October 15, 2014, by Tara de Cozar
Athena SWAN award for Malaysia campus faculty
The University is the first institution to hold an international Athena SWAN award — recognising its commitment to supporting women and advancing their careers across all campuses. Congratulations to the Faculty of Science at our Malaysia campus — amazing work.
The Malaysia press release is below. It’s also on the Malasia campus website here.
The Faculty of Science at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) has become the first international holder of an Athena SWAN award from the UK’s Equality Challenge Unit (ECU). The awards recognise commitment to advancing women’s careers in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) in higher education and research.
“Congratulations to The University of Nottingham in Malaysia Faculty of Science for becoming our first international holder of an ECU Athena SWAN award, to all our new award holders and to those successfully renewing or upgrading previous awards.” Sarah Dickinson, Athena SWAN charter manager at Equality Challenge Unit, said.
“I am delighted that the Equality Challenge Unit has recognised the achievement of the Faculty of Science at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus with a prestigious Athena SWAN Bronze Award.
It is a great honour and testament to our ongoing efforts to ensure the successful career development of all our staff, especially women, in STEMM disciplines,” said Professor Claire O’Malley, Dean of Faculty of Science at UNMC.
“Our submission for the Athena SWAN bronze award provided a great opportunity for understanding how we are currently performing in relation to gender equality, as well as for reflection on what further we can do as a Faculty to support women in science subjects. Being the first unit to receive this award outside the UK is a particularly special achievement,” said Dr Elizabeth Sheppard (pictured), Athena Committee chair for Faculty of Science and Associate Professor at the School of Psychology at UNMC.
On September 9, UNMC launched the first working group amongst Malaysia’s higher education institutions which promotes gender equality. At the launch two new career development initiatives, the WinSET Mentoring Programme (WMP), and the WinSET Leadership Development Programme (WLDP) were unveiled by Yg. Bhg. Professor Dr Raha binti Abdul Rahim, Director of the Higher Education Excellence Planning Division, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Malaysia.
The Athena SWAN awards presentation ceremony will be held on 6 November 2014 at the University of Cambridge.
Back in the UK, we’ve had more Athena SWAN success. The School of Mathematical Sciences, School of Biosciences and School of Medicine have received bronze awards.
Particular congratulations go to the School of Medicine. As a new school – formed less then a year ago – this is a real achievement.
Head of the School of Medicine Prof John Atherton was delighted. He said:
“Last week we received the great news that Athena SWAN has awarded the School of Medicine with a Bronze Award. As a new school, this is a real and tangible achievement. The award is testament to the hard work of colleagues across the School and we can be justifiably proud of this achievement.”
i wish there where more female academics, maybe its high time we had the bee version of empowerment for women academics