117: Jan Moriarty

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Jan Moriarty, Student Success Manager at the University of Kent, a wonderful project designed to support students to achieve better degrees.

We learn how Jan became involved in the project and how her initial concern that it was not going to be possible to solve EDI issues in two years were balanced by the consideration that morally it is something that has to be done. It reveals who is flourishing and who is not, e.g. a black student is more likely to come out with a worse degree than their white peers.

It’s about holding a mirror up to the institution, and changing our behaviours and changing mindsets. Crucial to Jan’s work is the extent to which we have to take people with us and that those with white privilege have to use their white privilege as a force for change.

We learn that Jan did a joint honours degree in Sociology and Dance at Roehampton. Her father was a Trades Union rep whereas her mother had quite different politics. Jan reflects on how education when she was growing up wasn’t really about questioning. She was brought up in a Northern Roman Catholic family with Irish heritage where religion was one dimensional.

Jan talks about the reinvention of herself – which can entail getting rid of things from her past, and she reflects on how we present ourselves to the world in a way that we want others to see us.

Jan talks about being in the LGBT community, and the constant need to negotiate one’s sexuality in relation to the world. She grew up straight in a straight world where questioning wasn’t something that one did. Only when she was at university was she able to meet other people in other environments. She met her wife first in 1985 but it was many more years before they got together.

She discusses how anti-LGBT discrimination was everywhere and how it was a dangerous time to be in the LGBT community. She talks about her thoughts on the Thatcher government, how her father was supportive when she came out but that she and her mother didn’t speak for a few years. Jan understands why some young people lose contact with their families due to their sexual orientation.

There is still a lot of intolerance against LGTB people and people of colour, and Jan talks about the importance for straight people to support minoritized groups.

We move on to Brexit and the way that it has fostered Othering, ditto the racism that dominated the headlines following the Euro 2020 final, and we talk about people’s fears of gay people. We also find out whether Jan looks backwards or forwards and why she thinks that the present is all that we have.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Jan Moriarty and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.