By Robert Van de Noort
Every day seems to bring a different World Day, celebrating something or other.
Today, Thursday, March 2, as I’m sure you know, is Dr Seuss Day, and of course, International Rescue Cat Day. It is also World Book Day.
Those of you who have been feverishly stitching and gluing together last-minute costumes have my sympathies.
With thousands of students and academics from all over the world, at the University of Reading we can find things to celebrate every day of the year.
But there are some days, weeks and months that we find particular reason to highlight. At the moment, this includes Fairtrade Fortnight, currently running to promote positive global trade, and International Women’s Day next week, with a month of activities in March to mark it.
We’ve just come to the end of LGBT+ History Month, which is a particularly meaningful celebration for the University of Reading. We are proud that the University has a long history of promoting the rights and freedoms of people of all sexualities, and continues to do so today.
It’s worthwhile remembering how far we have come. As many of you will know, homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967. What is less well-known is that the landmark report that prepared the ground for the change in the law was chaired by one of my predecessors as Vice-Chancellor at Reading, John Wolfenden.
The Wolfenden Report recommended in 1957 that “homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence”. It took another decade for the report’s recommendations to make it into British law.
While much progress has been made since then, issues and prejudices towards LGBT+ people remain. LGBT+ History Month exists to raise awareness and combat prejudice, while also celebrating achievement and diversity.
The exciting thing about working at a university – and hopefully, the interesting thing about living near one – is that you get to tap into so many different perspectives on issues like this.
At Reading over the past month, this included having a public lecture on the landmark theatre productions in Britain that have been used to tell LGBT+ stories; holding training sessions to encourage inclusion and allyship; and a Student Pride event hosted by our students’ union.
It was fantastic to see our wonderfully diverse community come together to show support and solidarity with each other. This spirit of allyship continues throughout the year. This year, it will also be backed up with a new scheme providing funding for projects that promote inclusion on campus, which we recently launched.
Let’s not mistake this for following some ‘woke’ agenda.
Whatever some people may believe, people at universities delight in challenging and questioning orthodoxy. It’s something everyone should do.
And we don’t have to wait until the official World Day to spark our own discovery.
Professor Robert Van de Noort is the vice-chancellor of the University of Reading
