Athena Swan Awards
We are proud to hold eight departmental Bronze Athena Swan awards and one Silver award in our Schools.
Supporting gender equality
The Athena Swan Charter is a global scheme for supporting and transforming gender equality within higher education (HE) and research.
At the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS), we hold eight departmental Bronze Athena Swan awards and one Silver award in our Schools. You can find these listed further down this page. We are also working towards a Faculty-wide Silver-level award.
This work is supported by the Athena Swan self-assessment team (SAT). This team is chaired by Susan McLean (Faculty Partnerships Manager) and Kate Chegdzoy (Athena Swan Lead). Kelechi Dibie (HaSS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisor) and Rachel Pain (Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) are also members of the core team.
Why are we undertaking this work?
The Charter has recently been updated to reflect a more inclusive, intersectional approach. It is offering us new opportunities to:
- structure an application around our own priorities
- work intersectionally to integrate our commitments under our recent Race Equality Charter Bronze Award into our gender equality work
- address other identities and inequalities
This latest Athena Swan application reflects the continued commitment of both the Faculty and the University as a whole to the development of a diverse and fully inclusive community for both students and staff.
Applying as a Faculty, rather than as individual Schools, allows us to:
- develop a coherent and ambitious Faculty-wide equality, diversity and inclusion action plan
- amplify the work for equality already underway and expand it beyond gender to other group with protected characteristics
- include all our staff and postgraduate researchers, not just those who work in the nine Schools that have made submissions so far
- pool data to identify patterns and issues not visible at a unit level, enable more nuanced analysis, and address intersectionality more effectively
- tackle areas of shared concern effectively, and address bigger and cross-cutting issues that lie outside the immediate control of each unit, achieving more rapid and large-scale change
- exchange and embed good practices
Current Faculty awards
As of late 2022, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences holds eight departmental Bronze Athena Swan awards in the Schools of:
- Architecture, Planning and Landscape
- Arts and Culture
- Education, Communication & Language Sciences
- English Literature, Language and Linguistics
- History, Classics and Archaeology
- Modern Languages
- Newcastle Law School
- Newcastle University Business School
In addition, we hold one Silver Athena Swan award in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.
If we are successful in our Faculty Silver application, this will supersede the Bronze awards.
Read more about the Athena Swan Charter.
If you have questions or for any further information, please contact Kelechi Dibie, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Advisor for our Faculty.