The Faculty is committed to supporting and sustaining a diverse community, and to avoiding prejudice based on race, gender (female, male or other), sexuality, class or religion (or lack of it). In these pages you can find out about what we are doing to ensure that all students, staff and visitors feel equally welcome.
The University has an active Equality and Diversity unit: their website (http://www.equality.admin.cam.ac.uk/) provides a wealth of further information, resources and contacts.
Contract for all in the Faculty
When you enter the Faculty building or interact with the Faculty’s members, you are implicitly entering into a contract requiring you to treat others – including, importantly, non-academic staff – with courtesy and dignity. We expect all members of our community to strive to be welcoming towards and supportive of each other. In particular, we expect everyone to engage positively with those who do not share their social identity and/or role within the Faculty.
Further, we expect all members of the community to act in accordance with the university's guidelines on Acceptable and Unacceptable Behaviour and the Dignity@Work policy.
Staff engaged in academic teaching are expected to create not only a challenging and stimulating but also an inclusive learning environment. They should avoid making assumptions about the gender, race, sexuality and/or religion of their audience, and should take reasonable precaution to avoid projecting normative or dismissive views in these matters. It is perfectly legitimate for academic staff to explore questions relating to such areas in their teaching, but they should do so with sensitivity. With regard to texts and subjects that raise issues that individual students or groups of students might find difficult, the Faculty has committed to drawing attention to these in advanced publicity for courses as well as on the occasions when they are explicitly discussed in lectures, while recognising that there will be occasions when the spontaneity of the teaching exchange brings up such subjects without advanced warning. On such occasions such subjects should be treated with sensitivity.
We expect all participants in academic discussions that take place under the Faculty’s auspices to be tolerant of others at all times. This does not rule out robust and searching, and sometimes even discomfiting topics and lines of argument. It is in the nature of high-level intellectual enquiry that the moral ‘certainties’ of some will be questioned. No one, however, should seek to cause offence for offence’s sake alone.
Resources
The Faculty offers financial help with childcare for staff who are required to attend Faculty-related meetings or seminars outside of normal office hours (typically 9.00-17.00 Monday-Friday). For details please contact the Faculty administrator.
For other Equality and Diversity resources please consult the relevant pages on the University's website.
Reports and Links
Moodle Courses and Guides
- Equality and Diversity Essentials
- Understanding Unconscious/ Implicit Bias
- DRC Guide on Accessible Materials
- Trans Inclusion Guide (formatted / plain-text)
Networks and Societies providing support and community for Classicists
- Sportula Europe (a mutual aid network which provides micro-grants to Classics students who are experiencing financial difficulties; it also holds virtual social encounters among Classicists of colour)
- Classicists of Colour Cambridge (a positive space for BAME Classicists in Cambridge)
- Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus (a society to support Asian and Asian American Classicists)
- Women’s Classical Committee UK (offering, inter alia, financial support to cover expenses related to scholarly activities and mentoring for PhD students who self-define as women)
- Working-class Classics (a network of solidarity and support for working-class Classicists)
- Trans in Classics (a space to meet and discuss trans-issues in Classics; they have a discord server for community and friendship)
- Queer and the Classical (a space to share ideas, find new connections and resources)
- CripAntiquity (advocacy organization for disabled and neurodivergent Classicists)
- Asterion (support, resources and community for neurodivergent Classicists)
Further EDI Initiatives and reports
- CUCD Equality and Diversity in Classics Report (November 2020)
- Women in Classics in the UK: Numbers and Issues (September 2016)
- Race Equality at Cambridge
- Breaking the silence - preventing harassment and sexual misconduct
- Multiculturalism, Race & Ethnicity in Classics Consortium (MRECC) (international organisation; the blog includes many useful resources and teaching materials)
Personal Relationships between Staff and Students
Following the launch of the University’s ‘Breaking the Silence’ campaign and the subsequent roll out of ‘Where Do You Draw the Line?’ training sessions for staff, which is part of ongoing work to prevent bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct, the University has issued a policy for declaring personal relationships between Staff and Students. See the links below:
The policy is intended to ensure that, in the event that a relationship arises, arrangements are put in place to protect both parties from any perceptions of preferential or other inequitable treatment.