Talk about success: BU women academics speak.

Abstract

Established in 2013 the Women’s Academic Network (WAN) at Bournemouth University is a non-corporate, collegial nexus of women academics and female postgraduate researchers drawn from across the four Faculties. The aim of WAN is to act as a support group, while promoting the profiles of women scholars and lobbying on a range of institutional barriers that impact upon women’s academic careers. WAN has enjoyed considerable success in pursing these goals during its short lifespan. Annually WAN co-convenors have held a range of important speaker, panel and conferences events and promotional activities, as well as acting as patrons of local cultural exhibitions and performances serving to highlight the extraordinary talent of women, as well as their gendered oppression - both of which too often goes unrecognised. In this book, inspired by Jo Bostock’s (2016) The Meaning of Success: Insights from women at Cambridge, WAN co-convenors wondered how women colleagues would respond to what they think the loaded term ‘success’ means at Bournemouth University – and so we decided to ask them. Invited to participate from across ranks, disciplines, ethnicity, nationality and age, the reader will find numerous narratives from a diverse group of women academics, all of whom, regardless of differences, reflect deeply on what success means for them. Taken together the collection is illuminating, surprising, witty, moving, punchy and, ultimately, inspiring.