ADVOCACY. INSPIRATION. PROGRESS.

Annual Report 2015-16 Women@TUoSNET www.sheffield.ac.uk/womens-network twitter.com/WomenTUoS

From the Outgoing Chair

This has been an exciting year for women in our university: Lady Justice Rafferty became our first female Chancellor; the first ‘Portrait of a Woman’ of the inspirational Professor Gillian Gehring is now hanging in ; the number of female PVCs is at an all-time high; and the University achieved its KPI of 24% Women Professors. Nonetheless, the representation of women above Grade 9 remains patchy in many parts of the University leading to a stubborn gender pay gap. We have never had a female Vice Chancellor or Pro-Vice Chancellor for our Engineering or Science Faculties, and many of our Professional Services departments have never had a female head. Thus the work of our network remains important and we must ensure that we continue to make real progress towards equality. My year started with our Annual Lecture delivered by Professor Janet Beer, one of the few female Vice Chancellors of a UK university. In her motivating talk she encouraged us to step out of our comfort zones, to take on positions of leadership, and to provide opportunities for our junior colleagues to do the same. Throughout the year we have hosted inspirational lectures, provided informative sessions and confidence building workshops, to help achieve these aims. I have been particularly keen to involve men as supporters in these efforts through the ‘Me for You’ campaign which I launched this year. These workshops allowed us to explore our roles as ‘agents of change’ wherever discrimination occurs. The campaign will continue and we are investigating the possibility of embedding the training across the University.

I would like to thank the University for continuing to support the network and to express my thanks to all of the women on my steering committee for helping to deliver such a wide variety of successful events this year. My particular thanks go to Caitlin Buck our past Chair, Julie Gray current Chair who acted as my deputy and gave significant support throughout the year, and also Claire Pickerden who is stepping down after leading our Development Committee since our network’s beginnings. I have very much enjoyed my year as Chair of Women@TUoSNET. I have learnt a great deal and met inspiring women across our University. I wish our new Chair every success for the coming year and am confident the network will continue to grow from strength to strength under her leadership.

Dr Lynne Bingle, Chair of Women@TUoSNet, 2015-16 ADVOCACY. INSPIRATION. PROGRESS.

Women@TUoSNET Events

We kicked-off in October with our Annual Lecture, a lively presentation on Women as Senior Change Leaders by Professor Janet Beer, Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, one of only three female VCs in the . A spirited advocate for increased diversity in leadership, she asked us to give more thought to what leaders look like and to concentrate less on heroic leadership and more on collaborative working at all levels.

Our Workshops focused on Resilience, Building Strategies for difficult events; how Unconscious Bias affects our decision making behaviour; and how societal pressures on women can exacerbate Imposter Syndrome. Lunchtime TALKS were thought-provoking with Maggie Wykes Senior Lecturer in Criminology, discussing Everyday Sexism, and Emily Gray from Law screening and discussing Women’s Views of Post-Thatcherism. Our Seminars included Understanding University Finance from Vicki Jackson, Assistant Director in Finance; Life as a Research Fellow saw three TUoS women talking about the ups and downs of their career paths (Janet Cronshaw, Rebecca Corrigan and Fiona Gilchrist); and Get Involved and have your Say: Women in Decision-Making, describing the benefits of taking up positions on committees and boards with Lynne Bingle, Lorraine Maltby, Chris Sexton and Catherine Stokowski. Sheila MacNeil hosted our first evening event, Presenting Your Confident Self, the TED talk Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are inspired lively discussion around the links between appearance and career progression. Rachel Tobbell led Speed Networking for ECRs, and we finished the year on high note with our AGM and a stimulating talk from Emeritus Prof Gillian Gehring on Portrait of a Woman - One Year On, about being the first women to have a portrait in Firth Hall and her pleasure in being viewed as an international role model.

International Women’s Day 2016

We organised a joint IWD celebration with Sheffield Hallam University for the second year running, and it was a fantastic success! A hundred and twenty women from all corners of our two universities, in both academic and professional roles, gathered at the ‘Heart of the Campus’ in March. Professor Shearer West, our newly appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor kindly opened the event with a captivating talk describing her career path– a fantastic role model! We socialised getting to know our counterparts from the other side of the city over a ‘brown bag lunch’ before splitting up into five workshop groups. Here we discussed strategies for building personal resilience, networking, and career development. James Lush of the Equality Challenge Unit offered advice on successfully applying for Athena SWAN accreditation, before we met up for a cream tea and then headed off again to a second workshop. The day closed with an amusing and provocative lecture from Julia Yates of the University of East London, who explained how our outward appearance and attractiveness can affect our career prospects. All in all, we had an inspiring, informative and fun day. We are planning an event for IWD 2017 together with our new friends at SHU. Although we have enjoyed their hospitality for the past two years, Women@TUoSNET are determined that the next IWD celebrations will be held here, at the . Tickets will go fast, so look out for your invitation to register.

ADVOCACY. INSPIRATION. PROGRESS.

News from the Network Groups

Our existing Women@TUoS groupings continue to thrive, with the Women Professors Network hosting a variety of lunchtime events; Parents@TUoS hosting their ever popular themed coffee mornings each term; and Women at the AMRC hosting a successful lecture and lunch with Dr Dame Sue Ion. Over the past year several new groups have also taken shape: International Women’s Network in Higher Education With funding from the Sheffield International Mobility Fund, Caitlin Buck established a culturally diverse network with founder members from Europe, East Asia, Africa and Australia, and the aim of learning from each other. Partners from Universities of Cape Town, Western Australia and Tongji visited Sheffield in 2015 to launch our International Network. Working with our intern, Laura Copete, we completed a comparative study on the proportions of women in our institutions, from the student intake right through to the professoriate, to highlight where our common barriers and leaky pipelines may lie. In 2016, Caitlin Buck, Julie Gray and Claire Pickerden visited the University of Cape Town (UCT) to learn about their twenty years’ of experience in seeking to address inequalities particularly around race. UCT is in the process of developing their own women’s network and are interested in learning from us, whilst we were keen to study their transformation agenda. Our shared future goals are to increase awareness of the value of diversity in academic life, and to support those currently under-represented. Women in Professional Roles This year saw the development of an active group representing the interests of non-academic women led by Amy Jeffries, Kate Richardson, Gaynor Hague and Lizzie Ruse, and recruiting over 500 new members. 82 women responded to our survey to find out what women in Our members say…

professional roles 'great to hear ideas from would like to see on others and to know that I am the Women@TUoS not alone' calendar. Based on this we ran events including: Challenge your internal Context ‘What a wonderful event! I facilitated by Barbara Bassa; and 'Promotion and Progression didn't know what to expect but for Women in Professional Roles where four speakers it was incredibly inspiring and presented their own case study, and discussed how to make informative. Glad I dropped in!’ the best use of opportunities available. ADVOCACY. INSPIRATION. PROGRESS.

What is Women@TUoSNET? Women@TUoS Steering Group 2015-16 The Network is a member-led initiative, run by Lynne Bingle (Chair) Reader, School of Clinical Dentistry women for women, but where appropriate staff of Julie Gray Professor, Molecular Biology & any gender are welcome to attend our events. It is (Deputy Chair) Biotechnology open to academic, research, teaching, and professional services staff. The Network has its Caitlin Buck Professor, SoMaS (Past Chair) roots in the Faculties of Science and Engineering, but now reaches out to women across the Kathryn Jackson Researcher, Nuclear AMRC University and welcomes all interested parties to (Women at the AMRC) get involved. Rachael Rothman Lecturer, Chemical and Biological (Women in Engineering) Engineering The Women@TUOS NETwork aims to support women in their career development by acting as a Kristine Horner Reader, Germanic Studies forum for discussion and a unified voice to help raise issues and address the career challenges Cheryl Miller Senior Lecturer School of Clinical that women face. The Network provides informal Dentistry mentoring and networking opportunities, access

Louise Preston Research Fellow, ScHARR to a range of role models, and a variety of (Parents@TUoS ) initiatives to improve retention and promotion for women. Claire Mangham Research Development, Research and (Website manager) Innovation Services We hold our Annual General Meeting in June and ask our membership about the past events that Caroline Oates Senior Lecturer, Management School they valued (or didn’t) and generate a ‘wish list’ Claire Pickerden White Rose Consortium (Development Group) for future events. Many of the events that are Gwen Reilly Lecturer Materials Science and currently being planned are a direct consequence Engineering of feedback from the membership. The AGM is a Jenny Saul Professor, Philosophy critical component in ensuring that the Network Rhonda Snook Reader, Animal &Plant Sciences works for its members. Frances Dee, Staff Development , Human Resources Aki Tsuchiya Professor, Faulty of Social Science (Women Professors)

Become a member of the NETwork. We are always pleased to welcome new members. We offer an annual programme of events and it’s free to join. If you would like to know more about our events and activities or would like to join the NETwork please get in touch with us through the website www.sheffield.ac.uk/womens-network 1098 members on Women@TUoS email ADVOCACY. INSPIRATION. PROGRESS.

The Year Ahead

Our institution’s commitment to working towards gender equality is growing. We gained Silver Athena SWAN status in April, and an impressive 21 departments now hold Athena SWAN awards. In 2016-17 we aim to work together with the Gender Equality Committee and HR, to help deliver on our Athena SWAN action plans, and to continue to support women in their careers through our CV+ scheme, our Writing Club and a variety of events. A busy programme of personal development workshops and talks is planned, which has been kicked off by our Annual Lecture. Local MP Angela Smith’s talk on the impact of Brexit on inequalities was extremely topical, and a programme of talks to showcase our research on gender issues at TUoS will follow. We already have plans for a Christmas Social in December, International Women’s Day in March, and our AGM in June 2017.

Our network now extends to support women throughout the University. Through our Steering Group we work together with the Women at the AMRC, Women Professor’s Network, Parents@TUoS, Women in Professional Roles, the Students’ Union Women’s Officer and others. It is also clear that our network is much admired outside of the university and that we should be very proud of what has been achieved under our previous Chairs. We are frequently invited to speak about how we set up the network and what we do; this summer I spoke to 600 international delegates at the Associated Country Women of the World AGM - including a Malaysian princess! Last year, as Deputy Chair, I was able to play a part in our budding International Women’s Network; inviting female academics from China, Australia, and South Africa to Sheffield, and making a return visit to the University of Cape Town. We saw the very same issues and concerns as our own echoed by women in universities around the world, and exchanged ideas on how to move forward. Who knows where our network will take us next! I am excited about our year ahead, and delighted to serve as Chair of Women@TUoS NETwork.

Professor Julie Gray, Incoming Chair

ADVOCACY. INSPIRATION. PROGRESS.

Events Planned for 2016-17 Semester 1

28 Sept Parent@TUoS ‘Technology & family life’

4 Oct Steering Group Meeting

6 Oct Annual Lecture & Lunch. Angela Smith MP ‘Women in the Workplace – how Brexit might affect inequalities’. Introduction by Julie Gottlieb ‘A Century of Women in Politics and Leadership’

17 Oct Imposter Syndrome Workshop Facilitated by Rachel Tobbell

25 Oct Women Professors Network, New Professorial Salary Review. With Ian Wright Associate Director of HR

8 Nov N8 networks discussion with Prof Candy Rowe from Newcastle women's network

10 Nov TALK 'Implicit Bias, Stereotype Threat, and Women in Academia' by Jenny Saul

15 Nov Women Professors Network 'Being the Token Female' facilitated by Caitlin Buck

12 Dec Mindfulness Christmas De-stress. Taster session with Lisa-Marie Emerson

13 Dec Parents@TUoS 'Parenting through Adversity'

15 Dec Xmas Social. Organisers Amy Gandy and Michelle Moore

Plus the supportive Women’s Writing Club every Friday in the

Current details and registration for events at

www.sheffield.ac.uk/womens-network