The Race Equality Charter (REC) highlights the work going on in Higher Education towards improving the representation, progression and success of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff and students. The charter provides a framework for a university’s work around identifying and reflecting on institutional and cultural barriers which may be standing in the way of BAME colleagues and students. This allows a university to develop initiatives and solutions for tackling issues such as gaps around degree attainment and student employability, as well as staff recruitment and progression.
BU became a member of the Race Equality Charter in 2016 and we are now working towards our submission for the bronze award in early 2021.
Professor John Vinney, BU’s Vice-Chancellor, explains why this is so important.
At BU we are committed to creating and sustaining a positive and satisfying work and study environment for all students, staff and visitors to BU where different values and beliefs can be freely expressed and openly discussed. Everyone has a right to be treated with dignity and respect – we recognise that the most important goal to strive for is equity, meaning that racial privilege and disadvantage must be taken into account in our endeavours to create an inclusive environment.
We recognise that there are challenges for us in achieving our objectives. Part of our REC submission is an honest assessment of the current position at BU for BAME colleagues and students and the agreement of an action plan to work towards addressing these issues."
Our REC submission is being led by Dr Gelareh Roushan, Mandi Barron, Andy Scott and James Palfreman-Kay and supported by colleagues across BU. This work is overseen by University Leadership Team (ULT).
As part of that work to assess our current position, the REC team has been listening to the experiences of the BU community and during November, a number of teams and individuals will be sharing their experiences and the work they are doing to advance race equality at BU. These sessions will be available to all students and staff and we will be sharing further details of how to access them shortly.
