff and 150 strong volunteer/officer team and all departments now have targets and an action plan to improve
• Separately we developed an organisation activity-wide equality scheme- “Transforming Equality”- which commits every department of the organisation to equality, with a vision with specific actions- an impact report will be produced in May 2016. www.ueastudent.com/transformingequality
• We’ve celebrated LGBT and Black History Months; put on an incredible international women’s day festival, campaigned on Gender Neutral Toilets and lobbied hard on DSA with our PPCs
• The Union has been vocal on equality; not scared to discuss hard hitting topics such as sexual assault and sexual harassment. With these campaigns, the Union not only raised awareness of the issues, but lobbied the University to change their policies, and got it on the university governance agendas

2. How has the students’ union ensured that the views of a diverse student population have been heard effectively? What projects, campaigns or innovative ideas has the union worked on that demonstrate these practices?

• Changed the democratic structure of the organisation, to introduce Liberation caucuses (LGBT+, women, students with disabilities, and ethnic minorities) allowing for greater discussions and feedback on students experiences
• Increased staff resources, allowing us to increase the work of the Liberation Officers, and ensure events such as Trans Awareness Week, Black History Month, and mental health campaigns had a prominent space in the Union’s communication platforms.
• UEA allowed us to enter into a data sharing agreement with them, meaning we can e-mail all students who have registered with ueastudent.com with updates on specific liberation campaigns.
• As part of increasing women standing in our Union elections, we ran Women in Leadership sessions prior to election week, to make leadership something accessible and exciting.
• We introduced bespoke engagement strategies for harder to reach students - nursing, postgraduate research and international students now have dedicated comms channels, student leadership and strategies
• Created a full review of the make-up of Union Council and the participation in democratic structures to ensure the diversity of students who participate in Council reflects the wider UEA student population.
• Delivered equality training to Faculty Conveners and student representatives allowing them to promote equality throughout student representative structures, effecting change in reflection of this
• Run mental health awareness training for staff and officers

We have championed various campaigns, both student led and organisational led.
• Strong portfolio of events work; from Transgender Day of Remembrance, Mental Health Awareness Day, It Gets Better, Black History Month, and This Girl Can.
• A programme of high profile speakers at our Liberation and Welfare talks, including Sue Baker (Director of Time To Change), Phyll Opoku-Gyimah (UK Black Pride), Linda Bellos (leading UK law specialist).
• Launching rainbow and feminist cups in Unio, our Coffee outlet, during LGBT History and Womens’ History Month, making equality a business priority, and gave a strong message: we are proud of the diversity of our customers.
• Brand new sports programme for PG students focussed away from formal club structures

3. What change has been seen as a result of this work?

• We have secured clear policy commitments from the university on the eradication of sexual harassment; mental health and time to change; addressing the BME attainment gap; prayer facilities and international student orientation
• One of the aims of the transforming equality project was to ensure that the Union was seen both locally and nationally for its work on equality. This has resulted in students feeling empowered to effect change and be leaders; through standing in union elections, national elections, running workshops at conferences, speaking on panel debates and winning awards at NUS LGBT Conference and NUS Womens Conference.
• The Union already has proved that it produces change that delivers impact, with recent national award recognition reflecting this. We continue to be an ambitious, and back our words with action. Both students and staff have felt the culture shift within the organisation.

Nominated by Chloe Alexander, Students’ Union Staff

What the judges said…

“Of all the submissions, this demonstrates the most strategic approach to achieving equality and diversity. The focus is very much on changing staff structures, setting targets and developing plans of action. Commendably, UEA’s Union has focused on developing leadership skills amongst students through a wide range of activities. This is very much a mainstreaming approach to equality and diversity and as such is more likely to result in cultural change.” Diane Bebbington, Leadership Foundation

“The approach the UEASU has taken is one which I consider will have the longest term impact. Examining and changing the governance and staff structures will lead to cultural and systemic changes, and better sustainability of diversity initiatives.” Gary Loke, Equality Challenge Unit