Diversity discussed

The conference, which was the second event of its kind, was jointly organised by GEEMA (the Group to Encourage Ethnic Application to Cambridge) and REAG (the Racial Equality Advisory Group) and focused on issues of race equality.

The aim of the event was to share information and best practise, to help create informal networks, and provide a supportive forum for participants to raise issues and ask questions.

A panel of eight people gave brief presentations to highlight work going on across the university, summarise recent surveys, and share thoughts and experiences. The meeting was chaired by Karen Martin, Interim Head of Equality and Diversity at Cambridge.

Linda Brooklyn, Personnel and Workforce Development Manager at the Fitzwilliam Museum, told the audience that the museum had recently created six diversity champions among its staff. They include Gordon Williams, an Attendant at the Fitzwilliam who said that he was proud to be involved in a programme that aims to generate an ethos of mutual respect, sharing and understanding between visitors and the museum.

Looking at academic performance of ethnic minority students at Cambridge, Professor John Bell, Chair of the Joint Committee on Academic Performance, summarised research that identified a number of factors behind the tendency of those from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean backgrounds to achieve fewer firsts and 2.1s.

Professor Bell stressed that this did not imply that they were failing to perform well, and said that, when their backgrounds were taken into account, their performance met or exceeded expectations.

The finding that some ethnic minority students struggled to fit in had led to the Colleges working to ensure that students are fully aware of the pastoral, academic and financial support available, and offering accommodation out of term time, and reviewing domestic matters, such as catering and freshers’ events.

Professor Bell stressed that academic underperformance in certain ethnic minority groups emerged at an early stage in pupils’ educational career and was a national issue, especially in the case of Black Caribbean boys from UK state schools, only a small percentage of whom get the grades for entry by leading universities.

Mel Rouse, GEEMA coordinator at Cambridge Admissions Office, described the work that GEEMA was doing to encourage more applications from ethnic minority students in running open days, challenge days, visits out to schools, and an annual residential programme in Cambridge.

The GEEMA summer school for post-GCSE students, which takes place each August, is oversubscribed and, for the first time this summer, parents are to be invited to take part in the final day, reflecting the important role that parents play in decision-making. In allocating places, priority is given to students from non-selective state schools, who are likely to be the first in their family to go to university.

In a later session, participants were invited to look at ways in which GEEMA, Cambridge Admissions Office and the Colleges could reach out still further to ethnic minority pupils to encourage more applications. Ideas discussed included holding events in regional centres allowing greater number of pupils to meet representatives from Cambridge.

Presenting the results of a University-wide staff race-equality survey, Huen Swee Kim, Equality and Diversity Projects Officer and Secretary to REAG, said responses were largely positive, with very little evidence of overt racism or deliberate discrimination.

However, there were significant differences within the same sample by ethnicity and citizenship. For example, only 3 per cent responded ´yes´ to the question of whether they had faced any race discrimination in the University, while for ethnic minority staff this was 12 per cent and for non-British staff 8 per cent.

Suggestions made by survey respondents included increasing social inclusion; mandatory diversity and management training for managers; improving English language skills and training in inclusive communication. The findings of the survey inform proposals for a programme of work, and an activity plan has been developed.

In striving to build a university with an undergraduate population that reflects the make-up of the wider population, we need to “listen to our students”, make changes to the way that Cambridge operates, and share good practise, said the final speaker, Dr Helen Mason, Senior Tutor at St Edmunds College.

She warmly commended the views of a previous speaker, Junior Penge Juma, Black Students’ Officer at Cambridge Union Students’ Union (CUSU), who talked about the need for ethnic minority students to be able to connect emotionally and culturally with what they were being taught.

Junior rounded up his presentation by reading a poem by the poet and activist Maya Angelou. Called The Human Family, it ends with the refrain: but we are more alike, my friends/ than we are unalike.