At Staffordshire University we welcome all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and non-binary staff. Below are the profiles of some of our LGBTQ+ colleagues.
If you would like to add your profile to our page, please email the Diversity Team.
Stephen Griffiths
Course Director for Screen and Media courses in the Department of Media and Performance. Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
I am passionate about leading on course curriculum development and promoting a supportive cohesive learning community. I teach in the areas of TV and Radio, with a focus on programme histories and screen performances. I have worked as a consultant and archive researcher on several broadcast documentaries and dramas and presented a paper on the media representation of the gay campaigner Peter Wildeblood at Keele University and have curated several LGBT+ history artefact exhibitions. I have been a contributor to the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow and worked as a consultant, archivist and researcher on The Times Pick of the Day radio documentary The Jon Pertwee Files (BBC R4extra), marking the actor’s centenary. I have also worked as a contextual researcher on the AIDS crisis drama It's a Sin (RED Production Company/Channel 4/HBO) with Russell T. Davies, broadcast in January 2021.
How education has changed your outcome my life
Education has had a massive impact on my life and contributed to me wanting to combine my passions for the media and performance with that of teaching. I was fortunate to meet the right teaching mentors at school, college and university, who supported, nurtured and encouraged me towards where I am today: Mr. Garlinge, Polly Peters, Vicki Luzney, Dr. Martin Shingler. Meeting these educators allowed me to understand the role of teaching and the positive outcome that it can have, many of which I still borrow and apply to this day. I feel privileged to do the job that I do, and never forget the importance that education and skills development can have on shaping the lives of others.
My work is theory and context driven, using an integrated approach to allow students as a safe space to grow and engage with different learning models and opportunities. Meeting and working with LGBT+ role models was such an important aspect of education for me. They gave me the confidence to be who I am today, to be an openly gay man and to understand not only the struggles of the past but also the on-going need for a visibility in the work towards inclusivity, acceptance and equality.
L J
Lecturer at Staffordshire University
I'm a white British genderqueer lecturer in counselling and I've been teaching at Staffs Uni for 9 months now. As a child growing up I knew I didn't quite fit with the labels around me and spent a lot of time working out my sexuality. Gender not so much - 'trans' was not a term that was available to me, and as I both didn't 'feel like a girl' or 'feel like a boy' I just assumed that I was experiencing something normal for my assigned gender.
As I got older and began to meet people with similar identities to me, I realised that there were words for my experiencing of myself and became comfortable with genderqueer and non-binary.
How education has changed my outcome in life
Aside from one uncle, who lived some distance from my family, who had gone to university as a mature student, I was the first person in my family to go to university. I also did this as a mature student - before this I had been working in jobs that did not feel in any way fulfilling. I had known since I was young that I wanted to do something with teaching, and I changed my focus from music, to languages to 'special needs' and finally I ended up in counselling. But without that path in to university I would not have got to a place that feels fulfilling.
I finally feel that I am at a place where my job is also something that I really enjoy. Someone asked me recently 'if you won the lottery what would you do?' and I said ‘I wouldn’t stop working', which to me, speaks volumes about how happy I feel that education has changed my life and allowed me to work in a field that I love.