Towards an Inclusive and Shared Code of Conduct for the ET Teaching & Learning Community

Project introduction and background information

The outcome of the survey on DE&I conducted in 2023 within the ET faculty of the University of Twente indicates that staff and students have a limited perception on diversity when it comes to the workplace, associating the term mainly to gender or race differences. As a result, the committee analysing the survey suggested to take action in terms of raising awareness on what diversity means in a broader sense, followed by the necessity to take accountability for DE&I to become a shared value in the teaching and learning community.

This 4TU.CEE Fellowship proposal follows this input and is designed around the three pillars of awareness, accountability and sustainability. The overall goal of building inclusive communities through a shared code of conduct can be reached only when the members of such community are aligned and willing to pursue this sense of belonging and reciprocal respect.

This project is connected to the researcher activity in collaboration with DesignLab for the University Innovation Fellow network as a Faculty Innovation Fellow.

Objective and expected outcomes

A series of activities will be conducted per each phase in a series of workshops involving students, faculty and staff members with the scope of exploring how diversity, equity and inclusion are intended, to define what privilege means in the academic context and how does it affect personal career paths, and eventually to identify the needs, best practices and possible implementation to create a safe working environment.

For each activity, a combination of tangible prototypes and reflective materials will be produced, informing the development of the following phase.

Results and learnings

In the first phase of the study, a pilot based on the UK model of the Academic Wheel of Privilege has been conducted between July and November 2024, involving representatives from supporting staff, academic staff and students. The study has been approved by the NES Ethical committee in date 24/07/2024, Ethical Review application number 240602.

To support the interaction in the sessions, a physical model of the wheel of privilege has been realized in collaboration with the staff of the DPM workshop, based on an initial low-fi prototype realized by the researcher. 

As part of the pilot, the participants were asked to fill-in an on-line form from which their own profile was outlined. They received a visualization of their profile on the wheel and a series of questions to reflect upon the model before joining the in-person session.

In the in-person session, the participants reflected on the personal experience of the wheel and their own awareness on DE&I and then brainstormed with the interviewer on implementation possibilities and expected impact for community building. The results of the interviews are being processed at this time. During the sessions, the participants had the opportunity to add their profile on the physical wheel by running a thread around the nails representing their own profile. At the end of the workshop, the overlap of each profile gave an overview of some diversity aspects present in the department in which the pilot has been conducted.

The visualization coming from the pilot is limited for a series of reasons, for example the limited number of participants is not representative of the community as a whole, despite attention to gender and role distribution. As a result of the pilot, the whole interaction will be redesigned for implementation.

What emerges from the interviews is that the use of a physical interface to visualize the personal positionality has been an added value to the workshop, and different ideas for further implementation have been discussed. Of these ideas, one foresees the possibility to transform the visualization in an artistic installation to be placed in the hall of the Horst building.