IN CONVERSATION with UoN's Pro-Vice Chancellor for EDI & People, Katherine Linehan.

Olivia Hughes interviews UoN’s Professor Katherine Linehan to discuss her role as Pro-Vice Chancellor for Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & People on some of the key issues at Nottingham - such as the gender pay gap in regards to the UCU strikes, and how trans students are being supported at the university.

With UCU strikes having plagued this year’s graduating class, and with the threat of the upcoming marking boycotts, I wanted to ask Professor Linehan her opinion on the strikesespecially in relation to gender and ethnicity pay gaps. Professor Linehan stated that since joining the University in her position in January 2022, there has been a senior pay review which puts the University in a better position to address the pay gap at higher roles in the institution. However, she stated that she is very aware that with lower-level positions across the University there is more work to be done to attract more women to the roles and thus reduce the gender pay gap.

Nottingham itself is a diverse campus with strong links to countries such as Malaysia and China. In 2020/2021, the percentage of international students at the university was around 28% according to the student data report.

When asked what could be done to improve experiences for international students, Professor Linehan put forward her view that to feel a sense of belonging, international students need to see academic staff who look like them. “To create a strong sense of belonging for international students they have to be able to see academic staff like themselves in the classrooms. They also must feel there is an opportunity to have conversations and celebrate culture with people of similar heritage. International students need to feel that the university also welcomes and celebrates differences across the whole of the staff and student community.”

When asked what an equal, diverse, and inclusive Nottingham looked like to her, Professor Lineham explained that “everyone has a sense of belonging and that everybody feels that they can bring their authentic self to the University.” EDI is a term that people are becoming increasingly familiar with, however the Pro-Vice-Chancellor acknowledges that often misconceptions arise around the EDI agenda. She elaborates “I think we often vilify the white man which isn’t always helpful in driving real cultural change across the University”, further stating that “we have to be really open minded about everyone’s lived experiences and make no assumptions about who holds privilege in any particular situation or meeting. Only by creating safe and permissive spaces will we drive the openness needed to have difficult conversations around historical injustices and current inequalities”.

Professor Linehan is open about her own disabilities. She said that her conditions make her “much more empathetic” to the disabled community and that she “understands personally what it is to experience discrimination and microaggressions”. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor feels that “one of the areas that has been overlooked previously in the University is disability” and she feels that “only now is the University picking up pace in that space”.

However often her Pro-Vice-Chancellor position calls for her to represent a community that she may not be a part of so when asked about how she stays abreast with those communities, she explained that she has a “brilliant team” who are “completely diverse” and so she feels that she has “expertise at her fingertips to be able to consult with”.

Positive discrimination is often being used now to ensure workspaces are equal, diverse, and inclusive but this can be seen as an issue of contention due to perceptions that it lacks the quality of hiring on merit. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor talks on this stating “it is key to a person that they feel like they have got a job because they are the best person for that job, that being said we aren’t making as much progress diversifying the workforce as we should be.”

Professor Linehan summises that, in those scenarios (in which the University isn’t making progress) she would gladly welcome positive action to ensure that underrepresented groups gain representation in those spaces. Another issue of contention currently is the safety and representation of trans people and specifically trans students. With violence and aggression towards the trans community rising, such as the death of Brianna Taylor, the University’s support for its trans students is more important than ever.

Katherine explores this stating “we need to make sure the University is a psychologically safe space for its transgender students” she also believes that “it is important both that students have supportive people directly around them and professional support is available to them at the University if required”. Katherine and her team work closely with the staff and student EDI networks and through conversations with them has determined that categorisation in the University IT systems can be a key barrier to sense of belonging for trans students. Work is currently being done to both the staff and student IT systems to ensure individuals have more scope to self-identify.

The University also has plans to improve experience and support for neurodiver- gent students, including a complete curriculum transformation to be more inclusive, with neurodivergent staff advising on this to ensure the most supportive curriculum possible.

The University has also just spent £250k on ‘Access Able’ which enables students to see a 360-degree view of their spaces so they can see what their rooms are going to look like, plan routes in a way that avoids sensory overload, and account for lighting levels and patterns. This once again is to provide a calming and supportive environment for neurodivergent students.

Professor Lineham reveals the current project she is most excited about is the new Castle Meadow Campus, which is being designed to be the most inclusive and supportive campus yet. She describes how there is an EDI consultant specifically on this project and excitingly that the architect working on this is neurodivergent and is an expert in devising neurodivergent spaces. These plans are immediately for the Castle Meadow campus however there are plans to improve all other campuses in the future.

Finally the Pro-Vice-Chancellor ensured that she welcomes suggestions for change in any capacity.

- Olivia Hughes