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Women of Sussex – get ready for International Women’s Day 2024
Posted on behalf of: Internal Communications
Last updated: Wednesday, 14 February 2024
Dr Elizabeth Rendon-Morales
Last year to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) during March, Dr Elizabeth Rendon-Morales, Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Engineering and Informatics, and Dr Louise Newnham, Athena SWAN lead at the School of Life Sciences, curated a set of portraits of women working at Sussex, along with an encouraging comment from them for other women.
The portraits are now part of our University webpages as we continue to celebrate the achievements of women, past and present, who have shaped Sussex.
Portraits of our amazing women
The theme for IWD 2024 is ‘Inspire Inclusion’. In the lead up, we are preparing to open an exhibition of the photography portraits taken last year to help raise awareness and showcase role models working at Sussex. The exhibition will be on display in the Library during March and it’s not too late to have your portrait taken to be part of the exhibition.
The call is again inviting all women working at Sussex, whether academics, researchers, teaching tutors, technicians, professional services and support staff, or postgraduate researchers, to take part.
If you are interested, please email womenatsussex@sussex.ac.uk and internalcomms@sussex.ac.uk before the end of 14 February including:
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your encouraging statement
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your preferred date to book a time slot with Stuart Robinson, the University photographer.
Stuart is available to take portraits during February – on February 5, 9, 16, and 19. We encourage you to have your photograph taken rather than supplying a photo, as portraits taken in a work environment will help to highlight the breadth of roles.
We particularly encourage colleagues from Professional Services, the School of Media, Arts and Humanities and Early Career Researchers to get involved due to lower representation in the existing set of portraits, but women from all parts of the University are welcome.
Dr Rendon-Morales said: “This is an opportunity to showcase the valuable contribution women make to the University. We would like to encourage all departments and Schools to build their own collections of portraits of role models for our students and colleagues. We also acknowledge the importance of visible role models, particularly for under-represented groups at the University.”
Encouraging comments
Please also include an encouraging comment for other women in your email. The encouraging comments could be:
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a personal experience (e.g. proudest achievement at Sussex)
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advice for women wanting to get into your field
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a reflection on a woman who has inspired you (mother/daughter/wife/partner/friend)
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or simply a comment supporting our celebration of women at Sussex.
You can see some of the inspiring comments and portraits that Sussex women have already shared in this interactive board.