Invitation to volunteer to sit on Athena Swan groups and advance gender equality at the OU

Message from Katrina Chambers, EDI Project Lead – Athena Swan to all PGRs:

The Open University is inviting PGRs to express interest in the following volunteer roles:

• One role: membership of the institutional self-assessment team (SAT) for our Athena Swan submission (2-year commitment/4 meetings a year, starting April 2024) and/or
• One role: membership of the “parenting and caring” working group for the Athena Swan submission (2-year commitment/6 meetings a year, starting April 2024) and/or
• One role: membership of the “health, wellbeing and flexible working” working group for the Athena Swan submission (2-year commitment/6 meetings a year, starting April 2024)

About Athena Swan

Athena Swan is an external gender equality Charter mark, administered by Advance HE. The OU submitted its first institutional submission in 2013 gaining a Bronze award which has since been renewed. We are aiming for an institutional Silver in our next submission. To prepare for Silver we are undertaking an ambitious five-year action plan, making changes across policy, practice and culture. Read more about this work at Athena Swan at the OU | The Open University Equality and Diversity.

Why participate?

It would be a great opportunity to get involved with Gender Equality at the OU, and to make a difference. This is also relevant experience for CVs (fulfilling several subdomains on the RDF, e.g., D1 Working with others and D3 Engagement and impact). While the roles are not paid, we will be offering thank you vouchers for your time.

If you’re interested please contact Katrina Chambers in the first instance to discuss!