Meet our new Director of Inclusion

Elaine Brown started in her role as Director of Inclusion just before Christmas. She joins us from Birkbeck, University of London, where she worked as the Interim Head of HR Strategy, Policy, Equality & Diversity. We spoke to her about her new role, her initial priorities, and the launch of our new Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion calendar.

As our new Director of Inclusion, what have been your initial priorities?

First of all, I’ve been trying to get the know the institution and to understand more about the culture at Essex. I’ve also spent a lot of time meeting all the key stakeholders from across our community, both staff and students, to make sure that I have the best possible understanding of the issues people are facing and the best ways in which we can help them.

At the same time, I’ve been busy recruiting to my team, which has been undergoing a few changes of personnel, to make sure that we are fully resourced to do the important work in hand.

Since starting in my new post in November, I have been focussing on:

• Our Report and Support staff and student survey
• Our gender pay gap report
• The Stonewall Workplace Equality Index
• A new Inclusive Leadership Programme for USG
• Work connected to our Anti-racism action plan
• Work around tackling sexual harassment and sexual violence against women
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’s annual report
• Supporting Charter work such as the Race Equality Charter and Athena Swan

What are your thoughts about inclusion at Essex

I have found the people at Essex to be both friendly and welcoming. I think Essex should be proud of the commitment it has shown to addressing inequality, for example our zero-tolerance approach to all forms of discrimination. I also like the fact that individual members of the University Steering Group act as Inclusion Champions, which really demonstrates commitment from the top levels of the organisation. However, I think it is fair to say that there is still work to be done and I look forward contributing to this work and driving it forwards.

Can you tell us more about the new Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) calendar?

The EDI calendar helps us celebrate diversity and raise awareness of key events that we will be marking on campus. These events will be organised by either the University, our Student's Union, or relevant staff and student forums. Sometimes these events will be organised by a combination of these groups working together. We’re still finalising some dates, but you can see the events that we will be celebrating between January and May on our staff and student directories:

• Take a look at the EDI calendar on our staff directory
• Take a look at the EDI calendar on our student directory

Can you tell us more about our anti racism action plan?

In response to Black Lives Matter we have taken a new approach to tackling racism which included the development of the action plan. This was developed after listening to feedback from our staff and students about their lived experiences and concerns. The action plan was developed by students and staff who worked together as part of a Tackling Racism Working Group. This group has now met for the last time and the Inclusion Team will take this work forward by monitoring existing actions and tracking their progress. We are committed to addressing race inequality and a key part of the Essex spirit is supporting our staff and students to feel part of an inclusive environment where everybody recognises their responsibility to achieve a culture of belonging.

What is your vision for inclusion at Essex?

Having an inclusive culture should be something that is automatic, something that is a strong part of our culture, and something which we can all be proud of. To make sure that we achieve this, I want people to understand what the barriers currently are to inclusion and for us all the work together to break down those barriers. Achieving an inclusive culture is all of our responsibility.