Post-pandemic fatigue and the EDI challenge
After the pandemic, both staff and students found themselves more fatigued and busier than ever. This left little time to engage with the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) agenda, even for just attending speaker events, regardless of whether they were in person or online. Despite the costs of these events, attendance was often low. It became clear that new innovative strategies were needed to re-engage everyone and create excitement around our EDI work.
Thinking outside the box
To catch the attention of busy individuals who couldn’t spare time for speaker sessions, we had to think creatively. We needed to try to engage people for shorter periods of time with something interesting and attention-grabbing. This led us to the idea of creating pop-up stands in high-traffic areas.
Engaging through games and activities
We needed something quick and engaging to make people stop and participate, and so we decided to develop a suite of games and activities. We collaborated with student interns to co-develop a range of games focused on topics like LGBTQIA+, disability, and inclusion.
These games aimed to increase knowledge about demographics, role models, and stereotypes. The students we worked with brought their own unique perspectives, lived experiences, and creativity, enriching the understanding of different protected characteristics and other demographics.
Quick engagement with lasting impact
Due to the time pressures our staff and students were facing, the focus of our pop-up stands was on quick engagement through various styles of games and activities. Whether someone had time for just one game or could engage with multiple games, these activities increased knowledge, showcased role models, and challenged stereotypes. Most importantly, the games allowed our EDI team to spark conversations, showcase our work, and signpost support services or networks.
Broadening the use of games
Although our games and activities were initially intended for pop-up stands, we found that most games could be adapted for various situations, such as small group workshops or large interactive presentations. This has broadened their use to events including team meetings, clinical teachers’ forums, and international conferences.
The games have been incredibly versatile and come at a very low cost, which is proving to be a real advantage in the current financial climate of the higher education sector.
Pros and cons of the approach
Pros:
- The events have increased visibility of the EDI team and raised awareness of EDI issues across all faculty members
- The events have extensive reach, attracting individuals who had previously not been involved in EDI and increased engagement with the work
- We have been able to build a database of engagement to record impact, e.g.: ‘Really good resources, an excellent way of starting the conversation about EDI.’, ‘The interactive games encouraged learning and difficult conversations.’ and ‘I thought it was very fun and a great way to engage people. Please do more in the future.’
Cons:
- EDI is an ever-changing landscape – terminology changes and data can quickly become outdated
- As staff and students learn more, they need new resources to keep expanding their knowledge
- Therefore, the games need to constantly refreshed and re-imagined to stay relevant and engaging
- There is a small cost-implication for staffing and resources. For optimal engagement, pop-up stands need to be staffed at all times and, to capture all of the target audience, they normally need to take place across multiple locations. The game resources also have a small printing cost and some small prizes or merchandise are useful for increasing engagement.
Sharing our success
Recognising the potential of this approach for others, we ran a workshop at the Advance HE 2024 EDI conference earlier this year. In the session, participants could play the games and start to develop their own ideas.
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with all respondents finding the session useful and wanting to replicate the idea in their institution, e.g: ‘Really interesting way of getting those who don’t get engaged engaged’, and ‘Fantastic inspiring. Great way to disseminate EDI in school.’
Since then, we’ve shared our games and activities with 15 UK institutions, one international institution, and an NHS trust via a Teams group in response to feedback, e.g.: ‘Need an online hub where people can share games!’
Any members of the group can now share games they create and we’re continuing to create new games so please get in touch if you’d like to give this a go!
About the authors: Emma Haagensen is the Director of EDI for the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University and Louise Wright was the EDI advisor for the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University (2021-24) and is now the Senior Change Manager (EDI) at Durham University.
This article has been kindly repurposed from Advance HE and you can read the original here.