Athena SWAN Bronze Award!                                                                                                      

What is Athena Swan you may ask? Well, Athena SWAN is a charter that universities apply for to encourage the recruitment and retention of women in STEMM subjects. STEMM subjects are; Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine.

Many universities and their academic colleges, around the UK hold bronze, silver or gold Athena SWAN certificates; Swansea University being one of them!

We are lucky enough to have been awarded an Athena SWAN Bronze Award for the last three years. Swansea University are very proud and keen to keep this award, therefore, to maintain this progress Swansea University are currently reapplying to keep the Bronze Award this year, and encouraging the individual colleges to apply the six main Athena SWAN principals and apply for their own awards.

The six main principals that Athena SWAN bases their awards on are:

• To address gender inequalities requires commitment and action from everyone, at all levels of the organisation
• To tackle the unequal representation of women in science requires changing cultures and attitudes across the organisation
• The absence of diversity at management and policy-making levels has broad implications which the organisation will examine
• The high loss rate of women in science is an urgent concern which the organisation will addres
• The system of short-term contracts has particularly negative consequences for the retention and progression of women in science, which the organisation recognizes
• There are both personal and structural obstacles to women making the transition from PhD into a sustainable academic career in science, which require the active consideration of the organisation

The reason Athena SWAN is important is because of the culture that surrounds STEM subjects and the future of employment for women who study in this field. It is generally a male dominated area, which may make it slightly intimidating for female students to study subjects such as engineering or computer science because the classes are predominantly male, the lectures and Heads of Department are all predominantly male. This generally makes it harder for women to break into the job market in these fields and work their way to the top due to such a male dominated environment , a difference in approach to employment and the lack female role models at the top.

I am not saying that women cannot make it to the top, nor that they cannot be successful in this area, we have prime examples of strong women here at Swansea University that have done so. What I am saying is that the culture needs to be changed so that more and more women who study science, mathematics, technology and engineering can join them and excel in their studies and careers.

Student and staff statistics provide evidence that there is a gender gap, which is more predominant in STEMM subjects and colleges; this gender gap affects education institutions all around the UK. This needs to be tackled. One of the ways that Swansea University are addressing the problems of the gender gap for staff is that they are making meeting times more inclusive. The STEMM colleges have moved committee meeting times to so called “core working times” so that male and females with parenting responsibilities may attend. Other initiatives to encourage female students to apply is by addressing the language used in job adverts that may “put off” potential female candidates to apply for those positions.  

With this in mind, Swansea University and the Students’ Union are looking to work together to help and encourage student participation and understanding of the Charter and that STEMM subjects are working towards becoming more female friendly. We shall be working together in the networking, mentoring and promotion of Athena SWAN and hopefully become more involved as our working relationship becomes even better. This in turn, should persuade more female students to come to Swansea University and study STEMM subjects.