Universities are places of enlightenment. They give people opportunities to prosper, provide inclusive spaces to foster understanding and tolerance, and value the uniqueness of their diverse communities. Or at least they should do. Too often, the leadership structure in higher education does not represent the communities it serves. This is an issue many institutions have been forced to address since the Black Lives Matter movement surged in the UK in 2020. But to achieve progress, efforts must be meaningful, measurable and bold.
That was the consensus of a panel of vice-chancellors and academics who came together to discuss how universities can tackle the lack of diversity in senior roles at a recent online Guardian Labs event, paid-for by the executive recruitment consultants GatenbySanderson.
Acknowledging the problem is an important first step, said Prof Shirley Congdon, vice-chancellor at the University of Bradford. Refusing to admit there is one creates a vicious circle – if Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff don’t see BAME people in senior roles, they may feel they lack the abilities to apply for these positions, she said. She is working with Prof Udy Archibong, the university’s pro vice-chancellor for equality, diversity and inclusion, to make Bradford an anti-racist university.
Congdon added that BAME staff find they have fewer opportunities to access leadership programmes and mentorship. She believes there needs to be more accountability at an executive and governing body level. “The level of representation is totally unacceptable and this has been going on for many years,” said Congdon. “We really need more accountability and more challenge in the system so that people have equal opportunity to develop, to progress, to be considered and to be supported.”
Prof Kalwant Bhopal, director of the Centre for Research in Race and Education at the University of Birmingham, and author of White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-Racial Society, said BAME staff encounter overt and covert racism every day. Research suggests that white middle-class men are more likely to be graded higher in student evaluations than women or BAME academics, which impacts their future career prospects. Yet BAME students turn more frequently to BAME lecturers and staff for support, so “a lot of the emotional labour BAME academics have to put into their jobs is unaccounted for”.
Steps to address diversity and inclusion in universities have historically focused on gender, rather than race, she added. “So we have this hierarchy of oppression and a discourse of denial that racism actually exists.”
She believes that the Race Equality Charter, which provides a framework for institutions to identify barriers faced by BAME staff and students, must be linked to funding. Introduced in 2016, it currently has 80 members but only 17 have achieved awards in recognition of the progress they have made. In contrast, there are 962 awards held through the Athena Swan Charter, which furthers gender diversity in higher education. When membership of Athena Swan became mandatory in order to apply for certain funding, the number of institutions signing up increased by 400% in one week, said Bhopal.
Dr Michael Spence, president and provost at University College London, said it was important to get people to challenge their own capacity for “othering”. “You have to be having smart conversations at every level of the organisation that challenge interracial assumptions,” he said. The panel acknowledged that such assumptions have led to an overreliance on grouping all ethnic minorities under umbrella terms such as BME and BAME.
Prof Charles Egbu, vice-chancellor at Leeds Trinity University and one of the only black vice-chancellors in the UK, said everyone in an organisation has a role to play. “We need to be very mindful that what we are talking about here is structural and it’s cultural. It’s highly embedded. It’s highly intricate,” he said.
When asked what an inclusive culture looks like, he said it’s where ethnic minority staff are able to focus on doing their best work. “I’ve had the opportunity of mentoring more than 60 Black and Asian mid-level and senior people. One said to me: ‘I struggle so much trying to fight [the lack of inclusive culture], I don’t even have the time to do the work I need to be doing,’” he said.
“Having action plans that are meaningful, having a dedicated Office of Institutional Equity that doesn’t reside in HR but cuts across the whole university, and creating an environment in which everyone has the opportunity to speak up … that’s what an inclusive culture is. You can really feel it.”
Spence agreed that posts focused on diversity need the power to set targets and to question those who aren’t meeting them. Diversity isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also good for business. “We know for a fact that teams are better the more diverse they are, and make better decisions on all parameters. This is about excellence,” he said. “Make sure you have clear targets that you’re holding people accountable against. If someone’s part of the university has no cultural diversity, others have to be able to ask why. And what are you doing about it?”
The audience submitted many questions for the panel, including one asking whether interventions such as blind recruitment policies could help address unconscious bias. Bhopal wasn’t convinced. “There’s an assumption that if names are taken off, that eliminates all bias, but other biases would creep in, such as the type of university an individual has gone to. And there’s a huge amount of data that shows BAME students are less likely to be offered places at Russell Group or elite universities.”
It’s also imperative that institutions challenge the executive search companies they work with to make [greater equality] a priority, said Congdon. “Some recruitment firms say there’s a shortage of talent. There isn’t any shortage of talent. There’s a shortage of being able to liberate it and nurture it appropriately. It is incumbent on us to lead from our positions of power and powers of influence. We can’t be bystanders.”
The event also heard from Tessa Harrison, education partner at GatenbySanderson, who highlighted new research the company has carried out into the experiences of recently appointed vice-chancellors, and the impact of diversity in senior roles.
“There are still too many assumptions about what the proper pathway is to get to vice-chancellor, and I think that is exacerbated by a persistent lack of diversity in the governing bodies,” said Harrison.
GatenbySanderson’s report recommends investing in a leadership pipeline, being innovative about assessments, and looking after candidates whether or not they are appointed. “Unconscious bias absolutely does exist in our universities,” said Harrison. “This is a really uncomfortable truth for higher education.”
To discuss what steps you could be making to address diversity and inclusion in your university, or to access the full GatenbySanderson report, please email: tessa.harrison@gatenbysanderson.com
