Committee pages
edited
... Sue Thompson
MeetingsMeetings
Gender Equity and Diversity Committee Meeting No. 2
6 Decemb…
...
Sue Thompson
MeetingsMeetings
Gender Equity and Diversity Committee Meeting No. 2
6 December 2017
Minutes to come
{Draft equity and diversity survey RSPE.pdf}
Breakdown of Crawford School staff by gender
{Crawford staff gender breakdown 2013-17.png}
Gender Equity and Diversity Committee Meeting No. 1
18 September 2017
Committee pages
edited
... The work identified by the Committee will necessarily require resources (particularly the imme…
...
The work identified by the Committee will necessarily require resources (particularly the immediate need for more information). This will require School support. Available resources at College and University level will also be explored.
The Committee recognised the need for diversity among Committee members. Committee membership will be reviewed following the audit and focused groups to foster diversity. Preliminary workplan and targetsPreliminary workplan and targets
Sharon Bessell Chair, Gender Equity and Diversity Committee; Crawford School Gender Advisor
11 December 2017
The Gender Equity and Diversity Committee has been in existence since September 2017, and is in the early stages of deciding our goals and strategies. As such we do not have a comprehensive work plan in place as yet, but a series of steps that we have agreed to take so far.
The preliminary workplan, and associated targets, of the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee is as follows.
First half 2018
Survey of Crawford staff using a modified version of the diversity and equity culture survey developed by the Research School of Biology. Conduct a series of consultations with professional and academic staff and students to identify priority issues.
Aims
To gain a deeper understanding of the issues our colleagues and students think the Committee should address - and to prioritise those issues based on a consultative process - as the basis for the Committee's workplan and targets
To develop a base line against which to measure our progress
To engage colleagues in supporting the overall goal of fostering equity and inclusion
Early 2018
Establish a Male Champions of Change program within the School (to be led by Professor Bob Breunig and Professor Warwick McKibben). By way of background, Male Champions of Change was established in 2010 by Elizabeth Broderick during her tenure as Australia’s Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner. The Male Champions of Change strategy is self-described as 'a disruptive initiative focused on men stepping up beside women and taking accountability for progressing women in leadership.' https://www.propertycouncil.com.au//downloads/OurCommitment.pdf
Aims/Activities
Promoting Gender balance in Crawford events and encouraging colleagues to ensure all events they organise have gender balance and encourage them not to participate in all male events. We are encouraging the Male Champions of change to commit to the ‘so-called’ the 'Panel Pledge' - whereby men commit to gender balance on panels and to ending all male panels. http://malechampionsofchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/The-Panel-Pledge.pdf
To provide structured mentoring to female colleagues, particularly in relation to promotion (including developing longer term strategies for promotion).
Leading change and proactively fostering support from colleagues.
Establish a Women Leading Change program within the School
The Male Champions of Change program will be essential in providing leadership and in fostering support (particularly from male colleague). However, we definitely do not want to signal that change can only come from ‘male champions’ or to marginalise the critical importance of female leadership and of creating spaces for women to progress change on their own terms; we are also aware of the criticism of the Male Champions of Change approach.
The Women Leading Change program is under development but will be an essential complement to Male Champions of Change. Our intent is for this to operate informally outside of the Gender Diversity and Equity Committee, but with the Committee’s full support. Our aim is to commence this initiative in early 2018 and for it to grow and take form over time, with the members developing their own aims and activities.
Establish ‘first points of contact’
Four members of the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee (Megan Poore, Martyn Pearce, Sue Thompson and Sharon Bessell) have volunteered to be first points of contact for colleagues and students who have concerns relating to issues within the mandate of the Committee. The intent is not for these committee members to provide counselling, but to provide support and suggest pathways forward, including identifying available support, services, and avenues for formal complaint should that be necessary.
Gender Equity and Diversity Wiki
In early 2018, the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee will establish a Wiki, which will develop over time, with the aim of providing Crawford specific advice, resources, and educational material. This initiative will be led by Megan Poore.
Late 2018
Gender Equity Targets
While we consider it premature to establish targets before undertaking the School survey and consultations, the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee has adopted two immediate targets – to be achieved by the end of 2018: gender balance in Crawford Public events and gender balance in interview short lists for academic positions. The attached documents (current breakdown of Crawford staff by gender and level; and the package of material on our public events) provide the background for the Committee identifying these targets as immediate priorities.
In regard to each of these targets, we consider mechanisms of accountability to be essential.
1. Gender Balance in Crawford public events
The School Director, Professor Helen Sullivan, has committed the School to achieving a gender balance in all public School events by the end of 2018.
To support this target the Crawford School engagement team will:
Monitoring all events loaded to the Crawford calendar and record statistics on gender balance for panel events
Produce cumulative gender balance (at an event organiser level)
Produce a monthly report on the Crawford website showing achievements during that month and the year to date
Notify event organisers as part of the online events approval process how they are tracking to date against the target.
There will be public reporting of the gender balance of all events, identifying where there has been a failure to achieve gander balance.
The Gender Equity and Diversity Committee will provide advice and make resources available to event organisers. Advice and resources will be available o the Gender Equity and Diversity wiki, but responsibility lies with event organisers.
2. Gender Balance on interview lists for academic positions
The Gender and Equity Committee had adopted a policy of requiring gender balance for (i) all selection committees and (ii) all short-lists for interview. Finally adopting this policy will depend on support from ANU Human Resources and approval from the School Director. To foster progress towards this target, the following will be pursued:
Selection committee chairs must undertake the unconscious bias training provided by the university prior to chairing selection committees.
Prior to the recruitment round being closed, selection committee chairs must report to the School leadership group as to the gender composition of the interview list. If gender balance has not been achieved, an explanation must be provided and an exemption sought from the School leadership group. If an exemption is not forthcoming, the selection round must be kept open.
All selection committees must have gender balance among members.
We note that the issues for professional staff are different from those facing academic staff, and will not determine a course of action (should action be required) in relation to professional staff until the staff survey and staff consultations are completed.
Priorities and sequencing of the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee’s work.
2018: Focus on promoting gender equity
From mid-2018: Commence work on disability inclusive practices
From 2019: Identify other groups and groups for the Committee’s attention and develop aims and activities (e.g., Indigenous, sexuality, ethnic and religious minorities).
Preliminary ideas for a gender equality strategy at Crawford
This initial, brief paper focuses on academic staff. Among professional staff, numbers of women are greater than men. This does not suggest that there are no issues of concern among professional staff, and a series of focus groups are recommended as a starting point for discussion and the foundation for an appropriate strategy. One issue that has been raised in other parts of the university is mentoring for professional staff, and I would like this to be something we discuss in our first meeting.
Among academic staff, several problems are immediately apparent. At the forefront of these are highly unequal numbers of male and female academic staff. Based on 2015 staffing numbers, men outnumber women at all academic levels. Worryingly, men outnumber women 88 to 47 in casual appointments – while more investigation is required, this suggests that tutors are heavily male, with significant implications for the career trajectories of early career female researchers. While number of men and women are almost equal at level B, the gender gap widens from level C, and is marked at level E. Beyond numbers, there is a need to better understand the institutional and cultural barriers to gender equality.
The ‘public face’ of Crawford has, historically, been male. While the gender balance within public events has improved recently, we continue to see all male panels – something that has been noted by students and (publicly) by the ANU gender equality consultant). Since February 2017, Crawford has hosted 63 seminars/lectures/panels (not including conferences or similar events). Of these only 14 (22%) were from female speakers. While we have made some progress, we cannot continue with such disparity.
Strategies to be discussed
1. Recruitment, Probation and PDR Processes
1.1 Short-lists for all recruitment processes should be gender balanced Rationale: To overcome unconscious bias in selection processes and ensure that selection committees consider both male and female candidates
1.2 Directors of each teaching program should monitor gender balance among tutors across the program. In more than 60% (or 50%?) of tutors are not female, reasons should be discussed at program staff meeting and the reasons for unequal numbers, along with a strategy for change, should be submitted to the School Management Committee and Gender Equality Committee. Rationale: To promote accountability and to support the School leadership in understanding both the reasons for numerical inequality and to support programs to move towards greater gender balance.
1.3 The School develop guidelines on achievement relative to opportunity for recruitment and probation committees and for supervisors (for PDR processes). The guidelines developed by the Research School of Biology could provide a starting point.
2. The School establishes a ‘Male Champions of Change’ program (see: http://malechampionsofchange.com/)
2.1 As a starting point, men within the school should be invited to commit to not organising or appearing on all-male panels, within the School or beyond.
2.2 Consideration should be given to the establishment of a (senior) Male Champions of Change group, whereby males at level D/E commit personally and professionally to actively fostering gender equality. This should begin with the group development – and the pursuing and publicly reporting on – a strategy through which they commit to and pro-actively promote gender equality within the School.
3. Determining what institutional and cultural change is required
3.1 The school undertakes an audit of gender equality policies and practices within the School, based on the template used by the Research School of Biology.
3.2 The School conducts a series of focus groups discussions/consultations, initially with female staff members, both academic and professional, with the aim of identifying the steps colleagues consider necessary to foster greater gender equality within the School.
The Voice survey results may provide a starting point – and analysis and response to that survey should inform our strategy.
4. Gender Equity Awards
The School gives consideration to establishing a gender equity award, drawing on the model adopted by John Curtin School of Medical Research.
[JCSMR has established a Gender Equity Award to assist researchers experiencing extended career disruption as the result of the birth of a child, or the primary care of a child, as defined by the ANU Award for Parental Leave. The Award will consist of up to $20,000 per annum (to be awarded biannually, as two Awards of up to $10,000 each) and is for the purpose of supporting the Awardee’s career progression, as each Awardee sees fit.]
This would require securing funding for the Award.
Additional issues for consideration
Work-life balance
Mentoring
Unconscious bias
For Discussion and Decision
Should the committee focus on issues of diversity beyond gender equity. If so, are there are particularly issues/groups of concerns – beyond promoting a broad inclusive environment?
What is the ideal membership for this committee?
What are our immediate priorities?
How do we consult with the School community on a medium to longer term strategy?
Sharon Bessell September 2017
Annex 1: Staffing Numbers 2010-2015
Academic
2010
2013
2015
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Casual
74
35
75
32
88
47
Fixed term total
30
13
20
8
20
9
Level A
6
8
3
1
0
0
Level B
6
3
3
6
7
6
Level C
1
2
4
1
5
2
Level D
6
0
2
0
3
0
Level E
11
0
8
0
5
1
CCF total
8
5
11
2
9
5
Level A
3
4
1
1
0
0
Level B
2
1
6
1
5
5
Level C
1
0
1
0
2
0
Level D
0
0
0
0
0
0
Level E
2
0
3
0
2
0
Continuing total
21
8
31
13
31
12
Level A
0
0
1
0
0
0
Level B
6
1
4
2
2
2
Level C
3
6
4
7
4
5
Level D
5
0
7
3
8
4
Level E
7
1
15
1
17
1
Professional
2010
2013
2015
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Casual
107
94
89
66
86
89
Fixed term - total
5
23
5
10
2
6
Level 5
0
4
0
5
0
2
Level 5/6
0
2
1
1
0
3
Level 6
0
0
0
0
0
0
Level 6/7
1
11
0
2
0
1
Level 8
2
4
2
2
2
0
SM1
2
1
2
0
0
0
SM2 and above
0
1
0
0
0
0
CCF - total
2
4
5
5
2
7
Level 5
0
2
0
0
0
0
Level 5/6
0
2
0
1
0
1
Level 6
0
0
0
0
0
0
Level 6/7
1
0
2
3
2
6
Level 8
0
0
1
1
0
0
SM1
1
0
2
0
0
0
SM2 and above
0
0
0
0
0
0
Continuing total
3
18
5
27
3
25
Level 5
1
7
1
10
0
7
Level 5/6
1
0
1
0
0
0
Level 6
0
0
0
0
0
0
Level 6/7
0
4
1
5
0
6
Level 8
1
5
2
8
2
8
SM1
0
2
0
3
1
2
SM2 and above
0
0
0
1
0
2
Committee pages
edited
... Prior to the recruitment round being closed, selection committee chairs must report to the Sch…
...
Prior to the recruitment round being closed, selection committee chairs must report to the School leadership group as to the gender composition of the interview list. If gender balance has not been achieved, an explanation must be provided and an exemption sought from the School leadership group. If an exemption is not forthcoming, the selection round must be kept open.
All selection committees must have gender balance among members.
...
are completed.
Priorities and sequencing of the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee’s work.
2018: Focus on promoting gender equity
