THREAD: Following our #BlackLivesMatter tweet on Monday, many members of our community have been in touch to ask - rightfully - what we are doing to help fight racism and inequality at Imperial and better-support our Black students and staff
Let's be honest, we have a lot of work to do. But we have to start somewhere. Here’s what we're doing right now 👇🏿
Encouraging more Black students to apply to Imperial is a priority for us. We're currently developing a new cohort programme for Black students in secondary school years 10-13. This will launch in the next academic year
We are also ensuring all of our STEM outreach programmes recruit from the broadest pool of talented pupils as possible. We have appointed a Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Coordinator to focus specifically on this
The statistics on Black staff at UK universities, especially at senior levels, are unacceptable. Our institution is no different and we have taken our first steps towards reversing this: we have committed to @advancehe_rec and are working towards a full application in Jan 2021
We have also introduced a reverse mentoring pilot scheme to increase our senior leaders' awareness of different perspectives within Imperial and help their decision-making. Ten board members have been matched with our staff mentors so far
We are only just getting started, and we know we have much more to do. It will take time, but we will be better. We MUST be better.
