News

It is the second year that the Dunn School has actively enacted anti-bullying week (13 – 17 November 2017), a national campaign from the Anti-Bullying Alliance. The theme of this year’s campaign being “All Different, All Equal” which includes Odd Socks Day, an opportunity for individuals to express themselves and appreciate uniqueness. This year, the department kicked off  the anti-bullying week with a coffee and cake morning and two invited speakers namely  Caroline Kennedy (University’s Equality and Diversity Unit) and Alan Percy (Head of Student Counselling) sharing their views on how bullying and harassment can be tackled effectively.

Caroline said: “In the case of bullying and harassment, the devolved structure of the University has lots of advantages. First, due to the democratic nature of the University when we were revising the policy procedure it took us 18 months to draft it where we consulted staff and student representatives which included the student union, trade union, colleges, harassment advisers and departmental Heads. Second is that support and welfare is close to home and you as a department are lucky to have four harassment advisors and third, informal resolutions are possible because of local advisors. For those who cannot speak to advisers locally we have a central unit where student and staff can use.”

Alan said: “Bullying and harassment is something we see a lot at the counselling service. One of the things we see often is by the time we see a student in a crisis, there has been a journey where it has started at an early point as a result of misunderstanding or miscommunication. So what we encourage is if people feel uncomfortable about things that they are empowered to do something about it and that they can start addressing it.”

Part of the coffee and cake morning activities and resources that were provided included:

• Speech from Head of the Department, Matthew Freeman discussing the Dunn School’s zero tolerance to bullying and harassing behaviour.
• An anti-bullying display with flyers and “All Different, All Equal” stickers. These flyers covered fictionalised case studies produced by Human Resources Manager, Frances Wright, to show what measures the department would take to resolve reported bullying or harassment behaviour.

Human Resource Manager, Frances Wright said “I think it is a really good opportunity to reaffirm how we feel as a department and I really think that the Dunn School does care”

Head of the Dunn School, Professor Freeman wearing his odd socks reiterated that  the Dunn School has zero tolerance to bullying and that the Anti-Bullying Week is an excellent way of raising awareness about it.

Archna Shah and Sonia Muliyil  (@Muliyilsonia)