Five Principles for Black Women Academic Development Programmes (BWADP)
What are the core principles when designing a programme for Black Women Academics advancement?
It is an important question because the Women’s Higher Education Network (WHEN) highlights there are 23,000 UK professors of which only 61 are Black women . To increase the number of Black women in the academic pipeline, Higher Education will need to focus on the specific needs and challenges that Black women face in relation to inequality of access, conditions and opportunities.
Inspired by the 100 Black Women Academics pilot created by WHEN, I had the great opportunity to be a member of the Black Women Academic Development Programme at De Montfort University (DMU). This programme was co-created with 13 senior lecturers, including myself, in December 2021 who each self-identified as women from African or Caribbean heritage.
From my own experience, I can share 5 principles that are essential for similar programmes success:
1- Agency and capacity for autonomy
The programme team invited us for co-development session to envision the programme and to set the expectations and preferences. This session gave me a sense of ownership and it was run in a way that the programme team were “listening to learn” and during the session we were assured that this programme will be bespoke to meet our needs to develop authentically.
2- Psychological safe spaces
Coming together on a monthly basis most of time during the programme duration, signalled a development ritual guided by a thematic workshop ranging from half to full-day. The workshops were practical and we benefited from the varied activities during these workshops. Examples of activities were: short lecturing; personality analysis and preferences; small group discussions; 1-2-1 conversations with the facilitators; scenario-based learning; and sharing past and on-going situations to gain perspectives. Our workshops were psychologically safe. We agreed to keep our discussions and reflections within the group. We did not record any group conversations between us and the facilitators. Outside the workshops we continued to share useful resources including podcasts and experiences. The programme team created a Teams channel and restored all workshops resources and we did use the chat function for conversations and exchanging information in a speedy manner.
3- Career stories
At the launch of the programme, the Vice Chancellor shared her career story along with 3 women academics who were part of the national pilot of 100 Black Women Academics. These career stories opened insightful conversations around what went well and what are the tools that these women have used to navigate varied workplace situations. A common theme was the pro-active investment on resilience reserves and clarity on their values and drivers to guide their decision-making processes and choices.
I was very inspired by invited women leaders and their journeys and how they focused on authentic development and leadership. They taught, researched, and led in matters that were important to them and they focused on their strengths to serve their stakeholders. They also shared the importance of building a strong support system inside and outside their Higher Education Institutes because they were well aware of existing systems issues when it comes to gender and race.
4- External certified facilitators
It was my first time to gain insights from certified coaches who are specialised in race and gender training within Higher Education contexts. Certification of these facilitators engendered a sense of confidence in me in their knowledge and expertise. It was very useful to understand the big picture of Higher Education through varied experiences. Those facilitators shared “Awareness & Actions” tools where the starting point should be to understand race and gender matters through available evidence then to take suitable actions to foster our growth.
5- Curious conversations
The programme created a space for curious conversations because the workshops were designed with breakout times. We shared our interests outside work and there were varied opportunities for organic conversations between participants and facilitators talking about whole lives and experiences. This fostered a sense of belonging, mattering, and community.
Impact
I acknowledge that these types of programmes will take considerable time to realise the intended changes and benefits. There are still some immediate and short-term benefits. In my own case, I can say that attending this programme has stimulated my career and my own sense of agency to take control of my future. For example:
1. I returned to my School & Faculty and re-asked for the written panel notes about my unsuccessful associate professor application submitted in 2020. One of the recommendations in the written note was that I will need to be assigned a mentor to support with my associate professor promotion. As a result, I was assigned a mentor for promotion purposes and we started the mentoring sessions in 2022
2. I started to engage on my LinkedIn profile and I followed relevant Higher Education Networks for updates and future connections
3. I reflected deeply and I found that one of my strengths is my thoughtful leadership towards PhD supervision 3Ps - processes, practices, & progression. I crafted my role as Institute Head of Research Students (IHRS) in the Institute of Architecture to reflect this leadership style. I organised different sessions and created useful tools to be used by post graduate researchers and their supervisors
4. I requested 1-2-1 conversations with relevant senior leaders and these conversations enhanced my focus
5. I reached out to relevant staff to find more about mentoring and coaching training at DMU because it is an area that I am interested in and I would like to develop my skills further to enhance my mentoring offer for new staff, early careers academics and researchers, PhD supervisors, and PGRs
6. I started to read more literature on different leadership styles and I will be seeking more opportunities on leadership positions/ shadowing to stretch my strengths and skills
7. I proposed with 3 early careers researchers a research network for alternative discourse on African urbanism towards more optimistic positioning led by African scholars and professionals (hybrid network). I proposed this starting topic as a result of my supervision and examination of PGRs around African architecture and urbanism. The starting principle for the network is responding to “alternative discourse on writings on African urbanism by Africans towards more optimist views.” From Dr. Humuani Olande Onitiju thesis 2023
8. I reached out to WHEN to offer workshops for PGRs and early career researchers through their network, an online conversation meeting was held on Tuesday 11 July 2023. The workshops will be delivered with my collaborator Dr Lovelin Obi and our vision is to use these workshops as learning models on how to best develop and support PGRs and early career researchers across disciplines in preparation of Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2028
9. I enhanced my social and cultural capital by getting to know and learn from 6 women experiences across disciplines that I can confidently call them friends, my circle of wisdom
10. This blog post is my first and it was a response to invitation from Prof. Christina Hughes who facilitated our final session of the programme. I said yes to the opportunity because I use experimentation as a way of learning.
Future programmes
Future programmes can be framed as enhancement programmes where the focus will be on giving language, tools, and skills for participants to reach their full potentials within the workload and to be able to navigate the system successfully. Future programmes can be designed as a mini-fellowship with measurable outcome. The fellowship can be crafted to lead to an external fellowship/ opportunity that align with each participant career vision “My Career, My Way.”
Amal Abuzeinab
October 2023
Amal is a Senior Lecturer and Institute Head of Research Students (IHRS) - Institute of Architecture at De Montfort University. You can connect with Amal here on LinkedIn.