The WCC UK conference graduate mentoring scheme will run for the third time at this year’s Classical Association Conference in Swansea, 8th-11th April 2022 (postponed from 2020). This scheme matches mentors and mentees for a one-off mentoring meeting during the conference. Mentees should be enrolled on an MA or PhD course at any stage from registration to post-viva final submission; mentors should consider themselves mid-late career. We would particularly like to encourage senior staff members (Senior Lecturers/Readers/Associate Professors/Professors) to sign up as mentors. Both mentors and mentees can sign up using the same form here. Applications close at midnight on Monday 21st March 2022. Pairs will be put in touch by Friday 25th March 2022. People need not be attending the conference in person to participate in this scheme. Virtual meetups can also be facilitated.
To access this, you should be a member of the WCC UK in good standing; please see the Membership Page for details.
By signing up for any of the WCC UK’s mentoring schemes, you agree to abide by the WCC UK’s Mentoring Code of Conduct.
As a reminder, short-term mentoring remains available more generally. Further information can be found on the Mentoring Page.
If you have any questions about these schemes or any other aspect of mentoring through WCC UK, please contact the Mentoring Officer at cressida.ryan at theology.ox.ac.uk.
The WCC UK is pleased to announce a series of webinars featuring classics editors from book presses and journals, who will demystify the publication process and answer questions live. This is a free pre-lunch hour webinar from 11am to noon (GMT) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (We will confer with speakers about recording their talks). This series has been organised by Manu Dal Borgo and Cressida Ryan, the WCC UK’s mentoring officers, in response to our members’ requests for more support around publishing, and to provide some support which might address concerns around women submitting less work for publication in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to feedback gathered from members, the WCC UK is developing a mentoring scheme with three strands. The first is the Take a Grad Student to Lunch Scheme, which ran successfully for the second time in Summer 2019. The second, launched here, is the Co-Mentoring Triads Scheme.
The Co-Mentoring Triads Scheme is designed to facilitate a fixed-term, mutually beneficial mentoring arrangement to be established among three members, to avoid the hierarchy present in traditional mentoring relationships. Co-mentoring triads will run for one academic year. Triads will be grouped together around specific themes and interests that the members wish to explore in the coming year, as well as other factors such as preferred method of communication and location. Members from all careers and career stages are welcome to sign up. Triads will be matched up by the Mentoring Officer and informed of their triad’s membership by the end of September.
Initial contact will be made by e-mail. Other methods of communication will be agreed upon at the triad’s discretion; these may include e-mail discussions, Skype calls or in-person meetings. Regularity of contact will be determined at the discretion of the triad. Triads are expected to contact each other at least four times over the course of the year. Worksheets and guidance will be provided by the WCC UK which may help to structure the mentoring arrangement. You are not obliged to use these, but they may help you to get the most out of your triad. Please be reasonable with your demands on your colleagues’ time and respectful of the commitment they have made to you. By signing up to the scheme you agree to abide by the WCC UK’s Mentoring Code of Conduct.
The scheme is open to all WCC UK members in good standing. Please sign up here by Friday 13th September. If you have any questions about the scheme, please contact the Acting Mentoring Officer, Christine Plastow, at christine.plastow [at] open.ac.uk.
We are delighted that the Women’s Classical Committee UK will have a very strong presence at the upcoming Classical Association conference in Leicester. If you’d like to catch up with us, here’s what’s going on…
Take A Graduate Student To Lunch
We will be running the first of our mentoring events as part of our aim to advance equality and diversity in Classics and to provide support for junior colleagues in the profession. Modelled on the Women’s Classical Caucus SCS ‘Research Coffees’ scheme, this process promotes mentoring connections between established and junior scholars. We hope that junior researchers will get together informally with established scholars to gain from their expertise and discuss their research and career aspirations. We will do our best to match up mentors and mentees appropriately, and then pass on mentees’ contact details to their mentors, who will then get in touch to arrange the meeting. Participation is open to current members only and an e-mail with more details will be going out soon; if you have questions about how to sign up, please e-mail us at womensclassicalcommittee at gmail.com. You can find out how to join the WCC UK here.
Saturday 7th April
8pm – social event, the Marquis Wellington pub. Coordinator – Liz Gloyn. Turn up, have a drink or a smoothie, and chat to like-minded classicists – and be ahead of the crowd for the conference disco which begins at 9pm!
Sunday 8th April
9am-11am – WCC UK organised panel 1: Materiality and Gender I
Chair: Liz Gloyn
S. Sheard – Gendering the Projecta Casket
S. Rainbow – The Gendering of Lefkandi Knives
E. Mackin Roberts – Girls’ Bodies as Religious Objects in Classical Athens
L. Webb – Gendering The Roman Imago:Clarae Imagines from Filia to Funus
2pm-4pm – WCC UK organised panel 2: Materiality and Gender II
Chair: Rosa Andújar
K. Backler – Μνήματα Χειρῶν: Textiles and their Authors in the Homeric Epics
M. Gerolemou: Material Agents: Hesiod’s Pandora and Posthuman Feminism
K. Ladianou – Material Girls in Sparta: Language, Performance and Materiality in Alcman’s Partheneion
C. Blanco – Women Feminising the Womaniser: The Case of Deianira in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis
Please also keep an eye out for members of the WCC UK sporting badges featuring our brand new logo, once more coordinated by Ellie Mackin Roberts. We are delighted that once again the CA will be including membership form for the WCC UK in conference attendee packs this year, and hope that our membership will grow from our profile at the conference. If you’re reading this post, will not be at the CA and would like to join, our membership form is also available online.
