University of Westminster reviews progress against Black Lives Matter Commitment Plan four years on

In June 2020 the University published 15 Black Lives Matter Commitments, designed to further strengthen the collective resolve with regard to anti-racist practice. Since then, much has been done to deliver the actions the Commitments entail.

The Steering Group led by Professor Dibyesh Anand and Dr Deborah Husbands, the Co-Chairs of University’s EDI Committee, said: “As we mark the fourth anniversary of the publication of the Commitments, while recognising that several challenges remain and the impact of actions may not be felt everywhere equally, we are keen to continue to acknowledge the progress we are making and to reflect on areas for further growth. We would like to thank everyone at the University for engaging with and taking the Commitments forward.”

To report on the delivery of the Commitments, the Steering Group consulted with stakeholders and share some highlights here. This work is in addition to the overall EDI programmes, initiatives and action plans overseen by the University’s EDI Committee.

A summary of the progress made against the commitments has been set out below by the Black Lives Matter Commitments Steering Group.
 

BLACK HISTORY YEAR

Black History Year

Black history has continued to be celebrated across the year at Westminster. Now in its fourth year, the Black History Year programme has featured an array of high-quality events spanning the breadth of experiences for Black people and has provided workshops catering to the diverse needs of Black colleagues and students at the University, as well as the public who attend.

With the commitment of volunteers from our colleague community, students and the Students’ Union, further ‘spur’ initiatives have been set in train to enhance Black students’ skills development, generate conversations around identity using various media as stimuli, and address growth in research by developing competencies and creating opportunities for Black researchers to excel at Westminster.

Initiatives that further expand and reinforce Black History Year (BHY) are: BHY Create, BHY Beyond Books and BHY Researchers Network. 

Find out more about Black History Year news and initiatives on the University’s Black History Year web page.  

BHY Create

This programme is supported by the Careers and Employability Service and has representation on the BHY Create steering group. This decolonised career-ready programme is designed to get students identifying as Black ready for the world of work. Upon completion they are awarded up to £1,000 for further development. The programme is currently in its second iteration. Eight awards were handed out in the first year and twelve in the second. Previous students are serving on the board as alumni advisors. The second year of the programme has also included a visit to Washington DC in a bespoke trip uniquely designed for the programme supported by Westminster Working Cultures. Key topics cover personal branding, addressing tokenism and effective storytelling.

BHY Beyond Books

BHY Beyond Books is a three-part media review club where participants analyse one miniseries, one book and one film in the context of Black identity representation. Works covered were I May Destroy You, Black and British by David Olusoga and The Intouchables. Participants were invited to have a guided conversation about Black representation.

BHY Researchers Hub

BHY Researchers Hub brings together Black researchers as part of the University of Westminster. The network offers a space for tailored workshops on writing quality papers, grant funding and writing retreats. 
 

Challenging Racisms in Higher Education and Beyond Conference

This annual conference, held in May, was the third of its kind at Westminster and brought speakers and participants from different institutions to explore and challenge various forms of racism present within academia and society as a whole, making a powerful contribution to the anti-racist work of the University. In addition to anti-Black racism, there was a focus on the intersection of race with faith, spirituality and belief; gender; disability, and sexuality. Panel discussions on each area were led by the University’s colleague network co-chairs.

This was accompanied by the seventh annual Democratic Education Network student conference, on the theme of sustainable development in a diverse and unequal world. The conference included a series of panel sessions on International Relations and Political Economy; Development, Gender and Equality; International Diplomacy, the European Union and NATO; Democratic Engagement in an International Context; Family, Gender and Social Studies; Social Movements and UK Politics. More than 70 students from a wide range of academic disciplines and six different countries participated.
 

University of Westminster Colleague Networks

The colleague EDI networks work intersectionally and positively impact the culture of the University, helping to ensure that Westminster is a place where inclusion and equity are core principles. Colleague networks and School EDI leads played a key role in fourth Annual EDI Open Forum, held in June.  
The Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) colleague network continues to take the lead in ensuring partnership with the senior leaders on these Commitments.

Decolonising and Diversifying the Curriculum

The Pedagogies for Social Justice (PSJ) project continues to grow, making a key contribution to our work on the Commitments. Students are partners in decision making and leadership initiatives, in research and the creation of pedagogical tools. Student and colleague partnerships are key to the development of decolonial and anti-racist practices, which take different forms across the disciplines. 
The PSJ project has also launched a decolonising the University research project in collaboration with student and alumni Research Interns to explore Decolonising the Curriculum at Westminster and better understand the aspirations and dreams of students and colleagues at the University for decolonisation and social justice in higher education.

The PSJ project launched a discussion list which holds space to exchange ideas, practices and questions by students and colleagues at the University of Westminster and other universities, as well as communities and members of the public. The list welcomes discussions, practices and questions relating to liberatory pedagogies in Higher Education around decolonial, anti-racist, queer, feminist and other pedagogies that move us toward social justice.  

The students as Co-creators programme has enabled students and colleagues to work together on research projects that enhance the curriculum. Schools report this as one of the key approaches to exploring decolonising and anti-racist work. Recent projects include Global Insight Explorers: Decolonising Marketing through Cross-Cultural Case Studies; Lived Experience stories: Decolonising the Curriculum; Co-creating an Anti-Racist Critical Thinking Module for Foundation Life Sciences Students; and Decolonising Emerging Landscapes and Urban Ecologies.

Addressing Awarding Gaps

The Steering Group said: “We acknowledge that we continue to have an awarding gap problem. The University awards fewer first class and good honours degrees to students of all non-White ethnicities, to students eligible for free school meals, and to those from the lowest IMD (Index of Multiple Deprivation) quintiles, with particularly low outcomes for male students from non-White and disadvantaged groups. BAME and socioeconomically disadvantaged graduates are significantly less likely to exit Westminster with the top degree classifications, even after controlling for their entry qualifications, subject of study and other demographic factors. Rather than accept this as a status quo, we resolve to tackle it.”

Work to reduce awarding gaps has included investment in internal research; the introduction of measures to remove barriers to access, success and attainment; and interventions targeted on particular demographic groups whilst balancing the need to support the whole student community. There is a degree awarding gap with BAME and male BAME students are at more risk of unequal opportunity in terms of their attainment. The new ambitious Action and Participation Plan 2024-2028 details the steps the University is making to close the awarding gap. It will also have a student submission for Access and Participation for the first time, demonstrating the whole provider approach the University is taking to closing gaps.

Targeted interventions and early interventions are also having an impact. A new Peer Support call centre aims to increase continuation rates among new students from under-represented groups and from courses with high withdrawal rates. Students entering on a foundation year are now more likely than others to achieve a good honours degree upon successful completion of their studies. 72.5% of foundation entrants awarded in 2021/22 received a first class or upper second-class honours degree compared to 71.1% of other entrants awarded in the same year. This has increased significantly from the 46.2% rate seen in 2016/17 before our shared-provision model was implemented, and it demonstrates the value-added to students who historically would not have been able to access University’s provision. 

Westminster’s longstanding mission and local outreach means the University has a strong tradition in attracting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and those for whom there may not have been a strong family connection to higher education. The University has a population that is 69.5% BAME with 15.8% Black Students; much higher than the sector average. 39% of Westminster’s recent entrants were eligible to receive free school meals prior to starting with us, compared to just 19% for all English providers, whilst 58% come from among the country’s most deprived 40% of neighbourhoods. Among those from the most deprived parts of the country, the majority come to Westminster as the first in their family to attend university.

Westminster’s Education Strategy (2023-2029) stresses the University’s commitment to inclusive, accessible, and challenging learning, while simultaneously acknowledging that students come from diverse and sometimes challenging backgrounds. The University is focused on challenging deficit mindsets. As such, Westminster's priorities in this space include authenticity, fostering engagement through active learning methods, and ensuring inclusivity through assessment.  
There is evidence that the drop off in progression rates between those awarded first-class honours and those with lower second or third-class awards is greater for those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. This could suggest that their more prosperous peers have, on the whole, greater access to resources, including professional networks, as well as the necessary information, expectations and experiences to ameliorate any impact of relatively low academic performance. Therefore, whilst efforts at attainment raising will undoubtedly help in providing disadvantaged students with the best foundation to secure a positive graduate outcome, increasing expectations, greater access to information, and improving employability skills and experience for disadvantaged students continues to be crucial in addressing the risks to progression for students from these groups. The University is supporting progression through Mentoring, Westminster Employability Award, Westminster Working Cultures, Work Experience opportunities, Workshops, Work Based (and Placement) Learning (WBL), Early Careers Support Programmes, Career Appointments and Financial Assistance.

Championing Diversity and Inclusion in Research and Doctoral Education

An Equality, Diversity and Inclusion sub-committee of Research Knowledge Exchange Steering Committee has been established and has been active this academic year 2023/24. This is chaired by the RKE Director of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Membership includes representatives from various stakeholders from across the institution.   
The sub-committee has been at the forefront of recommending changes to our annual colleague wellbeing questionnaire. The information that is now collected includes (confidentially) the respondents’ protected characteristics. Data is now also gathered to enable the identification of both the college/school from which the respondent comes. This is crucial for better understanding of the areas that require equity work locally, this will be used to inform plans for the coming academic year.

The sub-committee has, with help from People Culture and Wellbeing, monitored the sabbatical applications/allocations, Researcher Development Programme uptake, and PhD qualifications amongst academic colleagues according to protected characteristics; it is analysing the data at present.

Recognising the importance that the University places on RKE across our institution and on how this links to the entire academic lifecycle, the University is ensuring that RKE is embedded in all ‘Welcome to Westminster’ induction sessions.  Relevant departments are working to demystify the PhD qualification itself with local (college/school) and University-wide (Graduate School) information sessions.

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) is organising training sessions around promotions (Reader/Professor) processes for colleagues.

Locally, in each of the colleges, the Research and Knowledge Exchange Directors have tasked school-level senior academics with undertaking research conversations with all academic colleagues.  
The University has  initiated the process of hiring an Accreditations Project Manager to work with others with the aim of securing the Athena Swan charter mark for a start. We are keen for the charter mark exercise to be enabling for culture change.

To celebrate and illustrate, the RKE team is pleased to introduce two doctoral students, Lonceny Kourouma and Marie-France Nguo, whose remarkable research and experiences highlight  University's dedication to advancing its Black Lives Matter commitments.

Lonceny Kourouma is a queer doctoral researcher, Part-Time Visiting Lecturer (PTVL) in Sociology at the University of Westminster. His research focuses on highlighting the intersectionalities and intricacies of Black lived experiences in the UK through their own voices and examine this through a decolonising lens. To do this, he uses storytelling as a form of decolonial praxis to help understand and retell Black lived experiences in the present day. Being a member of the Pedagogies for Social Justice network at the University of Westminster and the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) at the University of Manchester has allowed him to better reach and connect with other researchers from the global majority and find a community of decolonial thinkers that has further enriched his and the community’s collective activism.

Marie-France is a PhD researcher in the Law School at the University of Westminster, having received the Quintin Hogg Trust Studentship. Her research focuses on the role of multinational corporations in transitional justice mechanisms in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition, she serves as the PhD representative for the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Westminster. Her pursuit of higher education aims to motivate young people from BAME communities to achieve academic excellence. As a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster Law School, Marie-France enjoys contributing to students' intellectual growth and bringing new perspectives to her teaching, such as the Ubuntu philosophy.  As a philanthropist, she believes in the value of ‘Ubuntu’, which emphasises the interconnectedness of all people and the importance of community support, summarised in the phrase: "I am because we are."

Employability and Enterprise

A diverse group of role models for our students have been embedded within University’s employability and enterprise programmes. These programmes create opportunities for the students to be inspired by individuals from backgrounds that reflect their own communities. Activities include:

What it Takes alumni event series: What It Takes to impress in a new job and What it takes to build a successful start-up.
Westminster Working Cultures (WWC): several programmes and events are run for students where speakers share insights and advice into the working environment in the UK and around the world. In the 2022-23 academic year, 206 speakers joined from over ten different countries and 60% of WWC participants self-identified as coming from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic group. WWC has collaborated with the Black History Year Create programme to pilot a trip to Washington DC specific to Black students learning from and engaging with Black and Minority Ethnic speakers in June 2024.

Future Ready Mentoring: Future Ready Mentoring (FRM) offers students and recent graduates three distinct branches of mentoring activity: long-term, short-term and group mentoring. Future Ready Mentoring aims to target students who are at a higher risk of dropping out of university. Through the promotion of the programme, we aim to present a variety of different mentor role models to our students. Course-embedded group mentoring has been rolled out in selected areas to support Graduate Outcomes and reach those students who otherwise would not engage with 1:1 mentoring. This included Business Management, Law, Film, Computer Science, Photography and Modern Languages modules. In 2022-23, 830 mentoring participants were from UK domiciled backgrounds. Of these 830 participants, 68.7% were from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic group: this data suggests there is a higher proportion of FRM participants from Black, Asian and mixed ethnicity groups, compared to the student body as a whole.

The University is committed to fostering entrepreneurship among underrepresented groups. A recent example of this Inclusive Enterprise work is the Elevate programme launched in the 2022-23 academic year, which supports Westminster graduate entrepreneurs with tailored mentoring, workshops, and funding opportunities, resulting in tangible revenue growth and expanded employment opportunities for these small businesses often overlooked by mainstream incubation and acceleration support services. In 2022-23, WeNetwork engaged 3,031 participants (44.74% increase from 21/22), with 25% of First-Generation participants going to university (15% increase from 21/22) and 35% participants from a BAME background (15% increase from 21/22).

The University's Business Engagement activities focus on building connections to advance our BLM commitments and to showcase the University's commitments through awards submissions. For example, the University is partnering with the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on their Black Business Association with students and colleagues attending events and supporting wider collaboration activities. We also secured three national enterprise education awards for our approach to inclusive entrepreneurship.

Inclusive Futures Fair: The IFF is a careers fair set up by Westminster in 2019, via QHT Funding, with the aim of working with employers who share our values of “employability for all” and supported by diverse and inclusive recruitment practices. It has now evolved into a partnership with six other universities with a shared mission to support graduate outcomes, enhance skills and prepare underrepresented students for graduate employment. In 2023, 67 organisations and over 230 students participated in the collaborative fair.

This initiative won the AGCAS Award of Excellence for Building Effective Partnerships in 2023.

Work Based and Placement Learning: The WBPL initiatives, events and activities support the University’s strategy of Employability for All. These include targeted support for our under-represented students to access career development and networking opportunities, along with employer-led experiences. Some of these are included below.

Next Gen Talent Experience Day: 16 students from Computer Science and Engineering attended the event on 15 April at the London Congress Centre which brought together over 500 of the best and most inspiring student talent from diverse backgrounds. Students developed their confidence, and learnt how to network confidently, understand their strengths, and champion themselves in their careers.

Employ Autism: This is a QHT-funded partnership with Ambitious about Autism, supporting autistic students via a paid work experience programme. In 2023-24, ten students have been placed so far, with more roles available. Participating organisations include ITN, London Fashion Film Festival and Tata.

Inclusive Futures Insights: The IFI Programme is designed to provide students from under-represented backgrounds the opportunity to grow their network, build confidence and gain an invaluable insight into the huge range of career opportunities that London has to offer, both while at Westminster and after they graduate. In 2023-24, 37 students were involved in the programme and employers participating in the insight sessions included ING Bank, Investment 20:20 and GroupM.

Black in Business Careers event ran in October 2023 with 5 panellists and 32 student attendees. The panel event was designed to inform and encourage Black students on how to successfully navigate through the professional world. Panellists shared their insights on EDI and what it means in the workplace, and discussed issues disadvantaged students face when climbing the career ladder. Students also heard about unique employability programmes and initiatives, including those from 10,000 interns and Equity City.

Report and Support

This platform supports our commitment to further develop safe ways for colleagues and students to disclose and/or report microaggressions, harassment and unwanted behaviour. We continue to promote the platform through internal communication channels, articles, events, colleague networks and unions to ensure and enhance engagement.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Training

Work continues to enhance our EDI colleague development programme and train colleagues on key areas. These include addressing and challenging microaggressions, inclusive leadership, becoming an active bystander, and recognising how to confidently challenge and address inappropriate and unwanted behaviours.

Embedding the Black Lives Matter Commitments at Westminster

Professor Anand and Dr Husbands add: “In the sector, it can often feel like ‘two steps forward, one step back’ when it comes to making concrete changes in the EDI landscape in general and ensuring racial and ethnic fairness, justice and representation in particular. We acknowledge that there are political dynamics that foreground a strong commitment to building antiracist universities. Furthermore, we understand the value of Sustainable Development Goal 10 on “Reducing Inequalities” in helping shape our inclusion work. Of importance, we do not shy away from accepting that much more work needs to be done.

“Four years on since the Commitments, we remain as enthusiastic and determined as ever to work within the institution and with others outside the institution. We are committed to sharing insights from our work on these Commitments with other higher education partners in the UK and internationally. Our partnership with London Higher, in particular, is vital. We invite other institutions to share their challenges and good practices with us in the spirit of mutual learning.”