The Equality, Diversity & Inclusion team at King’s College London are currently surveying all staff and students at the university on the subject of race equality. King’s has come a long way over the past 5 years and there is still much work to be done to embed race equality across the institution. Jennifer Hastings, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Projects & Partnerships Manager at King’s reflects on our progress to date and looks ahead to our next steps.
You can help shape our work by completing the race equality survey – your anonymous responses will have a tangible impact on our progress.
(Staff & student surveys close at 25:59 Sunday 13th February 2022.)
In November 2020 we were proud to renew our bronze Race Equality Charter award and we are currently in the process of implementing our Race Equality Action Plan (REAP). The Race Equality Charter (REC) provides a framework through which King’s can identify, understand and address the barriers that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and students face. There are 80 members of the Race Equality Charter yet just 17 awards have been .
An important aspect of our Charter award and the REAP is to listen to feedback from staff and students. This enables us to evaluate whether our activity is having the intended impact, as well as design interventions for complex and nuanced issues. This is why we’re asking all students and staff (of all ethnicities, including white people) to complete our Race Equality Charter survey.
We take an intersectional approach to race equality and understand that an individual’s experience is shaped by all aspects of their identity. You can find out more about our overall approach to inclusion in our annual report.
In the past, change has been too slow and we are committed to accelerating King’s progress towards being an anti-racist University. We are also committed to acting on feedback. In a previous survey several themes emerged (underrepresentation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff especially in senior roles, organisational culture (e.g. microaggressions), recruitment and selection, support and development), which are all covered in King’s Race Equality Action Plan. And progress has begun:
- Staff have benefitted from three mentor schemes: B-MEntor, More than Mentoring and Mutual Mentoring (insert link: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/hr/diversity/get-involved/mentoring)
- The Race Equity Inclusive Education Fund awarded £96,386 to 16 projects last year to progress racial equality and ensure a more inclusive learning environment
- Harold Moody fellowships are being awarded to 2 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic researchers per year, in order to support the transition from researcher to academic
- A senior EDI Project Manager has been appointed within Estates & Facilities
- A Senior Project Manager of Tackling Structural Inequality and Embedding Anti-Racism has been appointed within the Students and Education Division
- 20 Conversations about Race have been delivered, with over 450 attendees. 41 facilitators have also been trained so that they can deliver sessions in their own faculty or department. One outcome of these conversations is the ‘Call me by My Name’ initiative, where preferred names were worn on badges and staff were encouraged to ask students how to pronounce their name
- ‘Funmi Olanisakin chaired three roundtable events for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic academics, which 29 attended. As a result we identified a number of themes and made recommendations for addressing them
- Arts & Humanities runs a module that explores King’s Colonial
- The Council room’s imagery has been updated to reflect a more diverse King’s community
- Discussions around race are being embedded throughout King’s, from Professional Services Executive to the College Research Committee
- Equality analysis was conducted to ensure our Covid response considered how different groups of staff and students could be impacted by our response, therefore safeguarding against systemic inequality
Your responses will form part of our next Race Equality Charter application and shape the work we are doing. It will also serve as evidence and could help make the case for interventions that will progress race equality.
KCL Staff & Students can access the survey on the intranet here.
Closing date 23:59 – 13th February 2022.
Your response will make a meaningful difference to our work to tackle inequality at King’s.