This guest blog marking the publication a year ago of Living Black at University has been kindly provided by Sam Kingsley, Senior Belonging, Equity and Engagement Manager at Unite Students.
As a Black woman, imagining a future where Black students flourish in all areas of their university experience is not only essential to my wellbeing, it is also rather easy. The difficult part is understanding how this might be realised. When we published Living Black at University 12 months ago, the research findings were not surprising to me, and the comments and data told an awfully familiar story.
The students that shared their thoughts, feelings and experiences reinforced what we already know – that accommodation is a hugely impactful part of the university experience, and that racism exists within that very experience.
The recommendations provide a glimpse of hope that those experiences can be changed; that if we work together, as accommodation providers, universities, and key stakeholders across the higher education sector, we can realise the future that Black students deserve.
This doesn’t just mean a more welcoming, safe and comfortable accommodation experience, important though that is. It also means looking beyond the academic experience to address the inequalities that Black students face in higher education: inequalities that lead to under-representation of Black students in some institutions; inequalities that lead to the Black awarding gap.
