Meet the 2025 EDI Prize Winners, Professor Nicola Veitch, Dr Leighann Sherry and Dr Stewart White
Dr Beatrice Achan, is a Clinical microbiologist from Makerere University, Kampala. In this blog post Beatrice interviews the 2025 EDI Prize Winners, Professor Nicola Veitch, Dr Leighann Sherry and Dr Stewart White. Beatrice really enjoyed finding out more about their work which lead up to their Prize lecture titled: Embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion into Biosciences Undergraduate Curricula through Staff-Student Partnerships.
Dr. White, I would like to thank you for your participation in equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Could you please tell us the difference between equity and equality?
Sure. For good or for bad, EDI has been in the news a lot recently. EDI is more often used as equality, diversity and inclusion, but I think equity is a far better term. The diversity part of it is participation and presence in any organisation of individuals from different backgrounds, with varying perspectives and in particular including groups that have traditionally been underrepresented. The equity part of it is allowing equal access to opportunities with fair and impartial treatment for everybody. The inclusion part of it, I guess, is a case of, hopefully, an environment where everybody feels that they belong, where everybody feels welcomed, accepted and, importantly, respected.
Professor Veitch, programme coordination is a pivotal position in linking students, fellow staff, administration, student well-being services and many more. What are some of the EDI considerations in coordinating a programme?
It's a really good question and an important one. Inclusion is a really big part of programme coordination. We also put a big emphasis on student voices, listening to their needs and feedback. We involve our students in course design, course assessments and curriculum design and I think that's a big part of it. But also, it's really important to listen to all of the staff who contribute to the programme. So, it takes people from all job families who contribute to run a successful programme. I feel that everybody really needs to feel valued as part of that process. For example, we all work together as a team with interactions and meetings.
In addition to that, I have a role as a senior advisor of studies which I think ties nicely into my role as programme coordinator. For example, if I have a Disabled student or a student who's having issues with their mental health, I can refer them to the support services that they need to ensure that they can move towards getting support and also to fully engage with their studies. So, I think having those two roles is important and they work well together.
Would student support services include making adjustments for learning venues? For example, if you have a Disabled student within the class or the programme you're coordinating?
Yes, if a student is registered with our disability services that's taken into account when timetabling is done. So, we have a central timetabling team and, if it is flagged that within a course there's a Disabled student, that's taken into account when they're assigning a room. For example, we will make sure the lecture theatre is accessible. As a university, EDI is really taken into account and disability services do very well to support students to make sure they can access rooms and get from room A to B, because we have a very big campus, which does create challenges for students.
How does blended learning and digital technology promote EDI in learning?
We use a lot of blended learning with the types of material that we've developed. We've developed many different types of digital technologies to try to engage students with their learning. As part of the project that we won this award for, we actually developed an equality and diversity mobile app that students can download and access any time. The app is free and, essentially, we are asking our students to use that material to work independently and come to class when they are ready to. This helps the many students who need to commute to the university.
Creating an inclusive curriculum is really one that I think has to support all students. That's looking at how we're delivering our teaching through different teaching styles and methods, but also how we're assessing them and embedding different assessment practices into that, as well as the feedback they get with it. This is because we are recognising that not everyone is learning in the same way and we need to make sure we have given opportunities for everyone to succeed. For example, within our curriculum, writing skills are really important. However, not everyone excels in this type of assessment. Therefore, we brought in different types of assessments; ability to write a laboratory report is one way of assessing writing skills. We also do oral assessments, as well as conversations with students, to understand at a deeper level how they are learning.
Dr Sherry, firstly, I think it's great to speak to someone who's a fellow mycologist! I feel there's not many of us about, so it's always great to have these opportunities.
I completely agree, as similar to some other institutions of learning, at the University of Glasgow, the teaching of mycology is quite low. There are not many mycologists here, but it's certainly an area that we are very keen to develop our teaching and research profiles in, and we're actively seeking to get more staff on board with it. Personally, I teach across level two, three and four of our undergraduate curriculum in addition to colleagues who, when teaching eukaryotic sessions, will also talk about mycology. So it's an area that as a university we are absolutely trying to improve on and get more of it embedded in our curricula. I also do wonder if it's something that we could look at more broadly, and maybe this is something the Microbiology Society could help with, to look at what mycology has actually been taught with different curriculums in different institutions. Collectively, designing an inclusive curriculum gives us an opportunity to make sure all our students are receiving a similar education in the field, which, when achieved, would be amazing.
You also mentioned something about virtual field trips. What do you mean by virtual field trips?
In our course, for possibly more than 20 years now, we've embedded a three-day residential field trip which is aimed at providing our students with a hands-on learning style and exploring host-pathogen relationships within a local environment. However, what we recognised is that this learning style is not inclusive for all students, for example, for students who have caring responsibilities as they might not be able to go away for a three-day trip, or a student with a disability might not be able to access certain parts of the field course. Therefore, back in 2019 we created a virtual field trip which included a range of videos and hands-on simulations that allowed our students to see exactly what was going on each part of the field trip. So even if they couldn't make it for all or part of the trip, they still understood the methods that we were performing and the environment we were sampling, to make them feel as if they were physically part of it. Although the virtual trips were developed pre-COVID-19, it actually helped us when the pandemic hit because we couldn't go on our field trips. As part of the virtual trips we also created an online view of the accommodation because we know that many students get anxious about going away if they don't know their new environment and surroundings. So, creating this virtual tour of where they would be staying really helped alleviate those concerns with certain groups of students, so they were comfortable going into it.
How does it feel to win the EDI Prize?
Dr. White: It feels really, really lovely to be recognised and to have the work that we've all done and all the students have done be recognised. But also, I think it's really nice that it's something that we can use to raise the profile of EDI in the university and further afield as well. The fact that all that hard work has actually been recognised, and also the fact that it emphasises the importance of EDI in general, is exciting.
Dr. Sherry: Yeah, it's amazing. It really is a huge honour. And, as much as it's great, I think, for the four of us to be part of this prize it really does have to go back to the students; not just those that were just involved in developing material, but as we're continually improving it we're seeking feedback constantly from our current student cohorts about what they want to see. So, having their valuable feedback is really just going to push us forward a bit more and help us to bring our colleagues on board and bring them on this journey as well. So it really is a great honour.
Prof. Veitch: A huge thanks goes to all the students who have worked on this project. I know that it's been a fantastic experience. I’m very honoured to get the award.
