In 2020 the Student Association was reformed to have a structure based on value-led representatives rather than just degree pathways. Our Reps try to cover the different aspects of student life. We also want to bring those values to our event programme and are delighted to announce some of the events we have in the pipeline this academic year.
We have organised a series of webinars with Diversity and Ability, the first of which will be a lunchtime session during National Inclusion Week and then monthly evenings after that:
Thu 30 September 12:30-13:30: Session 1: Dismantling Bias & Celebrating Diversity
Thu 28 October 17:30-18:30: Session 2: Intersectionality, What Is It & Why Is It Important?
Thu 25 November 17:30-18:30: Session 3: Managing Stress & Anxiety In Education
Thu 16 December 17:30-18:30: Session 4: Changing The Way We Understand Disability
Thu 27 January 17:30-18:30: Session 5: Inclusivity Through Accessibility
We will circulate details of how to sign up shortly. Sessions will have limited attendee places but will be recorded so students who cannot attend have the opportunity to view and learn later.
Some of you may recall an Artist Talk with Dr Ope Lori last year, we’ve teamed up with Ope again and her company PILAA (Pre-Image Learning and Action), a visual arts content producing agency and educational consultancy, to facilitate a series of training events around equality, diversity and inclusion, as it relates to Higher Education, learning and teaching, the Arts and the curriculum. They will be delivering a range of programmes, including:
Whiteness made simple and Class: The Elephant in the room
What is difference?
Self-Censorship and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues
Being your authentic Self
Then a half-day open forum which would facilitate responses and feedback, plus further ideas and directions for the ‘group’.
In order to get the ball rolling and to make sure that the training is tailored to our students’ needs, Ope would like to invite up to 10 attendees to take up a 30 minute 1-1 with her, where you can discuss your experiences with some of the themes addressed or related themes. You might want to talk about what you hope to gain from the training sessions. The 30 minutes can be used to discuss any personal challenges with the topics, as it relates to Higher Education, learning and teaching, the Arts and the curriculum, or your own personal development and experiences. The 30 minutes is simply "your" time to discuss in a safe, confidential and non-judgmental space.
Will will let you know how to express an interest in these 1-1s and release the dates of the workshops and how to sign up when we have all the information. Again places will be limited.
Following the success of our Artist Talk with Paul Harfleet we have also invited some interesting Artists to come and speak about their work and answer any questions. In September join Caroline Cardus whose practice focuses on creative activism. Starting from Cardus’ own experiences as a disabled woman, her text based, subversive and graphic style practice brings forth frank, darkly humorous and powerful messages about disability inequality and everyday discrimination. Find out how to sign up here.
We are also organizing a talk and zine workshop with Kirsty Fife. They describe themselves as a DIY cultural organiser, zine maker, academic, musician and archivist who regularly speaks and run workshops about zines, organising, fat activism, femme identity and class politics. Find out more about them here https://kirstyfife.com/
And we’re just locking down a date with Alice Procter to do a talk about her work as The Exhibitionist;
“My academic work concentrated on the intersections of postcolonial art practice and colonial material culture, settler storytelling, the concept of whiteness in the 18th and 19th centuries, the curation of historical trauma, and myths of national identity.”
Visit https://www.theexhibitionist.org/ to learn more about Alice.
We will be continuing to support student-led initiatives including the wonderful Keeping up Momentum sessions and Regional Group activity, there will be more Virtual Life Drawing and we look forward to working more closely with our own tutors to lead events too.
Where possible we will record and make events available to all, we will let you know. We hope you are as excited about this line up as we are.