Humanist Students - Building Our Community Lift 45 White Lion Street London, N1 9PW

Humanist Students - Building our community Lift 45 White Lion Street London, N1 9PW

Programme

Time Session Speaker Venue Saturday 14th April 09:45:00 Registration Sean Turnbull Student and Youth Coordinator

Hannah Timson 10:30:00 Icebreakers and networking Humanist Students President Blue Hall Hannah Timson President, Humanist Students

Andrew Copson 11:15:00 Welcome Chief Executive, Humanists UK Blue Hall

Sean Turnbull Student and Youth Coordinator, Humanists UK

Hannah Timson 11:45:00 Problem solving President, Humanist Students Blue Hall 13:00:00 Lunch Blue Hall Keynote - Humanist Students - Building our 14:00:00 community Dr Julian Baggini Blue Hall David Savage Chair - Non-Religious Pastoral 15:00:00 Workshop - Loneliness and mental health Support Network Blue Hall Workshop - Re-imagining Humanism: Reason, Empathy and the Arts Hannah Timson Penton Room 16:00:00 Break Imtiaz Shams 16:15:00 Workshop - Faith to Faithless Chair, Faith to Faithless Blue Hall Ken Richman London Humanist Choir

Teddy Prout Director of Community Services, Workshop - Music and Community Humanists UK Penton Room

Hannah Timson 17:15:00 Round up President, Humanist Students Blue Hall 18:00:00 Close The Islington Townhouse, 13 19:00:00 Humanist Students and Young Humanists Social Liverpool Rd, London N1 0RW Sunday 15th April 10:15:00 Registration Blue Hall Chair: Jeremy Rodell Dialogue Officer, Humanists UK

Panellists: Hannah Timson President, Humanist Students

Josh Holt President, Union of Jewish Students

Rabia Mirza Basri Director of Media, Engagement, and Lobbying Panel - Secular traditions in religious and British Muslims for Secular 10:30:00 non-religious communities Democracy Blue Hall

Young Quakers in Britain Keynote - Diversity and inclusion within Audrey Simmons, 11:30:00 non-religious movements Organiser, London Black Atheists Blue Hall 12:30:00 Lunch Blue Hall Sean Turnbull Student and Youth Coordinator

Hari Parekh President Emeritus, Humanist 13:30:00 Workshop - Getting started on campus Students Blue Hall Hannah Timson President, Humanist Students

Angelos Sofocleous President-Elect, Humanist Workshop - Leaving a legacy Students Penton Room

Chair: Teddy Prout Director of Community Services, Humanists UK

Panellists: James Dart Exeter Humanists

John Turner, Emeritus Professor, UEA Board member, Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network

Lizzie Streeter, Chair, LGBT Humanists

Natalie Charles 14:30:00 Panel - What can Humanism do for you? Celebrant, Humanists UK Blue Hall 15:30:00 Close

Keynote and workshop descriptions

Keynote speeches

Humanist Students - Building our community - Dr Julian Baggini Humanist Students are group of individuals brought together by a common set of non-religious principles. What we want to become is a genuine community supporting its members, leading the conversations about the future of humanism and reaching across the entrenched divisions in society. This keynote, led by Julian Baggini will explore how Humanist Students can build community across their campus and the UK and role Humanist Students can play as a community in creating a better society.

Diversity and inclusion within non-religious movements - Audrey Simmons How can Humanist Students ensure the diversity and inclusion is at the forefront of non-religious movements? This keynote, led by Audrey Simmons of London Black Atheists will explore what a both the current state of diversity in non-religious movements while also asking what a community of Humanist Students can do to:

● To make sure the movement attracts people from a range of different backgrounds? ● To make sure the movement attracts people who wouldn’t normally associate themselves with humanism, atheism or secularism but who may already hold similar values.

Workshops

Loneliness and mental health at university - David Savage University can be an extremely difficult time for some people with a reported 46 percent of students reporting to have experienced loneliness while at

6 university. This session, led by experts in pastoral care and support services will look at what a community of compassionate Humanist Students working together can do to alleviate loneliness on campus as well as support pastoral and mental health services and identify fellow students in need of support or referral.

Re-imagining Humanism: Reason, Empathy and the Arts - Hannah Timson Humanism is often celebrated for its ability to focus on reason, science and philosophy, but what role might the Arts have to play in building a strong human society, and how might we use them to critique and change the status quo? In this session we celebrate the achievements of Humanist artists, novelists, poets, comedians, theatre and film makers in shaping our society and engage in some creativity of our own.

Faith to Faithless - Imtiaz Shams For many students university is the first time they are able to develop freedom away from the highly restrictive, high control religions or traditions their parents are part of. It may also be the first time they’ve questioned their own their own religious identity. Coming from a deeply religious background and breaking away from religion can be difficult and often dangerous. Led by Faith to Faithless this session will explore how students can access support if they’re leaving a faith and how Humanist Students and societies can support apostates on campus.

Music and Community - Ken Richman and Teddy Prout Humanism is often seen primarily as philosophical and ethical movement but the humanist tradition has a rich history of contributing to creativity, music and art. In this session we will explore how humanism can be expressed in music. Specifically how music can be used practically to bring together communities of like-minded non-religious people.

Getting started on campus - Sean Turnbull and Hari Parekh Want to start a society or start running humanist events and activities on campus? This session will explore how you can be more active promoting humanism on campus and begin to recruit others to join? If you want to express your humanism on campus but don’t know where to start this session is for you. Led by our Student and Youth Coordinator and Humanist Students President Emeritus we’ll look at what has worked for societies and students in the past and challenges and opportunities on campus.

Leaving a legacy - Hannah Timson and Angelos Sofocleous You might have started to run a couple of humanist events on campus or you’ve helped to set up a society. Maybe you're graduating in the next year What can you to make sure that there’s still a humanist presence at your university and what are your next steps?

Panels

Secular traditions in religious and non-religious communities Religious and secular identities are often complex. This session will explore the existence of secular traditions in variety of different religious and non-religious contexts. Specifically looking the positioning of secularism within of Humanist, Quaker, Muslim and Jewish communities.

What can Humanism do for you? Humanists UK has a breadth of community services and sections that provide crucial support for its members and all non-religious people. This panel session will bring together a panel of speakers from Humanists UK’s local groups, sections and programmes to discuss the different opportunities for students to learn more about the work Humanists UK does in education, Humanist Ceremonies, with local Humanist groups and longstanding special interest groups such as LGBT Humanists.

Speakers and contributors

Dr Julian Baggini

Dr Julian Baggini is a patron of Humanists UK and is the author of several books, including Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind (Granta), Complaint (Profile) and, most recently, The Ego Trick(Granta). He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian, the Financial Times, Prospect and the New Statesman, as well as for the think tanks The Institute of Public Policy Research and Demos. He is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Philosophers’ Magazine. He has also appeared as a character in two Alexander McCall-Smith novels.

Andrew Copson

Andrew Copson is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK, and the President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

Audrey Simmons

Audrey Simmons is an ex Seventh day Adventist, an executive of London Black Atheists, a support and networking group, aimed at the African/Caribbean community,

For the past 20 years she had been a British sign Language interpreter, supporting the Deaf community in all aspects of their daily lives, from social services, GP' to job interviews.

More recently she had become a wedding celebrant with Humanists UK, the newest and most enjoyable aspect of her life.

David Savage

David Savage is Chair of the Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network, an organisation hosted by Humanists UK to provide pastoral care in universities, hospitals, etc. This network of over 200 people recognise that there are times when people would like to talk to someone who is empathic, neutral, non-judgemental, and like-minded. David provides pastoral care to patients at St Thomas’ hospital, where he was the first non-religious person to complete their two-year ‘chaplaincy’ training course. He is currently working with Surrey University, reviewing their ‘chaplaincy’ strategy with a view to providing better support to people with non-religious beliefs and values.

Imtiaz Shams

Co-founder of Faith to Faithless which was started in mid-2015 by Imtiaz Shams and Aliyah Saleem to draw attention to the discrimination faced in particular by minority within minorities and give a platform to the faithless to come out in public and speak out against this discrimination.

Teddy Prout

Teddy Prout is the Director of Community Services for Humanists UK. He was a senior leader in education, working in a large academy in West London. He has come to Humanists UK from Mencap where he led national projects for children and families.

He is now responsible for the strategic development of the services Humanists UK offers: in education, pastoral support, and ceremonies, and in other aspects of support in the community in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. He is also responsible for development of research and pilot projects to promote the value of Humanists UK’s services and ensure their continued success.

John Turner

John Turner is an Emeritus Professor at the University of East Anglia. He is a scientist with a background in molecular genetics. For 35 years he ran a research group at UEA into the discovery of disease resistance mechanisms in plants, supervising 28 successful PhD students. As Professor of Biology he was also Head of the School of Biological Sciences, and an Associate Dean for Enterprise. Since retiring John has focussed on practical aspects of humanism, as a pastoral carer at the Norwich and Norfolk Hospital, as a teacher of humanism to local schools, and as a speaker to humanist groups in the UK. He is a member Humanist.UK Board for the Non-religious Pastoral Support Network, and is co-ordinator of the Eastern Region pastoral volunteer network.

Sean Turnbull

Sean is Humanists UK’s Student and Youth Coordinator. He supports the running of Humanists UK’s Humanist Students and Young Humanists sections.

Hannah Timson

Hannah is President of Humanist Students and a third year student of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, with particular interests in interfaith communications, mythology and the impact of religion in the public sphere. She also has qualifications in Theatre Sound Design from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and spent a year working as a Young Associate with a theatre company called Company Three that seeks to give a voice to teenagers in North London.

Angelos Sofocleous

Angelos Sofocleous is President-Elect of Humanist Students and studies Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Durham. He is President of Durham Humanist Students. He is active in promoting Humanism, Secularism, and Atheism, through a progressive spectrum, on and off of campus, through campaigning and journalism.

Hari Parekh

Hari Parekh is President Emeritus of Humanist Students and holds a first-class honours degree in Psychology and Criminology from the University of Northampton and an MSc in Forensic and Criminological Psychology from the University of Nottingham’, and is currently an Assistant Psychologist at a low-secure female psychiatric hospital. Hari was President of his society at the University of Northampton