"I think this is very important, and I am glad the session leaders were professional while being approachable and respectful."
"I enjoyed it - I've booked the next three sessions already!"
"I have taken away many things I can use in the real world."
Updates
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Below you can discover a snapshot of what we've achieved as a community and how our work to prioritise wellbeing, inclusion and culture is progressing in line with the WICC priorities for 2023. Plus find out what's on the horizon.
Mental health, wellbeing and safety
'Supporting the mental wellbeing of your team' training
This bespoke training module is highly recommended for anyone with line management responsibilities or those in leadership roles. The training has received excellent feedback from colleagues.
Financial wellbeing toolkit
To support colleagues’ financial wellbeing, there is a one-stop-shop toolkit, which includes links to a range of internal and external support to help manage finances.
Colleague Mental Health Champions
‘Colleague Mental Health Champions’ have been appointed across all faculties and divisions at the University to promote positive mental health and wellbeing within our colleague community.
More on Mental Health Champions
Exe-Change the Norm: Bystander training
Bystander training has been developed to help people intervene in situations in a way which can create a positive outcome. Developed by Dr Rachel Fenton from the Law School and launched at the beginning of the 2022/23 academic year, our bystander training programme, Exe-Change the Norm, is available to all our students across all campuses. The four training sessions cover topics including sexism and sexual harassment, partner abuse, racism and racist micro-aggressions. To date, almost 500 students have taken part (including over 300 from sports societies) with excellent feedback (see right).
Community engagement: Safer Streets
Working alongside key partners through the Community Safety Partnership in Exeter, the University has successfully secured funding to support a number of approaches aimed at reducing anti-social behaviour and violence in the city and ensure Exeter is a safe, friendly and strong place to be.
Through the Safer Streets 4 fund, work has started on:
- Student Safety Scheme for students in Exeter
- Drink testing and safey kits for students
- Consent training
- Improvements to lighting
- CCTV, creation of safe spaces
- The creation of an education toolkit developed alongside local schools
Find out more about:
Inclusion and belonging
2022 Gender Pay Gap Report now available
Tracking and tackling the gender pay gap and its associated contributing factors is fundamental to the University making progress on our gender equality commitments.
Key findings from our latest report (statutory figures including ad-hoc/claims workers):
- Our mean gender pay gap has decreased by 2.3% compared to March 2021
- Our median gender pay gap has decreased by 3.7% compared to March 2021
- 57.6% of our total workforce is female, an increase of 1% compared to March 2021.
100 Black Women Professors NOW programme at the University
The 100 Black Women Professors NOW programme launched in 2022 and aims to propel equity of opportunity for Black women academics, researchers and PhD students and to deliver a change in the sector by working with individuals, institutions, managers and leaders. Seven University academics will be taking part in the second cohort of the programme, which started in January 2023.
Improvement in our Stonewall Workplace Equality Index rating
Each year our University participates in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI), a benchmarking tool that evaluates our initiatives and helps us better understand the challenges of creating an inclusive working environment for LGBTQ+ employees. For 2022, we are pleased to announce that we have achieved the Stonewall Gold Award, Stonewall's highest accolade.
Find out more about:
Leadership, development and support
Leadership Difference Programme
The Leadership Difference Programme promotes a professional and supportive leadership community and recognises the role of leadership in enabling our institutional ambitions and embedding our values. With a new cohort enrolling on the programme for the 2022-23 academic year, we are proud of our continued support of this award-winning leadership initiative.
For 2022/23, we currently have five cohorts running, with 20 places on each cohort.
Find out more about:
Coming up...
- Celebrating the ongoing work of our Colleague Mental Health Champions
- Launch of the academic workload principles
- Launch of Our Culture Conversation