Music

What have been the key changes within the department for you to receive your award?

Working towards this Award has normalised talking about these issues, which is a great achievement in itself. 

The earliest steps were looking at curriculum and reading lists, increasing the presence of women as authors and in narratives, and exposing students to content that is more explicitly critical with a range of scholars across genders. It’s how it should always have been. 

We’ve also redesigned our recruitment campaigns, phrasing ads in a way that is more inclusive. It’s a small department with low turnover, and we still have a lower female proportion of staff, but we’re looking at different ways to address that and are on an upward trajectory. 

We now integrate unconscious bias and active bystander training into our induction process, and we’re making an effort to ensure our webpages show inclusivity and diversity. 

Why do you feel this is an important agenda to contribute to? 

The process provides a vehicle for change. There’s an application form to complete, and it’s a data-driven process, so you scrutinise student and staff data. If the data suggests any gender-related issues, you come up with actions informed by discussion, focus groups and surveys to address them, then measure and evidence success. The action plan is live and monitored. 

The process facilitates conversations which are sometimes uncomfortable, but if they’re not uncomfortable, it’s probably not going to be a productive process. You can’t change a culture in silent ways – different opinions need to be voiced.  

Out of the application and the focus groups came a coherent plan of action. The granularity of that plan is important – without the Athena Swan process, I’m not sure we would have explored gender equality at such a granular level. 

How will this benefit your staff and students?

Supporting and enhancing the careers of women is a big part of the process, as well as the representation on the curriculum, but it is ultimately about providing fair, evidenced opportunities that support all. Athena Swan work has also created opportunities for thinking about gender equality outside the department, where students live other parts of their musical lives – through Musicon, the University’s professional concert series, for example. 

How does the department plan to build on this for the future?

We can celebrate the achievement of getting to this point but it’s not a final destination – it’s a starting point. We want to maintain the momentum and continue the work that’s now in progress. 

We are now more conscious and strategic about role models, celebrating research success, and training opportunities such as Aurora, and Diversifying Leadership, too. We need to continue to strive to support the career trajectories of female staff. 

The whole process has also opened up dialogue in different areas – like decolonisation – so we are looking at the curriculum and reading lists from that perspective as well, benefiting from the previous experience of Athena Swan. We will continue to listen to students and work collaboratively to address those issues. 

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