At Hartpury, Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) is embedded into institutional culture, shaping how the organisation supports its community and drives positive change.
Each year, this commitment is brought to life through EDI Celebration Month - a flagship programme of events, campaigns and engagement opportunities led by the EDI Forum.
In 2026, the celebration evolved once again in response to colleague feedback, broadening access, increasing flexibility and strengthening community impact. Moving the programme to February also enabled Hartpury to align activity with the national LGBT+ History Month, amplifying awareness, celebrating LGBT+ voices and connecting institutional priorities with national and sector-wide conversations.
In this GuildHE Member Spotlight, Dr Linda Greening, Head of Inclusivity, reflects on this year’s celebrations and the continued journey towards enhancing inclusive practice across Hartpury.
A growing commitment to inclusion
Hartpury is committed to providing an inclusive campus, supporting a diverse workforce, and delivering equitable opportunity. Every year, the institution takes time to mark this commitment through a celebratory event, organised by EDI Forum members, which started as one week in 2017 and grew to a month-long event in 2025.
Feedback from 2025 indicated that not everyone could attend many of the sessions offered in the month of January due to competing priorities. This was despite offering a range of talks and activities with online, hybrid and face-to-face attendance options on different days or at different times during the month. To address this feedback, we moved the celebration to February in 2026, which avoided the assessment period and start of teaching. It aligned well with LGBT+ History Month, during which we set up a digital campaign championing prominent individuals from within the LGBT+ community and raising awareness of the history of the LGBT+ celebration, using the screens in our student and staff restaurant. Feedback from colleagues and students suggests this is appreciated as a passive way in which to engage with the EDI Celebration Month.
Flexible digital engagement
Recognising that some colleagues are still time-constrained, we offered digital activities that could be completed when colleagues found time to engage with them. For example, the EDI Forum agreed that Hartpury should fund an annual institutional membership with Race Equality Matters, giving us access to online resources for Race Equality Week (2 to 6 February). Resources were added to a Padlet that colleagues could access via a link or a QR code throughout the month, and these five-to-ten minute learning opportunities were promoted weekly. The Padlet enabled anonymous interactions, including emojis and comments that evidenced how colleagues were accessing these resources. We also opened a virtual (via Padlet) and physical (set up in main reception) suggestion box, for colleagues to add EDI-related thoughts, comments and ideas. At the end of the month, the EDI Forum reviewed and promoted responses in an all staff email, highlighting these would be added to the agenda for discussion at the next EDI Forum meeting.
Training, dialogue and wellbeing
Working with members of the senior management team, we sourced sessions with external trainers to respond to identified needs and areas of interest, scheduling them at times to suit colleagues and encouraging engagement with at least one session. For FE tutors, one option was a twilight session facilitated by Neuroteachers, discussing ways in which to support neurodivergent learners in the classroom. University colleagues were invited to re-familiarise themselves with reasonable adjustments, and support for international students. Meanwhile, everyone was invited to attend a ‘Reframing Masculinity’ session. Feedback was very positive, with many attendees reporting that they took a lot away for use in teaching and support of students.
We also invited staff to step away from their desks over two lunchtimes to walk or run the Hartpury Health Loops. These routes were established by the Hartpury Active team and promoted during the 2025 EDI Celebration Month. They help colleagues utilise the campus for exercise purposes but also highlight routes that can be used for social walking activities and outdoor meetings.
Celebrating culture, community and progress
EDI Celebration Month also provides a platform from which to provide updates on our cultural evolution and to promote initiatives Hartpury is involved with. On an annual basis, the Head of Inclusivity and the Hartpury Student Union deliver a session that provides colleagues with a reflective summary of EDI-related activity. This year, we also provided updates on the Her Game Too initiative and hosted a bespoke launch event for UKRI-funded participatory research that sees Hartpury working collaboratively with The Ruh Collective to deliver a project centred on the lived experiences of health and wellbeing of the Gloucestershire Muslim community.
We were exceptionally proud to be invited to host the premiere of film four in the Unreflected Reflections series, documenting the history of the Gloucestershire Muslim community, having hosted viewings of all three films prior as part of our EDI Celebrations. As this is the first year we have delivered the celebration month in February, we also had an opportunity to wish our Muslim colleagues Ramadan Mubarak. Utilising links with the local Muslim community, we were able to offer a religion, faith and belief session that included an opportunity to learn about Ramadan. One of the most significant activities taken by SMT during EDI Celebration Month was to agree that annual leave be granted to recognise the importance of Eid celebrations, with opportunities to review other religious holidays in the same way.
Plans for next year involve engaging with colleagues earlier during planning to ensure all aspects of our business can benefit from the event, either to promote events, partnerships or initiatives, or to organise training opportunities and educational events. Key to its success is ensuring that the event continues to gain momentum each year, helping to enhance inclusive practice at Hartpury.
Please find details below for resources, organisations, and trainers mentioned in the article:
King-Hill, S. (2025) Reframing Masculinity for Young Men and Boys: We're in This Together | Springer Nature Link
Her Game Too | Campaign against sexism in sport
Focal Elements | Empower Inclusive Change Today
Unreflected Reflections (Instagram)