Welcome to our second termly update on King’s race equality activity. Below you will find a snapshot of what is happening across King’s- please do reach out (by emailing diversity@kcl.ac.uk) if you have any questions or would like to get involved. We would also love to hear what you are doing in your area to tackle racism, as learning from each other and sharing best practice is key to becoming an anti-racist institution. 

You can read our wrap-up from term 1 here. 

B-MEntor 

King’s is part of the B-MEntor scheme, which is a cross-institutional mentoring programme for academic, research and professional services staff from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. This year King’s had 36 participants. 

Terminology 

Following on from the creation of a race equality allyship toolkit, we are currently developing guidance for race and ethnicity terminology. As well as being a response to demand, we also hope this will help people have sensitive conversations about race and racism.  

Success for Black Engineers 

King’s successfully applied for funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering for a cross-faculty programme called Success for Black Engineers. This programme comprises of outreach, mentoring, and other activities to increase the proportion of Black engineering students and to support Black students to achieve first class degrees. This project started in May 2022 led by Professor Kawal Rhode and the project team. Sophie Rust joined as the project’s Coordinator in February 2023, based in the EDI team but working closely with the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences (FoLSM) and the Department of Engineering (NMES). Students on the programme will be visiting Siemens Magnet Technology in April to get exposure to engineering in industry, as well as taking part in funded summer research placements at King’s. 

The Racial Code- Tales of Resistance and Survival 

King’s recently hosted a launch event for Professor Nicola Rollock’s latest book. Chaired by Professor ‘Funmi Olonisakin, a panel of staff and students discussed what the book meant to them and shared their own experiences of racism. 

Diversifying the academic pipeline 

The proportion of academics from minoritised ethnic backgrounds, particularly those who are Black, decreases with seniority, however we know there is work to do at every stage of the pipeline. In order to encourage more Black students to enter academia, we are developing an academic mentoring scheme. We are very early in the planning process, however welcome expressions of interest from academics who would be interested in mentoring a student who is considering a career in academia, explore more here. 

Recruitment 

We were pleased to support the Entrepreneurship Institute (EI) to pilot an initiative to diversify their interview panel. The EI did a call out for volunteers from minoritised ethnic backgrounds to sit on a panel and support with shortlisting. We are now reviewing this approach and looking at how we can implement it in other areas across King’s.  

Microaggression Training 

The EDI team deliver microaggressions training, which is open to all staff at King’s. This training will support you: 

  • To be able to define bias and microaggressions. 
  • To give examples of bias and microaggressions in action. 
  • To be able to describe how biases are formed and the ways in which they manifest and impact people within the workplace and classroom. 
  • To examine your own biases and to consider strategies to respond to microaggressions. 

You can book onto a session via our Skills Forge page. So far we have had 156 signups out of a total of 200 spaces so be quick!  

Want to Learn more about Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at King’s College London?