tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/race-in-higher-education-14803/articlesRace in higher education – The Conversation2022-02-15T15:13:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745902022-02-15T15:13:39Z2022-02-15T15:13:39ZEarly-career professors want changes in how tenure is evaluated in wake of pandemic effects on productivity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444430/original/file-20220203-17-o0yk0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1182%2C616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers in a survey said they don't want to delay their tenure review but have the criteria for it shift.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqxels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/early-career-professors-want-changes-in-how-tenure-is-evaluated-in-wake-of-pandemic-effects-on-productivity" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>After two years of living through a pandemic, thoughts of returning to normal have shifted to focus on <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.626197">establishing</a> a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.24282">“new normal.”</a> </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic yielded <a href="https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI138646">profound changes</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.12.008">research activities</a> and operations at universities. These have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2503">had impacts</a> on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00795-4">career progression</a>, productivity, health and well-being of faculty members.</p>
<p>With colleagues, I conducted a national Canadian survey of tenured and tenure-track faculty members at Canadian public universities. Our data showed how the COVID-19 pandemic is <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-survey-shows-how-covid-19-pandemic-is-hampering-career-progress-for-women-and-racialized-faculty-153169">hampering career progress for women and racialized faculty</a>. In a second phase of our research, gathered one year after our earlier survey, we identified insights faculty have about creating a new normal to support their research and career progression.</p>
<p>Seven-hundred and fifty faculty completed the survey. Ninety percent of respondents were assistant (24 per cent), associate (36 per cent), or full professors (33 per cent) while seven per cent comprised senior leadership positions. The mean age of participants was 48 years and 68 per cent were married. </p>
<p>We compared results among women, men, as well as individuals identifying as racialized and/or Indigenous. Fifty-two percent of participants were women, 44 per cent were men and one per cent were transgender. Two people self-identified as “gender-diverse” and 12 people “preferred not to say.” Eleven per cent identified as racialized and three per cent as Indigenous in response to questions: “Do you identify as racialized?” or “Do you identify as Indigenous?”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An empty hallway of open doors." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C132%2C4208%2C2450&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444429/original/file-20220203-17-g9ojkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pandemic has affected how much research professors can accomplish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impacts on career progression & productivity</h2>
<p>Respondents associated negative impacts of the pandemic on their research, with factors like lack of energy, reduced ability to collect data, increased administrative workload and teaching online and increased caregiving and health challenges.</p>
<p>One racialized woman said she was having 80-hour work weeks, so was finding “less time for research and writing.” She added: “It is hard on my body sitting in front of a screen 12-14 hours a day in my makeshift office.”</p>
<p>Emergent impacts unique to faculty members identifying as racialized and/or Indigenous included lack of research support, opportunities for collaboration and sense of collegiality. One Indigenous respondent said that “academic leadership for research here has been invisible during the pandemic.” </p>
<p>Another racialized woman reported experiencing “reduced collaboration” because colleagues “perceive me to be less productive,” and that she also “missed opportunities for field work due to travel restrictions and safety risks.”</p>
<p>Faculty with Indigenous or racialized identities also highlighted recommendations for improved communications with their universities. Some comments shared were:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“They tried to appear proactive for students’ welfare, but not for us.”</p>
<p>“Most of the communication were from the university administration. Faculty association could work closely with a wider group of members to support struggled faculty and staff.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Key recommendations</h2>
<p>We captured key recommendations by coding participant responses according to the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-02001-000">three stages of qualitative analysis</a> and then generated a final list of higher-level themes and associated categories that captured the main ideas provided by participants’ responses.</p>
<p>Key recommendations for administrators of higher education institutions included: changing the tenure and promotion evaluation criteria, increasing research support and modifying metrics used to gauge productivity to account for the differential impacts of the pandemic on women and racialized faculty. </p>
<p>A recurrent answer that came up was early career researchers desire not to delay tenure, but rather revise how promotion and tenure are evaluated. </p>
<p>Faculty members recommended that tenure requirements, as well as other performance evaluations, be adapted alongside the changing research landscape. They stressed that non-traditional metrics beyond publication and how many grants a person has should be integrated into these evaluations. </p>
<p>For example, they felt that those responsible for evaluating their work should also consider a verbal or written account of how they adapted during the pandemic. </p>
<p>Respondents also recommended that evaluations be based on peers at the same career stage and similarly-resourced institutions. </p>
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<img alt="Image of a blurry instructor seen from the doorway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444423/original/file-20220203-15-wt5er1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Survey respondents suggested that career evaluations should be done by peers at the same career stage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Faculty identifying as racialized emphasized the importance of infusing equity, inclusion and diversity (EDI) into tenure expectations. One racialized woman said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Include EDI initiatives in your tenure expectations because COVID-19 was much harder for under-represented minorities, provide more admin/grant support by creating new grants and give us help in completing the mountains of paperwork we have to do for every single grant.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Respondents highlighted several factors to better support faculty with research progression. Early career researchers suggested that their universities make available weekly information and help sessions about grants, similarly to how teaching supports are available. The importance of having a mentor was also stressed — as was the amount of time that mentoring students takes. </p>
<p>Some other faculty also mentioned they were doing less mentoring because of fewer opportunities to collaborate and interact with other students and colleagues.</p>
<p>In conclusion, this research provides tangible recommendations based on the impact of COVID-19 experienced by faculty. We observed a profound ripple effect where reduced productivity from increased workload impacted researchers’ progress. There are concerns that unless this is taken into account, faculty will experience delayed career progression, tenure and job security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Davis is employed by The University of British Columbia. Jennifer Davis is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Applied Health Economics and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Scholar. Jennifer Davis received funding for this research from The University of British Columbia - Okanagan VPR Office.
Co-investigators include Dr. Eric Li, Dr. Mary Butterfield, Dr. Gino DiLabio and Dr. Barbara Marcolin. Research team members include Hardikaa Balasubramaniam, Josie Leung, Shuhui Wu.</span></em></p>Faculty in a cross-country survey recommended modifying metrics used to gauge productivity to account for the differential impacts of the pandemic on women and racialized faculty.Jennifer Davis, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Management, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/511782015-12-08T14:34:37Z2015-12-08T14:34:37ZThe covert racism that is holding back black academics<p>Students are walking out in protest against racial inequality and injustice in the US and have been rallying together in days of action at campuses across the country. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/racism-on-campus">#StudentBlackout movement</a> has challenged and confronted white supremacy and anti-black attitudes on university campuses, <a href="https://theconversation.com/students-demand-for-diverse-faculty-is-a-demand-for-a-better-education-50698">and has made demands</a> for more black and minority ethnic faculty members. </p>
<p>So it is ironic that the US is the destination of choice for British black and minority ethnic academics who feel worn down by incidents of racism, exclusion and marginalisation in Britain. Recent research that I worked on, <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/academic-flight/">published by the Equality Challenge Unit</a>, found that as a result of their experiences black and minority UK academics were significantly more likely to consider a move to overseas higher education than their white counterparts. </p>
<p>Many spoke of the potential opportunities they identified in working for American universities. I can’t help feeling they might have to re-evaluate their options in the light of what is going on in the US. Many of the demonstrations across American campuses have been triggered by specific local circumstances – such as reports of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11971221/Yale-University-fraternity-sets-white-girls-only-party-admission-policy.html">all-white parties</a> and <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/11/7/9689330/yale-halloween-email">students in blackface at Yale</a>. </p>
<p>But taken as a whole they represent a response to more widespread concerns about racism within American academic culture. These demonstrations also reflect the wider groundswell in concern across America exemplified by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/blacklivesmatter-and-the-myth-of-a-postracial-america-46491">Black Lives Matter demonstrations</a> which have been sparked by unlawful killings by the police. </p>
<h2>Protecting white privilege</h2>
<p>In the UK, such protest has not yet been seen. Academics present themselves as guardians of a space that highlights liberal sentiments, progressive values and a commitment to meritocracy. Many regard their “seats of learning” as places that challenge inequalities and injustice. But this is clearly not always the case in reality. </p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/en/research-resources/published-research/research-by-theme/leading-equality-and-diversity/the-experience-of-bme-academics-in-higher-education-aspirations-in-the-face-of-inequality.cfm">research</a> has found that many black and minority ethnic academics report experiences of subtle, covert and nuanced racism in higher education in which white identity is privileged and protected within the space traditionally reserved for the white middle class. </p>
<p>During the past decade there has been a <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2015/">significant increase</a> in the numbers of black and minority UK academic staff in higher education – from 6,000 staff in 2003-4 to almost 10,700 in 2013-14. There were even more non-UK black and minority academic staff, as the graph below shows. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5I7dA/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>But black and minority ethnic academics <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-fewer-than-100-black-professors-in-britain-why-24088">are far less likely</a> to be in senior roles compared to their white colleagues: 11.2% of UK white academics were professors compared to 9.8% of UK black and minority ethnic staff (of which only 4.5% were black). There <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2015/">are only</a> 20 deputy or pro vice-chancellors who are black or minority ethnic compared to the majority, 530, who are white. </p>
<p>Significant policy changes in the UK, such as the 2010 Equality Act and the introduction of the <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/race-equality-charter/">Race Equality Charter</a>, designed to measure how successful universities were at delivering inclusive policy in practice, might suggest higher education had become more inclusive. But in reality, covert racist behaviour impacts heavily on the career trajectories of many black and minority ethnic academics. </p>
<p>A total of 21 higher education institutions took part in the pilot of the Race Equality Charter 2014 of which eight were successful in gaining a bronze award. The Race Equality Charter works in a similar vein to the <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/">Athena Swan charter</a>, which was introduced in 2005 to advance the representation of women in science and engineering subjects.</p>
<h2>On the outside</h2>
<p>It is often hard to pin down or confront racist behaviour in universities because it is indicative of an environment in which inequality flourishes behind the scenes, rather than centre stage. For example, black academics report goalposts, such as selection criteria, being moved when they apply for promotion – which doesn’t happen for white colleagues.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/academic-flight/">research</a>, which included interviews with 30 US-based academics and 35 who were based in the UK, respondents indicated that in both the UK and US an increase in fragility and risk within academia had resulted in greater competition for new jobs, threats of pay cuts, and fears about job security and <a href="https://theconversation.com/wisconsin-controversy-with-fewer-tenured-positions-who-benefits-from-academic-freedom-43167">tenure</a>. </p>
<p>In a climate of financial global insecurity, competitiveness over job security was <a href="http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/en/research-resources/published-research/research-by-theme/leading-equality-and-diversity/the-experience-of-bme-academics-in-higher-education-aspirations-in-the-face-of-inequality.cfm">far more likely</a> to privilege those from white middle-class backgrounds. Black academics I interviewed in both the US and UK were less likely than their white colleagues to have access to established networks of knowledge and support. These networks open the door for new opportunities in which job offers are made and access granted to particular institutions and insider processes. </p>
<p>I found that “who you know” still counts for far more than “what you know” and fears of job insecurity and fragility actively work to promote the interests of white established elites in academia. This environment of insecurity is of greater value to white academic elites, for who it serves to maintain their ascendancy.</p>
<p>While public displays of racism in the academy are rare, a more pernicious set of behaviour has emerged. Black and minority ethnic academics <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/academic-flight/">told me</a> of instances when colleagues would not make eye contact with them in meetings, their opinions were not taken into account and there was constant undermining or criticism of their work. </p>
<p>We must continue to disrupt, challenge and dismantle such covert racism if we are to move forward in our quest for a socially just society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kalwant Bhopal has received funding from the ECU last year and LFHE this year for project grants. </span></em></p>Subtly racist behaviour impacts heavily on the career trajectories of black and minority ethnic academics.Kalwant Bhopal, Professor of Education and Social Justice, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/402682015-05-08T04:31:05Z2015-05-08T04:31:05ZIt’s time to take the curriculum back from dead white men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79429/original/image-20150427-18164-gg662m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's not that Shakespeare needs to burn out – but it's time for him to fade away.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dead white men rule the roost at South African and British universities. They preside over open spaces and lecture halls. They clog up reading lists and dominate the syllabus, particularly in subjects like philosophy and English literature. </p>
<p>In eight years of university teaching in the United Kingdom and South Africa, I have had to cover works by Malory, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Eliot, Sophocles, Ovid, Homer, Beckett, Joyce, Hopkins, Heaney, Anouilh and … more Shakespeare. In all that time, I’ve been required to teach literary texts by just three women, also dead and white: Sappho, Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen. </p>
<p>Outside of the courses I have designed myself, only one person of colour – <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1988/mahfouz-bio.html">Naguib Mahfouz</a> – has featured in my required teaching. Academics can suggest additional texts and offer optional modules but not all students will delve deeper in their own time or explore authors not included on the required reading list. </p>
<p>In South Africa and the UK, students who want diverse, transformative education are growing increasingly restive. Their first target was not an author or theorist, but an entirely different sort of dead white man.</p>
<h2>Toppling Rhodes from his plinth</h2>
<p>For 81 years, a statue honouring British mining magnate, politician and committed colonialist Cecil John Rhodes occupied a perch on the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) campus. But on March 9 this year the statue’s silent contemplation was interrupted when 30-year-old student Chumani Maxwele threw a <a href="http://www.citypress.co.za/news/student-spring-is-long-overdue/">bucket of human faeces</a> over the statue and sparked a movement, #RhodesMustFall.</p>
<p>Rhodes openly derided black people and foreshadowed the formal introduction of apartheid as far back as 1894, when he <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">told</a> the Parliament of Cape Town: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hold that the natives should be apart from white men, and not mixed up with them … We fail utterly when we put natives on an equality with ourselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>UCT students, staff and alumni argued that a man like Rhodes did not deserve a monument at one of Africa’s <a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=">top universities</a>. The statue, they insisted, was a physical reminder of just how little the institution had changed from the days when it only served white students.</p>
<p>Their complaints struck a national chord. One month after Maxwele’s pungent protest, Cecil John Rhodes was <a href="http://citizen.co.za/359936/students-predict-new-beginnings-as-rhodes-finally-falls/">evicted</a> from UCT.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of Cecil John Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town’s campus in April.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Hutchings/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Students in the UK are also questioning the lack of diversity in higher education. They are asking: <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-fewer-than-100-black-professors-in-britain-why-24088">“why isn’t my professor black?”</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dscx4h2l-Pk">“why is my curriculum white?”</a>. These are not new questions. Calls for transformation are as much a hallmark of higher education as it is a resistance to change. </p>
<p>But in the era of social media, student activists are armed with more efficient and powerful tools than ever before. The message to universities, carried on platforms like YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter, is clear: engage with these issues – or get left behind.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mBqgLK9dTk4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A panel discussion hosted by the University College of London.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>After the fall</h2>
<p>The Rhodes monument seems an apt metaphor for the looming presence of certain authors, texts and narratives in the humanities and social sciences. The problem is that they are not as easily dislodged as statues. If we want to build on what movements like #RhodesMustFall have achieved and really decolonise universities, it’s time for dead white men to stop controlling things. </p>
<p>Altering the curriculum is a necessary part of this change. That doesn’t mean Shakespeare should pack his bags and leave universities once and for all. It simply requires a different way of teaching – and here’s how it can be done. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Academics and their students must engage with English being a language born of and sustained by migration and cross-cultural contact both in Britain and overseas. This narrative must be a central part of the curriculum, from the very beginning of the literary studies degree.</p></li>
<li><p>We must acknowledge the power structures that have allowed some people to contribute to the canon while keeping others out. These structures have also preserved certain texts while ignoring others. We must also explain the role universities have played in this selection process. </p></li>
<li><p>It’s time to eradicate the notion that writing by women, people of colour and other socially and culturally excluded groups is only interesting to a limited number of people. Being familiar with these voices is essential to the kinds of skills cultivated by and assessed in a literary studies degree. It is not an optional extra.</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers must be retaught. We tend to reproduce the narratives we absorbed as students, so an ongoing process of research and sharing is crucial if we are to teach differently. The Sheffield SEED project is <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/seed-project-sheffield">tackling this issue</a> well.</p></li>
<li><p>“Race” and “gender” do not just mean blackness and womanhood. There must be space in the core undergraduate curriculum for analyses of whiteness and masculinity, too. Rachel van Duyvenbode’s White Like Me: Reading Whiteness in American Literature <a href="http://www-online.shef.ac.uk:3001/pls/live/web_cal.cal_unit_detail?unit_code=EGH6019&ctype=SPR+SEM&start_date=09-FEB-09&mand=Optional">MA module</a> at the University of Sheffield is a useful template that can be adapted at undergraduate level.</p></li>
<li><p>Students must have opportunities to produce original research and pursue their own concerns and interests from the outset of their literary studies degree. The University of Sheffield again leads the pack here through its Radical Theory module. This asks students to actively engage in “re-interpret[ing] the university as a site for philosophical speculation and theory-based intervention” through independent projects and peer-to-peer learning. </p></li>
<li><p>Creative writing can give students – and teachers – a chance to imagine the voices that are ignored in our existing curricula. A possible starting point might be the responses of the Africans who, in 1607, witnessed the <a href="http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/shakespeare/plays/hamlet/stage-history.aspx">first recorded performance of Hamlet</a>: on a ship off the coast of Sierra Leone. </p></li>
</ol>
<h2>A long-term investment</h2>
<p>It will take more than a month-long campaign sparked by a bucket of waste to transform higher education in South Africa and the UK. In the short term, at least, there will be no empty plinths. Changing the curriculum is just one of many things that needs to be done – but it’s an important start.</p>
<p>By allowing different voices to step up to the lecture podium, we can begin to push dead white men like William Shakespeare out of the limelight and ultimately produce a curriculum that better reflects the diversity of English literature and culture both past and present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Pett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When literary studies degrees focus almost entirely on the work of white, male writers, we do our students and the academy a great disservice.Sarah Pett, Teaching Fellow, SOAS; Teaching Fellow, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/372992015-02-09T05:47:50Z2015-02-09T05:47:50ZWhy is it so hard to talk about race in UK universities?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71347/original/image-20150206-28615-1mw23ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marginalised.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/salforduniversity/10457999864/sizes/l">University of Salford</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At first glance, Benedict Cumberbatch’s recent faux pas – <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11370602/Benedict-Cumberbatch-under-fire-for-coloured-actors-remark.html">using the word “coloured”</a> to refer to racially minoritised groups – may appear to have absolutely nothing to do with the world of UK higher education. While some lambasted him, my own view was that his slip-up spoke to a wider issue: the lack of open debate about race in the UK. And if any sector ought to be leading the way in these debates, it is the education system and, in particular, our universities. </p>
<p>Yet a <a href="http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/Aiming%20Higher.pdf">damning new report</a> by the leading race equality think-tank Runnymede Trust, comprising a series of short essays, has set out the continued failings of the sector not just for racially minoritised students but also for faculty members of colour. The issues, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-must-aim-higher-on-ethnic-equality-and-diversity-37073">described by Durham’s Vikki Boliver</a> in The Conversation are wearily familiar. </p>
<p>Black and minority ethnic students are less likely to be offered a place at university, even when they hold the same A Level grades. They are less likely to attend the elite Russell Group of universities and, if they do, often feel marginalised when they get there. Among faculty members, black and minority ethnic academics are under-represented at senior levels and, at Russell Group universities generally. They too report being undermined and marginalised.</p>
<h2>Race left out of diversity debates</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C941%2C4154%2C3212&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71317/original/image-20150206-28608-a4czv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A voice seldom heard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">No to racism via Asian Asian/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These issues are not new. At the start of the millennium there was a hesitant, inconsistent whimper of activity around race at universities; today the picture is very different. Attention is on “diversity” and one need not scratch very far below the surface to detect that in reality, this tends to mean gender. </p>
<p>There are several reasons for this. The <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charter-marks/athena-swan/">Athena Swan award</a>, which recognises departments that help women working in science, technology and mathematics, comes with financial rewards. Within a sector that is becoming increasingly marketised this is clearly attractive. Gender is also <em>a la mode</em> in policy debates – there is (rightly) a focus on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-race-for-boardroom-diversity-is-falling-at-the-first-hurdle-29866">increasing the number women in boardrooms</a>, for example. </p>
<p>Race is a more difficult, controversial and deeply uncomfortable subject, which apparently was resolved in 2009, <a href="http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/StephenLawrenceInquiryReport-2009.pdf">ten years after the publication</a> of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report, when several leading public figures announced the “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7836766.stm">end of institutional racism</a>”. </p>
<p>Today, government focus is on immigration and terrorism and universities <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-duty-to-prevent-terrorism-must-protect-universities-freedom-and-diversity-34936">are being encouraged</a> to follow this same policy agenda. Race, if mentioned at all in universities, is often shut down as a discussion point. Or, as Sarah Ahmed from Goldsmiths argues in her essay for the report, relegated to “smiling brown faces” on the front of prospectuses.</p>
<h2>Laying blame elsewhere</h2>
<p>The wider context is not the only reason for the lack of genuine engagement and change. Universities tend to view and position themselves as highly liberal spaces and in this context the cause of the “race problem” is understood to simply lie elsewhere. The problem apparently lies with the fact that racially minoritised students lack the right grades or mix of subjects, or that academic staff from those backgrounds lack the confidence to apply for that post or go for promotion. </p>
<p>Of course these points are important, but what about the countless occasions when the grades are right, or confidence is not an issue? The introduction of mentoring schemes and voluntary unconscious bias training is part of what I describe as “racial gesture politics”: they appear to offer serious engagement with the issue of race inequality but in reality do very little unless embedded in wider policy change and made compulsory. Isolated, one-off activities are not sufficient to bring about change.</p>
<p>Understanding the link between policy and practice is absolutely crucial. I teach an undergraduate course called “Education Policy and Social Justice” during which students explore the differences between what a policy might state and its actual interpretation and outcome. How policies are interpreted and implemented is central to affecting change on race in our universities. Individual academics, committees and board members are responsible for implementing policy and if they lack a broader understanding of race equality, then little will change.</p>
<h2>Senior white men must speak out</h2>
<p>One of the sessions on that same undergraduate course focuses on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Commenting on the publication of the Inquiry report in 1999, then home secretary Jack Straw made a bold and <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo990224/debtext/90224-21.htm">powerful statement</a> in parliament that, in my view, warranted far more attention than it received. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Any long-established, white-dominated organisation is liable to have procedures, practices and a culture that tend to exclude or to disadvantage non-white people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our universities – despite rigorous equalities legislation – continue to be led mainly by powerful, white men. If we follow Straw’s reasoning, this would suggest that practices and procedures have not only disadvantaged racially minoritised groups but they have also served to advantage those in positions of power. </p>
<p>The forthcoming <a href="http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charter-marks/race-equality-charter-mark/">race equality charter mark</a> currently being piloted by the Equality Challenge Unit may go some way in encouraging universities to take race more seriously. I for one would also like to see powerful white men in our universities take a lead from another high-profile white man, Benedict Cumberbatch. Despite his faux pas, he <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jan/26/benedict-cumberbatch-apologises-after-calling-black-actors-coloured">dared speak out boldly</a> and publicly about the racial injustices in his own industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Rollock worked at the Runnymede Trust as head of education between 2001 and 2004 and as a research consultant in 2008-2009. </span></em></p>At first glance, Benedict Cumberbatch’s recent faux pas – using the word “coloured” to refer to racially minoritised groups – may appear to have absolutely nothing to do with the world of UK higher education…Nicola Rollock, Deputy Director, Centre for Research in Race & Education , University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.