12 - That ain’t it, so we’ll create it: supporting Black students when and where our institutions fail

Summary

I am not the first and I certainly will not be the last Black trainee to become increasingly disillusioned with academia. To be wide-eyed and excited at the prospect of being stimulated intellectually, only to be challenged in every other aspect of life. Be it nepotism, unequal power dynamics, toxicity, abuse, racism or classism, just to name a few, there are a myriad of structural issues that need addressing within these spaces. Black students are often the most affected by these issues and UK and international academia are severely underprepared to tackle these problems. If institutions continue failing to address this holistically, the Black talent that is increasingly entering academia (with recent expanded recruitment efforts) will not be retained. This is ultimately a reflection of the unequal societies these institutions inhabit. There is so much work to be done.

I make such assertions after reflecting on my own lived experiences, navigating through the University of Birmingham, Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge and now Yale University. At each destination, I have seen the same patterns: isolated Black trainees, out- of- touch leadership, a gross miscalculation of the needs of the said students and an unwillingness to create meaningful change. Within these walls are the ‘brightest minds’ who undertake world- leading research and can understand, develop and articulate the most complex concepts. When those same minds are engaged to support the advancement of Black students, the results are more often than not unsatisfactory. How is that even possible? I have regularly asked myself this question, after innumerable meetings with senior leadership teams where I have left feeling perplexed, demotivated and upset. This has been because leaders will promise change but academic environments remain largely the same, with change occurring at a glacial pace, if at all. Unfortunately, this rate of change and amount of ‘effort’ is not sufficient to materially improve the prospects of Black PhD students. Nothing is being done to combat the screams from the walls that say we do not belong here or, upon observing the lack of Black postdoctoral researchers, the feeling that we cannot progress here, and, finally, when seeing the absence of Black faculty (0.6 per cent of UK professors are Black), perceiving that we will never make it to that level.