Naina Patel, Director of Human Resources, has been appointed as UAL's new Race Champion and will lead a comprehensive consultation exercise on our draft action plan for social justice and anti-racism at UAL.
This follows our public statement on Black Lives Matter.
We are not starting from scratch - many colleagues have worked on social justice and race-related interventions for a number of years.
Our process seeks to build on their initiatives, alongside ideas from staff, students, activists and Governors.
A new 10-point plan
We have identified 10 ways to make swift progress on this issue, and these will form the basis of our consultation process:
- Visible accountability and allyship on race equality, to ensure role models, action and self-reflection
- Improve reporting, monitoring and resolution processes, to ensure zero tolerance for discrimination and harassment
- Align anti-racism strategy with UAL EDI strategy, to build on existing equality frameworks
- Anti-racism education across UAL, to confront individualised and systemic racism and privilege
- Disaggregate statistics and KPIs, to distinguish between ethnicities and prevent erasure of identity
- Increase the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff, to create a more diverse workforce
- Increase the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic students, to reach more people from priority groups
- Extend numbers of visiting Black, Asian and minority ethnic lecturers, to ensure consistent good practice
- Decolonising the curriculum, to address black and other cultures across all courses
- Resources for decolonising the curriculum, to invest in our learning and teaching collections
Coordinated effort and collaboration
These actions are provisional - a starting point for collective engagement. Ultimately, the contribution of staff and students will result in an effective social justice & anti-racism strategy and action plan for UAL. Our Executive Board has pledged to be accountable for the success of that strategy.
We will not rest until UAL can truly call itself an anti-racist university.
