During my time as an elected officer, I once had to explain how a sculpture could show both sustainability and diversity together and that the two themes were not independent. I had to explain that an unsustainable world affects the global majority.
This meeting was about a new strategy the university was launching and what kind of sculptures and artworks could be commissioned to demonstrate sustainability.
I wanted to ensure that there was at least a nod to diversity in this but was completely baffled when one of the attendees could not see that a sculpture could capture both diversity and sustainability together.
I was a Brown student in the White room, and I wasn’t just a student leader, I was a person of colour seeing the same world through a different lens.
Universities have always been a place of advancement and innovation. They are institutions held on pedestals of prestige and through recent decades, a place where diverse student cohorts are welcomed. But one thing that still lacks is diverse representation in university senior leadership staff.
The University of Edinburgh’s Race Review made this clear. Around 84 per cent of staff members are White and about one per cent of staff members are Black, with Asians holding the majority proportion of the minorities at nine per cent.
And that skew is seen throughout the hierarchical structure of the university.
Behind the curtain
The lack of diversity feels even more apparent when you’re a student leader getting to peek behind the curtains of the rooms where the decisions are made. Where decisions affect tens of thousands of students and you are a smudge in the White room.
I found these rooms intimidating at first.
You join the circle of staff that are often older than you, who don’t look like you and see the world in a different way to you because they didn’t grow up the way you did.
You’re elected from and by a diverse student population to enter rooms of conformity and then expected to speak on behalf of others.
I found it hard in these rooms at first, speaking up with a different opinion, or even just having an opinion full stop. I was raised to keep my head down and to not disturb the peace. Keep calm and carry on. How would I ever be able to tell the White room my colourful opinions?
The room where it happens
In retrospect, I just needed to keep reminding myself that I am a representative attending on behalf of all the students of the institution. To speak with the expert lived experience that being a student and working with students on a day-to-day basis gives you.
And remembering that I bring a diversity that is absent in the room, with different perspectives that are important and valued. In these times I don’t just represent students, I represent the diverse voices that aren’t present in the rooms of decisions.
My advice to others is to speak up and say important points with precision, arm yourself with powerful stories and stats and speak truth to power. Truths can be hard to hear, and you want to make sure it is heard and the substance is debated, not the semantics.
It is a daunting duty, but through it, I have been able to provide the best support for a project to create a new type of prayer space in the university – a Dharmic Prayer Room.
A room that would make the university overall more inclusive to all the world’s major religions. Without my perspective and background, I don’t believe the importance of this room would really be understood, let alone come to fruition as quickly as it did.
Capturing what’s missed
Universities need to ensure diversity in their committees and that the leadership share multiple perspectives and backgrounds, not just the same ones in every position.
A really interesting pilot a member of the EDI committee mentioned they were trialling was labelling each meeting with a characteristics profile to make transparent exactly what perspectives are in the room i.e. sexuality, gender, ethnicity etc. And in doing so make explicit what perspectives may not be in the room.
I may be a person of colour, but I am not every person of colour, every sexuality, gender or characteristic so I will never know the perfect answer to every debate and discussion. I shouldn’t be expected to.
However, I add one more unique perspective to the room, a perspective that wasn’t there before and would have stood a chance of being missed had I not been there.
There is no overnight solution here, it requires a greater change and culture shift, so in the meantime my advice is to speak your mind and trust your perspective is valuable, because it will be.
It took me a while to learn this and then a while longer to keep acting on this and bringing the courage to speak every thought and concern that crossed my mind. But if you do not speak out, those with similar experiences to yourself will be missed out in conversations and decision making altogether.
However, even with this confidence and mindset shift, engaging in meetings and voicing my thoughts, insights and expertise, the realisation does still hit me sometimes. The realisation that I was one of, if not the only person of colour in the room.
And it makes me grateful that I was here and able to represent beyond a student leader. But in moments like these I wonder, where is everyone else and why are they not here?
