SECONDMENT REPORT UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM STUDENT SERVICESÂ EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY FOR STUDENTS
27 JUNE 2018 JORDAN KIRKWOOD
For the attention of Alison Levey and Sammy Li. The purpose of this report is to reflect on my time at the University of Birmingham as part of the Equality and Diversity for Students team in Student Services from January to July 2018. As I have continued to reflect throughout, but more pertinently now near the end of the secondment; I can confidently say that this has been an exceedingly interesting, exciting and developmental opportunity. An experience which, has opened my mind to different approaches and ways of working, and broadened my skills repertoire and organisational mindset. One of the most impactful projects that I have been working on throughout the duration of my secondment has been the design, consultation and building of the student Equality and Diversity website. It started out as an idea aimed at bringing together information, services and resources from across the University and Colleges into one place. However, it has grown into a major student experience initiative that will have a positive impact for students, staff (working with student support, personal tutors) and applicants, with a 3-tier interface and a comprehensive resource bank for over 16 groups. This project has involved training, constructing the website within the CMS, multiple student and staff consultations (and free lunches!) and uncountable revisions and improvements. The project required an institutional approach, showcasing of the developments and regular collating of feedback to drive the project in the direction best befitting of our stakeholders. Another project that ran much of the duration was the work on the University of Birmingham Dubai guidance for prospective students, staff and visitors. This proved to be as challenging as it was high profile insofar that it demanded a stringent consultative process with multiple stakeholders and a diligent, yet innovative approach to mitigate concerns and present information honestly. A big take away from this was the importance of communication; or more specifically, framing a message with context and sensitivity to match. Getting involved with work on the Race Equality Charter and Disability Standard, as well as taking part in the Stonewall feedback session has been highly valuable as it was mostly new to me. It has equipped me with an understanding of the marks as well as the considerations, processes and steps needed to embed best practice.
SECONDMENT REPORT
Other projects that I worked on included working with the Higher Education Futures Institute (HEFi) on developing their online platform, both internally and externally; organising and presenting at a team Town Hall for the Colleges and Schools on our work and impact within the University; policy and guidance documents namely the Gender Identity Guidance and; developing the team’s branding, promotions and merchandise working with the Creative Media Team. The final project that I initiated was conducting an audit of the student journey, mapping our services and areas for joining up, enhancement or fixes. This is the pre-work for a wider audit of E&D at Birmingham happening in the near future and has provided me with an opportunity to review the student journey for multiple groups as defined in the Equality Act 2010 across 3 agreed phases: 'pre-arrival', 'welcome and induction' and 'student life'. Throughout my time I got involved with a few side opportunities, such as assisting with the E&D Ambassadors in training days, engaging and assisting with events for LGBT+ History Month amongst others, being a panel judge for the Careers Network Impact Challenge (which was a lot of fun!) and developing criteria for the new University of Birmingham Sport Pride Award. It has been a highly invigorating and at times challenging position that has helped me diversify my professional portfolio and skills such as stakeholder management and holistic understanding. My only regret is that I never got to immerse myself in the work with the Higher Education Futures Institute (HEFi) due to a number of reasons, however, I have diverted my attention to other work that might not have been possible had I worked with HEFi. I'd like to extend my gratitude to Sammy for making it possible and Alison for supporting me throughout from Aston, as well as Alex, who joined the Equality and Diversity Team in May, and Misbah who supported with the E&D Audit work and branding developments. It has been a real pleasure working with the Equality and Diversity team, thank you for all that you have done, may we stay good friends! We put together a small reflective video on the Town Hall we did in June, you can see it here. Yours truly, Jordan James Kirkwood