The Department held a well-attending Staff Meeting to discuss the 2014 Staff Survey and the successful Athena SWAN Bronze application on Wednesday 1st October.
- Jeremy Nicholson presented slides about the Staff Survey
- Information about Athena SWAN was presented by Sanjay Purkayastha and Kate Hardy.
- Lesley Regan, Chair of the Academic Opportunities Committee and S&C Champion for the Staff Survey, summarised the work already undertaken and the work yet to do related to the Athena SWAN award. Reporting that the Department would launch its Mentoring Scheme in November
The meeting concluded with a Q&A session with a Panel chaired by Lesley and including Divisional Heads and Athena SWAN Champions.
- In response to a question about how to increase the numbers of female Consultant/Clinical Senior Lecturer level surgeons, George Hanna stressed the need to nurture and support the 4 female Clinical Lecturers in Surgery
- There was a discussion on Mentorship and it became clear that the policy on Academic Advisors for Lecturers and Clinical Senior Lecturers and Mentors for Post-Doctoral staff needed to be made clearer including the accountability of both Academic Advisors and Mentors – action will be taken on this and enhanced information provided via the Web page
- There was discussion of levels of stress as Staff Survey report suggested there was concern about this across the Department – It had to be recognised that pressure to deliver in REF was unavoidable but every effort will be taken in future to ensure academic staff are well-prepared; there was a recognition that for clinical academics the pull between clinical responsibilities and academic development created tensions. It was agreed these matters should be raised with Divisional Heads and would be discussed with the Trust.
We would welcome any other comments – and have created a specific email address for you to use – sandcfeedback@imperial.ac.uk – we will monitor this regularly and take issues to the Department’s Academic Opportunities Committee for further review. Lesley has indicated that she and the Committee would be happy to address concerns from research and support staff just as readily as from academic staff.
Please keep an eye on the website and S&C Blog for updates on the above and other Staff related matters.
Once again, many thanks to those who attended and for those of you not able to – please do take a minute to look at the various links.