AREN’T OPPORTUNITIES EQUAL BY NOW?

1. AREN’T OPPORTUNITIES EQUAL BY NOW? FIONA MCLEAN UCL EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES CO-ORDINATOR

2. SOME UK STATS • After 31 years of equal pay law, women’s earnings are now 82% of men’s. • BME senior lecturers/readers with 9 or more year’s service are half as likely to be professors as their comparable white peers. • Out of 163 HE institutions how many have a woman as their head? 14. • What proportion of HE professors are women in the UK? 10%. • 16% of the white population gain university degrees. What percentage of the Asian population do? 21% but twice as likely to be unemployed.

3. National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education Dearing 1997. Bett report 1999 Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 Disability Discrimination Act Employment Equality Regulations one of major purposes of HE” to play a major role in shaping a democratic civilised and inclusive society” identified gender inequalities in HE. Race Equality Policy and Action Plan race equality central to any policy or service, build into existing work. Must be proactive. assess all policy development and planning processes for impact on race equality in consultation with those most affected monitor by racial group admission and progress of students and recruitment and career progression of staff and annually publish results 2005 EXTERNAL DRIVERS

4. Modood ‘Ethnicity and employment in higher education’. Gap between multi ethnic character of home students and their teachers Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African-Caribbeans are significantly underrepresented among HE staff. BME groups likely to be on fixed term contracts Less likely to be professors irrespective of length of service. Most BME staff believe they have been discriminated against in a job or promotion FOCUS ON HIGHER EDUCATION

5. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON • Founded in 1826. Third University in England. 72 Departments • First to admit students of any religion without reference to social background. • First to admit women on equal terms with men. • 18,000 students, of which 11,150 undergraduates • Pioneered university based teaching in ‘new’ subjects like law, medicine, languages and engineering. Currently 230 undergraduate degree programmes, 70 graduate programmes, 190+ taught master’s degree programmes • Staff and former students include 10 Nobel prize winners • Budget about £400 million, of which competitively won research grants and contracts are largest source of income • Based in Central London near British Museum

6. UCL CURRENT WORKFORCE FACTS • 8070 STAFF (about half are academic staff) • 47% women • 15% of all UCL staff are from a black and minority ethnic group • 11% unknown/withheld • 39% of academic and senior administrative staff are women • 13% professors women • Less than 1% of all academic and senior admin staff are African African-Caribbean, Black British) • 1% of all UCL staff have declared a disability.

7. The impact of discrimination • Must acknowledge impact and long term effects of discrimination. Not level playing field. Not a meritocracy without equal access. Challenge ‘institutional image’. • Need to identify unjustified differences and barriers. Differences across disciplines. Impact of the ‘traditional’ on subject areas. • Institutional racism “consists of the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen, or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping, which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”

8. UCL AIMS TO: • Integrate and promote equality in all its operations, • Challenge and prevent discrimination • Have a more representative workforce at all levels • Have no significant disparities in perceptions of staff and students of different ethnic groups • To close differentials and significant gaps between attainment of different groups • Inform, train and support staff • Monitor progress and publish results.

9. Action! • Dismantle obstacles. • Put policies and structures into place. • Set targets. • Allocate responsibility at a senior level for progress. • Monitor results/progress.

10. UCL ACTION FOR EQUALITY10 corporate equality objectives agreed June 2001 • improvement of monitoring data regarding staff and students • address imbalance and under representation of specific groups including on committees, • curricula reflects needs of diverse student body, • widening participation, -strengthen local links • promote understanding of how discrimination operates, promote culture of diversity • support for disabled students, • sexual orientation integrated into EO • Race Equality Strategy and action plan • HR policies that promote good EO practice • develop consultation with under-represented groups

11. EQUALITIES STRUCTURES

12. SUCCESSES • Set workforce equality targets - Improve workforce profile, support achievement of corporate equality target • Welcoming statements. All panels trained. • Equality Action planning. • Encourage staff from under represented groups to sit on decision making cttees/boards. • Race Equality review groups- impact assessment. Staff survey • Student and staff harassment networks • Disability training for 5% all staff. • DEOLO network and training for all DEOLOs. • Equalities project officer

13. Equality action planning • Implement equality at a departmental level • All UCL Depts by 2006 • £3K per dept • 44 Depts to date • Cross Dept WG of staff & students. Lead by HoD or senior manager. • Agree 3 or 4 Dept. equality initiatives • One initiative RE awareness for all staff • Departmental contribution to workforce equality target • Incorporate into Dept’s operational plans. • Monitor progress. Build on progress each year.