Hello all!

Are you Black, Asian, or minority ethic?  Would you like to get involved in Closing The Gap?

Did you know that there is a BAME (Black, Asian, minority ethic) attainment gap at all universities in the UK? The attainment gap is the difference between BAME students and their white counterpart’s level of achievement - BAME students are not likely to be as successful.

I recently received very exciting news that the Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) Ambassador project is going ahead! This means we can begin to recruit students as BAME Ambassadors and collaborate to diversify the curriculum, which was one of my main manifesto points.

This project is designed to work towards closing the BAME attainment gap at the University of Huddersfield. This will provide students with an opportunity to voice from a point of authenticity their experiences, challenges and success in higher education. We will partner with academics to diversify reading lists among other areas to contribute to a diverse curriculum where we are all represented. 

Importantly, the BAME Ambassador scheme will provide students with a platform of opportunities, support, representation and empowerment.  So what are we doing to make this happen? Well, this is a student-led initiative, where we will ensure you are provided with a safe space to negotiate inclusive learning, the teaching environment, academic support, teaching on courses as well as peer-to-peer dialogue. Further, this will increase sense of belonging and build meaningful connections between students and staff, through developing internal and external networks. And finally, empower students to challenge the negative effects of stereotyping, as well as safely challenging racism.

We will provide training and support through internal and external professionals. The training involves practical based tasks where you can experience what it is like to be on a senior level committee, before doing the real thing!

Making Student Life Better...

Beyond making a powerful contribution to making change for your peers here at Huddersfield, you will be part of an initiative that will impact not only your peers at Huddersfield, but will go onto shift how other universities tackle equality, diversity and inclusion.

You will be making change by...

• Increase academic attainment
• Improve sense of belonging
• Improve student engagement
• Gain interpersonal skills and development
• Improve confidence in challenging discriminatory behaviour
• Importantly, greater wellbeing. 

As a volunteer position, there will be lots of opportunities to get involved, including the Why is My Curriculum White Campaign, so please get in touch if you are interested. The application form is out now and live here.

P.S. we are soon to announce the Black History Month Launch Event so keep an eye on your social media channels. I look forward to working with you all!

JONATHAN

EDUCATION OFFICER