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The Faculty of Architecture and History of Art

 

The Faculty of Architecture and History of Art has earned an Athena SWAN bronze award (2019) for our work on advancing gender equality. Athena Swan is the charter mark awarded by the Equality Challenge Unit, under which the University of Cambridge as a whole holds a Silver Award.

We are committed to the ten key principles in the Athena SWAN Charter and to adopting these principles within our policies, practices, and culture:

  1. We acknowledge that academia cannot reach its full potential unless it can benefit from the talents of all.
  2. We commit to advancing gender equality in academia, in particular, addressing the loss of women across the career pipeline and the absence of women from senior academic, professional and support roles.
  3. We commit to addressing unequal gender representation across academic disciplines and professional and support functions. In this we recognise disciplinary differences including:
  • the relative underrepresentation of women in senior roles in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL)
  • the particularly high loss rate of women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM)
  1. We commit to tackling the gender pay gap.
  2. We commit to removing the obstacles faced by women, in particular, at major points of career development and progression including the transition from PhD into a sustainable academic career.
  3. We commit to addressing the negative consequences of using short-term contracts for the retention and progression of staff in academia, particularly women.
  4. We commit to tackling the discriminatory treatment often experienced by trans people.
  5. We acknowledge that advancing gender equality demands commitment and action from all levels of the organisation and in particular active leadership from those in senior roles.
  6. We commit to making and mainstreaming sustainable structural and cultural changes to advance gender equality, recognising that initiatives and actions that support individuals alone will not sufficiently advance equality.
  7. All individuals have identities shaped by several different factors. We commit to considering the intersection of gender and other factors wherever possible.

You can view our application and see the actions that the Faculty as a whole has agreed to undertake. The application includes a wide variety of data concerning (for example) recruitment, demographics across departments, committee structures, personnel turnover, and promotion.

One of the first actions has to been to set up a new Equality and Diversity Committee with a wider remit than working solely on gender. The implementation of the actions from the Faculty Athena Swan application will be led by the Chair of the Committee, Dr Alyce Mahon.

Representatives from across the Faculty sit on the Equality and Diversity Committee, including a student representative.