BEING WESTMINSTER
BEING WESTMINSTER
Over the past year, we have reached significant milestones and enjoyed spectacular achievements. It has all been made possible thanks to our alumni, student and colleague community. Time and again, I am hugely impressed by the commitment and compassion shown by our university community.
Despite the challenges (lockdown, home schooling, online working and more) we have all been facing, it is a testament to all of us as individuals and the collective spirit of Westminster that there is much to be proud of this year. In the past year alone, over 1,000 of our alumni have volunteered their time to support our students through mentoring, online guest lectures and through providing exceptional career support. An incredible £866,000 has been raised from our donors to support students through a variety of projects including The 125 Fund, scholarships and bursaries and our Soho Poly Theatre, and we received £1.2m in new pledges for the next one to three academic years. Our students have continued to show resilience and determination through adapting to blended and online learning superbly, while our colleagues remain committed to providing the very best experience to our 19,000-strong student community.
6
NETWORK |
There is much for you to be proud of as part of our Westminster community. All too often, we are caught in the day to day of ‘doing’. I want to take this opportunity to pause and reflect on what makes our University the progressive, compassionate and responsible organisation that we pride ourselves on being. What better way to illustrate this than through an important initiative run by Times Higher Education that we participated in this year. Earlier this year, the University submitted to the Times Higher Education Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Impact Rankings. These rankings capture the contribution made by universities around the world towards a collection of 17 separate but interlinked goals, designed to be a blueprint by which the world can achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The SDGs were established by the United Nations in 2015 and adopted by all United
| ALUMNI MAGAZINE 2021
Nations Member States to support people, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. The rankings address various social, environmental and economic challenges, such as action on poverty, gender inequalities and the climate. Each university selects a number of SDGs to apply for and be ranked against. Westminster submitted evidence for our commitment against seven goals, and we are particularly proud of our achievements for three of them: gender equality, reduced inequalities, and responsible consumption and production. Our work towards gender equality places us as one of the top 20 universities in the world for providing equal access and supporting the academic progression of women. We are also one of the top 25 universities in the world for tackling economic, health-based and international inequalities. Lastly, we are in the top
