Essex Business School (EBS) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Autumn Term 2024 Newsletter

Welcome to our Autumn Term Essex Business School (EBS) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) newsletter. Our newsletters provide an opportunity to raise awareness of EDI related issues and keep staff posted on current developments and action on EDI in the School.

This third issue of the newsletter features several blogs.

• One is by Jity Bajaj, a member of our PhD research community here at EBS, who discusses the vital issues of privilege and allyship in our University. Allyship is an important tool for deconstructing systems that sustain inequities. Jity Bajaj provides some constructive advice on some of the active and practical steps that people can take to be effective allies, using their privilege to provide ongoing support and advocacy for those with less privilege.
• Another blog is by Dr Yiwei Li, EBS Lecturer in Finance, who co-organised the Women in Banking and Finance Essex Finance Centre (EFiC) Workshop that took place at EBS in early July. This event saw the coming together of leading researchers to discuss cutting-edge topics and promote gender equality in academia. A lively panel discussion contributed to the engagement with gender disparities. For example, through reflections on whether gender equality in academia has improved in recent years, the key drivers for the change, ongoing barriers and solutions.
• A third blog is a testimonial from Emmanuelle Dazobgo, our recent Project Essex End Everyday Racism Intern over graduated with her BSc Business Management over the summer. Emmanuelle provides a testimonial of her experience on the Essex End Everyday Racism project, outlining how she feels that she benefited from this internship.

Working Groups

As we settle into a new academic year, and aligned with the theme of allyship, it is a good opportunity to remind you of our EDI related Working Groups that are open to both students and staff. The range of working groups and those you can contact for further information is outlined below.

Anti-racism Working Group (ARWG). Contact Dr Jacob Agyemang

Athena Swan Implementation Working Group (ASIWG). Contact Dr Maria Hudson

Decolonisation and Diversifying Business Education (DEBUG) Contact Dr Aylin Kunter

Women’s Working Group (WWG) Contact Dr Anna Sarkisyan and Dr Christina Ferreira.

You can also complete the registration form if you are interested in joining the EBS WWG and its mailing list.

Once you join a working group, you also become a member of our Schools EDI Committee. This helps to raise awareness of what everyone is doing in the EDI space, and why, while also supporting collaboration through exchange and exploration of synergies around planned actions.

As well as supporting allyship and activism, working group participation as a student is a great way to build extra-curricular/citizenship activity into your curriculum vitae. For example, this term there is an opportunity for students to get actively involved in a research project at part of the Athena Swan Implementation Working Group. I would also like to start a working group on students and work. If anyone is interested, please just email Dr Maria Hudson .

Equality Café

In Summer Term we held the annual EBS EDI conference and two Equality Café meetings. For the conference we had a great line-up of speakers, with topics including student experiences of combining study and paid and unpaid work. career reflections on being a diversity champion, the Race Equality Charter, epistemic injustice and neurodiversity. Our fourth blog for this term’s newsletter reflects on issues in relation to students and work.

Our one-hour online Equality Café sessions bring people together to discuss EDI related issues. Many thanks again to those of you who made time to participate in our recent meetings on ‘EDI issues in research’ and also ‘Caring and Work’, sharing your perceptions and experiences. I am looking forward to doing some further work in cascading some of the issues that emerged across our School Committees and centrally, for example with People & Culture colleagues. The Equality Café meetings will continue this term, including one session centred on raising awareness of ‘EDI work at EBS’ and a second focusing on ‘EDI issues in teaching’. Further details about both meetings will be shared very soon.

International Women’s Day 2025

Planning has started for our International Women’s Day 2025 event which will involve a collaboration between EBS and Essex Start-Ups. We are organising a panel discussion on ‘What does it mean, and how to harness, life-work balance as a 21st century woman’, taking place in EBS on Wednesday 5th March from 1 – 3pm.

If you have ideas for further events or new working groups, please do let me know. If there is anything EDI related that you would like to discuss with me, including in confidence, as ever I encourage you to contact me. We can arrange a zoom or phone call or in-person meeting, whichever you prefer.

Finally, please may I also take this opportunity to let you know that November will see the launch of our 2024 EBS Staff & Student Culture Surveys. I encourage everyone to participate in this important initiative helping us to better understand the existing culture and working practices across EBS, supporting our ongoing efforts for continuous improvement on equality, diversity and inclusion.