Inside King’s

Reflecting on the events of the summer, Professor Olonisakin shares: ‘What we now know is the profoundness of the Black Lives Matter movement. It is forcing us to deeply challenge societies and institutions in many ways, including higher education institutions – and our university.’

While the events of this summer might have heralded an awakening of sorts, Professor Olonisakin highlights how the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement were no surprise and had been predicted by many.

‘The past couple of years have seen a variety of discourses that have talked about the underacknowledged role of the university in terms of how it has dealt, or not dealt, with racism. For example, we saw the report from the Human Rights Commission, “Tackling Racial Harassment: Universities Challenged”. The report, which came out in 2019, signalled what was to come, but nobody could have predicted that COVID-19 or the events surrounding the killing of George Floyd would begin to change our discourse and action profoundly.’

She continues: ‘As Vice-President and Vice-Principal International, I’m delighted to say that we have spent the past three years preparing our university for a new way of thinking about internationalisation. Deeply embedded within that was the notion of decolonising the curriculum – that’s why it’s clear we are a few steps ahead of the game.’

Touching on the importance of the King’s 2029 strategy, Professor Olonisakin said: ‘Today, I am proud to say that King’s is one of the leaders of the pack. When you look across the Russell Group universities, for example, you can see the kinds of things that we are doing to change the culture of our university. We are not where we want to be, but this discourse is alive, and we will be compelled to enter a brand-new world. This period is like no other in history.’

Touching on her personal experience as a teenager, Sarah shared some of the challenges she had faced and that black, Asian and other minority ethnic students still report today: ‘I was discouraged by those in authority, told that “people like me” don’t do A-levels or degrees or the law or join the Civil Service. And here I find myself working at a globally renowned, prestigious, well-respected, elite university. I’m at a senior level, in a job that I love, and an expert in my field, where I help shape and guide our leaders, our managers, our students and the future direction of our university. The sad thing is that, with my profile, that was not a likely outcome, and still isn’t today.’

Reflecting on the work still to be done, Sarah said: ‘We need to recognise that racism is systemic, and we can only tackle it by really examining our systems, processes, practices and behaviours – which is what our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy aims to do. EDI is a real innovation mechanism; it enables creativity and the release of talent.’

Dr Liburd, who is currently developing a module on the colonial past of King’s, tells us: ‘History is incredibly relevant when it comes to the present of universities and problems with racism. The first time that universities like King’s interacted with people of colour was either through the slave trade (benefitting from the proceeds of it) or as colonial subjects – training the civil servants who were going out to administer the various colonies that were part of the British Empire. I think it’s important to foreground this conversation with the historical context.’

Linking this to current issues within higher education, Dr Liburd expands: ‘The Royal Historical Society  carried out the “Race, Ethnicity and Equality report”, in 2018, and found that History and other arts and humanities subjects were overwhelmingly white – both in terms of the nature of the curriculum and the demographic of the students.’