It was an honour to be invited to join our distinguished national panel at our own Students Union Table Talk event; a series of events hosted at BU exploring Race, Education, Equity and Social Justice. Decolonising the curriculum is an important agenda item in current UK Higher Education, and is about presenting a fair and balanced picture of Human thought and achievement that represents knowledge and ideas from thinkers and authors of all nationalities, cultures and ethnicity.
Panel members:
Pictured l-r – Nasra Ayub Vice-President of Education at Bristol Students’ Union; Debbie Holley BU Professor of Learning Innovation and Head of CEL; Busayo Twins; University Access Officer at The Access Project & Former President at LSE; our host Lenrick Greaves VP Education at Bournemouth University Students Union. Fellow panellist (not pictured – Amatey Doku NUS, Vice-President of Higher Education)
Around 50 students, staff and members of the public joined in on Monday evening to hear views from the panelists, take part in a lively debate and suggest ways in which to take the current work forward, both nationally and at a local level. SUVP Education Lenny Greaves started off the debate with showing his campaign video ‘why is my curriulum white’ – access below, and have a look at his campaign page here. The national discussion can be found on twitter at #whyismycurriculumwhite
My own contribution was to draw upon a collaborative research project I undertook with colleagues from three London Universities, which profiled the struggles experienced by BAME students living at home and commuting into University, and explored ways in which to engender a sense of belonging at University. The paper can be accessed here
At Bournemouth, a team of colleagues in Library and Learning Support, led by Academic Liaison Manager, Emma Crowley, have been working closely with Lenny to champion the Decolonising the curriculum agenda. Important strands of work include promotional displays in each of the university libraries, representative reading lists, skills development and links to research information and national initiatives, all freely available as an online guide.
