Certificate "Organizing Gender & Diversity in Research, Teaching and Administration"
What role do gender and diversity aspects play in research proposals? What unconscious biases can influence appointment procedures? How can teaching be designed in such a way that it does justice to the diversity of students? And how can diversity-sensitive communication be achieved in the service and advisory areas?
If you would like to address these questions, the "Organizing Gender & Diversity in Research, Teaching and Administration" certificate offers you sound orientation and practical in-depth training.
What is the certificate about?
The certificate provides basic knowledge of gender mainstreaming, diversity management and the mechanisms of discrimination. It qualifies students in the use of diversity-sensitive methods and tools and helps them to integrate gender and diversity perspectives into their own areas of work - be it in research, teaching, advising, administration or in collaboration with colleagues and students.
Upon successful completion, participants receive a qualifying certificate that can be attached to job applications and documents that they have dealt with the topics of gender and diversity in depth. At the same time, the certificate offers a form of further training as part of the university's personnel development and contributes to strengthening a diversity-sensitive university culture.
Who is the certificate for?
The certificate is aimed at all university employees who would like to improve their gender and diversity skills for their respective area of work. This includes university lecturers, academic staff, people with personnel responsibility, employees in technology and administration, academic and student assistants, as well as anyone who works in contact with students, colleagues or external partners.
The certificate has a modular structure to allow participants to set their own individual focus. The in-depth courses are specifically tailored to the needs of the various employee groups. Employees from research, teaching and administration can thus select the content that is particularly relevant to their areas of responsibility and issues. The certificate program is framed by an introduction and conclusion.
How does the certificate work?
All participants complete four modules for certification, each of which is designated with 8 work units (WU). This means that the certificate program comprises 4 working days or 32 AE. In addition to the introductory module and the final module, which are compulsory for all participants, participants can choose two modules from four thematic areas.
- Research & Science
- Teaching & Studies
- Service & Management
- Recruitment and appointment procedures
These focus and extension modules allow for an in-depth examination of the relevant requirements and fields of practice.
The certificate program is made up of specifically developed courses on the one hand and existing courses at the University of Siegen on the other, which deal with gender and diversity in the areas of research, studies and teaching, consulting and leadership and can be credited towards the certificate.
Information on the individual focus modules
In the introductory module, you will work on key issues, theories and methods of gender mainstreaming and diversity management - and examine their historical contexts. You will deal with current social challenges and reflect on the significance of these topics in your professional environment.
You will learn about the added value of a diversity-sensitive organization at various levels and understand why gender mainstreaming and diversity management are essential, especially in the university context.
In this module, you will deal with the significance of gender and diversity for research projects in all phases of scientific work. You will learn to what extent characteristics such as gender, health status, origin or cultural background can play a role for both researchers and those being researched - or for the groups of people affected by research results.
You will analyze how these factors affect research design, data collection, choice of methods and interpretation of results. In addition, you will gain an insight into the requirements and expectations that research funding institutions are now formulating in the area of gender and diversity integration and how you can adequately take these aspects into account in applications.
The module supports you in planning research in a more differentiated way and designing it in a diversity-sensitive manner - for more well-founded results and higher quality scientific practice.
In this module, you will deal with the challenges and potential of heterogeneous learning groups. You will reflect on different educational experiences, learning and working styles and forms of interpersonal contact between teachers and students, and learn how to deal with these differences sensitively and professionally.
You will work out how to design seminars and lectures in a gender and diversity-sensitive way: from the didactic preparation of content to the provision of accessible materials and formats for diverse student groups. You will also deal with challenges in examination situations and learn how to implement suitable measures - such as compensation for disadvantages - in a responsible and legally compliant manner.
In this module, you will deal with the practical implementation of gender and diversity aspects in everyday management and leadership. You will reflect on typical challenges faced by managers and employees in diverse teams and develop approaches for working together that take into account different life situations, perspectives and needs. You will also look at how conflicts arise and develop strategies for resolving them constructively.
Another focus is on the diversity-sensitive design of service and advisory offerings. You will gain insights into how you can professionally support heterogeneous people seeking advice and design advice settings in such a way that they do justice to different backgrounds, prerequisites and needs.
In this module, you will deal with unconscious mechanisms that influence personnel selection processes, specifically with biases or distortions of perception (singular bias, plural bias). They reflect critically on these processes and develop strategies for recognizing and overcoming such patterns in their professional actions.
These unconscious biases, i.e. unconscious positive and negative biases and distortions, can relate to gender, origin, health status and family obligations. In the personnel selection process, ideas of "normal biographies" can also influence the procedure. Biases are inherent to all people to varying degrees.
This module supports you in making selection processes fairer, more transparent and sensitive to diversity, thereby contributing to quality-assured recruitment.
In the final module, you reflect on the knowledge acquired during the course of the certificate and its significance for your professional practice. You can choose between two forms of final performance:
- You either keep a training diary across all modules of the training course, in which you critically reflect on what you have learned,
- or you can apply a topic of your choice to your own area of work and develop it in writing.
Supervision, assessment and written feedback on your final performance will be provided by the certificate coordinator.