Student EDI Matters

At the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, equality, diversity, and inclusion are paramount to the student experience and our subjects as a whole.

Resources for students

The creation of an environment free from discrimination for students to learn and engage with their studies is of great importance to the School. Discrimination and bias are not tolerated in any aspect of the student experience, and help and support is available to nurture an inclusive and welcoming community within the School. 

Below you will find some resources which can help you recognise and counteract discrimination.

PhD and MScR student mentoring scheme

Since 2018, History, Classics and Archaeology has run a successful mentoring scheme for PhD and MScR students within the School.  The aim of the scheme is for you to receive additional, informal, non-academic, support from outside of your supervisory team.  The scheme has an aim to address two main issues facing research students:  

  • There has been a general tendency towards the professionalization of PhD students over the past few years, with an increased emphasis on conference organization, publishing, teaching and social media. At the same time, the job market for early career academics has become increasingly demanding. 
  • The under-representation of female academic staff and PGR students, means that some students lack informal contact with female members of academic staff.  In order to rectify this, we can provide a female mentor for students with an all-male supervisory team.  

We expect the Mentoring Programme will provide around 6 hours support over the academic year, which will be up to you and your mentor to decide how this will be used.  The meetings can take place either face-to-face or over Zoom, depending on the location of your mentor.      

The mentoring scheme is an excellent way to be able to address challenges our PhD students face on an individual level - as every life story is different. Having recently been through several years (and Universities) as a post-doc, I believe that I am well placed to support PhD students in terms of their career planning, work-life balance and other questions that may arise.

 - a mentor

If you are interested in utilising the programme, please contact Dr Julie Gibbings, Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: julie.gibbings@ed.ac.uk.

 

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