NUIG agrees to gender taskforce recommendations

The Irish Times wrote:

NUI Galway (NUIG)’s governing authority has welcomed the recommendations published by a gender equality taskforce on Tuesday and has committed to implementing them as a matter of urgency.

However, the university’s Siptu branch has reiterated its call for an “external, independent review” of its gender policies, saying that the “credibility of the taskforce is still in question”.

The chairwoman of the governing authority, Judge Catherine McGuinness, said it accepted the four initial recommendations of the taskforce, namely the establishment of a new position of vice-president of equality and diversity; women holding 40 per cent of positions on management committees by the end of 2016; the roll out of “mandatory unconscious bias training” this year; and a review of promotion and career development policies.

The judge said that “the university is fully committed to achieving equality for all staff, irrespective of gender” and that the governing authority’s acceptance of the recommendations was “a strong confirmation of the commitment we have here at NUI Galway to eliminate gender inequality”.

Siptu response

However, Maggie Ronayne, Siptu academic staff stewards committee spokeswoman, said that staff did not believe the taskforce was independent due to its composition and the manner in which it was set up, without consultation with the trade unions.

She said Siptu would meet to consider a formal response but from her viewpoint “there is very little in this for the vast majority of women”.

She said that there were a number of cases of women on the “wrong grade”, or otherwise disadvantaged because of their gender. She also noted that the taskforce’s mandate did not extend to looking at “historical cases”.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) said it broadly welcomed the report, in that it indicated that NUIG was addressing the issue of gender discrimination.

However, IFUT urged the college to find a mechanism to include the staff and trade unions in the solution.

The taskforce was set up by NUIG in response to last year’s Equality Tribunalruling which found that botanist Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington had been discriminated against in a 2008-09 promotion round.

Addressing concerns

At a meeting today, the NUIG governing authority also committed to:

■Establishing the position of a new vice president of equality and diversity, who will initially focus on gender equality,

■Ensuring all major influential committees are comprised of a minimum of 40% women and 40% men by the end of 2016,

■Allowing an external expert to reviews its promotion and progression policies for all grades of staff.

NUI GALWAY IS to introduce training to address “unconscious gender bias” among staff members, its governing authority has confirmed.

The training will be mandatory for all senior management staff, including heads of schools, committee chairs and heads of interview boards.

Participants in the training will learn to “recognise their own biases [to help them] make better and more rational decisions”, a report endorsed by the university’s board said.

“Having more women in senior positions within an organisation improves the quality of decision making and diversity also enhances creativity and innovation which are at the heart of university business,” she said.