The VUB opened the current academic year with the theme The world needs you. With that mission, rector Caroline Pauwels wanted to focus on more commitment in the next four years: from the university, its staff and students. Now, about two months later, the first of many initiatives is ready: via a new participatory ‘Equality Thinktank’ students are invited to help form the equality policy of the VUB.
The new Equality Thinktank illustrates the way in which the VUB wants to achieve a concrete commitment concerning the 6 Ps on which The world needs you wants to focus: People, Peace, Prosperity, Planet, Partnership and Poincaré. Karen Celis, professor and the rector’s advisor for the equality plan, is the leader of the ‘People’ unit in The world needs you. “Via the Equality Thinktank we want to invite the students to participate in developing and implementing the equality policy at the VUB,” she says. “After all, we want a policy that fits them well, that fits what the students value. Is there a better way to do that than by asking for their cooperation?”
They are not standing still at the thinktank. During November, they pull out all the stops with no less than four different initiatives in which co-creation is central. One of those has already been done: a video chat with writer and VUB Fellow Dalilla Hermans, during which students and people who were interested could decide, together with the writer, the content of the lecture series she will be giving during spring of 2021.
This Thursday, 19 November, there is an online session “Diversity in the Curriculum”. During that, the results of the research of the same name will be presented, followed by a debate about which steps are necessary. On Thursday, 26 November, the Equality Team will launch VEN: the VUB Equality Network. The goal of VEN: to offer groups, organisations and people of the VUB who work on equality and inclusion an exchange platform, practical support and a platform to connect and strengthen them.
Finally, on Monday, 30 November, there will be a tribute to the Moroccan sociologist and writer Fatima Mernissi who passed away in 2015 and played an important role in the development of feminism in the Muslim world. The tribute will be organised by professor Iman Lechkar, who holds the VUB Fatima Mernissi chair. There will be an opportunity to communicate with two other Fatima Mernissi chairs (Rabat and Mexico City) about which themes are under discussion on the crossroads of the Islam and the decolonisation.
Would you also like to work on more inclusion and equality at the VUB and in society? Then join the Equality Thinktank here.