August 2019

It has been a great first year at MAP – SASP!

We’re currently working on setting things up for next year. We have great things planned! If you’re interested in collaborating with us, you can sign up here or send us an email to mapuk.sasp@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

So, what have we been up to this year?

Throughout the year we held:

° a fortnightly well-being lunch to fight isolation among students,

° and a monthly discussion group where we’ve discussed selected topics (e.g. social defeat, lookism, charitable reading, reading texts by bad people, among others).

In Fall 2018, we also ran:

° the mentoring programme for undergraduate students who identify as members of an under-represented or disadvantaged group in Philosophy.

And in Spring 2019, we ran:

° The practical workshop Creating Inclusive Classrooms: The theory and practice of teaching underrepresented groups, organised in collaboration with the Diversity Reading List (DRL). We had three amazing talks by Annie McCallion (Manchester), Ian Kidd (Nottingham), and Simon Fokt (Edinburgh/DRL), followed by a panel discussion with our speakers and Lisa Jones (St Andrews);

° The discussion panel Race, Ethnicity and Language in Academia organized by the undergraduate arm of MAP in St Andrews and our school president. Our keynote speaker was Dr Katrin Flikschuh (LSE). Her talk was followed by a panel discussion with her, and with Dr Walter Pedriali, Dr Gurchathen Sanghera and Quan Nguyen, from St Andrews;

° The summer workshop Silencing, Prejudice and Resistance held at the University of Stirling. Our keynote speaker was Prof Mari Mikkola (Oxford). We also heard excellent talks by Dr Carla Carmona (Seville), Alice Monypenny (Nottingham), Sage B. Perdue (George Washington), Sumeet Patwardhan (Michigan). The talks were followed by a roundtable discussion with our speakers and with Joe Slater (Glasgow), Alana Wilde (Sheffield), Pascal Mowla (LSE), and Susan Notess (Durham).

To address issues related to equality, diversity and inclusion we have held meetings and worked closely with faculty members from both departments.

In Fall 2018, we ran a climate survey to find out more about the climate in our departments.

In addition, members of MAP have been involved in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee of the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies of the University of St Andrews. As part of this committee, they have contributed to the Athena SWAN application of the school and ran a focus group to learn more about PGR experiences.

Finally we have worked closely with student representatives at both undergraduate and postgraduate level from both universities to address challenges related to the climate of our departments.

We have a lot planned for this year, so stay tuned!

Thanks for your support!

MAP – SASP