Black and minority ethnic leaders: support networks and strategies for success in HE Professor Kalwant Bhopal and Dr Hazel Brown @KalwantBhopal

Introduction Race Relations Amendment Act (2000); Equality Act (2010); Athena SWAN; Race Equality Charter (ECU). Increase in BME students at HEIs; Indian and Chinese students more likely to have a degree compared to other BME groups (HEFCE, 2014-15). Inequalities continue to persist despite policy changes and changes in student body (Bhopal and Jackson, 2013; Pilkington, 2013); White applicants three times more likely to secure a professorial post compared to BME candidates (UCU, 2012).

Project aims and objectives Aim: to explore successful career trajectories of BME leaders in HE Objectives To provide case study data on the experiences of BME leaders To examine how BME construct themselves as successful academics To analyse sources of support and To influence HE in terms of better support provision for BME career progression Funded by Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (June 2016)

Intersectionality A multiplicity of social categories that interact and interlock to produce systematic and individual inequalities (Crenshaw, 1991; Collins, 1998; McCall, 2005) Pushes against the ‘single axis’ analyses of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, nationality, religion etc Highlights the ways these systems interact, create and reinforce one another, as well as how they are experienced simultaneously Intersectional informed reflexivity centres fluidity and multiplicity and questions the negotiation of power relations

Methodology Target group: BME leaders Survey questionnaire: 127 respondents Support networks Mentoring Strategies for success Interview: 26 respondents (15 people interviewed) Data transcribed and analysed via NVIVO

Survey Findings A mixed picture for mentoring practices Poor ratings for promoting professional development Russell Group universities rated lower for communication and fostering independence Challenges and Barriers to success Lack of networking skills Work harder than white counterparts Lack of pro-activism

Interview findings Leadership; inclusive, collegiate and collaborative Successful career trajectories: hard work, support and perseverance Promotion; not necessarily related to leadership style but to performance and the process by which it was measured Support; lack of formal mentoring Identity; gender, ethnicity and to some degree class

Conclusions BME leaders successful due to own hard work and perseverance, differences by gender and ethnicity Ways forward Formal mentoring systems Representation on interview and promotion panels Setting up BME networks Access to training

Contact the authors Professor Kalwant Bhopal University of Birmingham K.Bhopal@Bham.ac.uk Dr Hazel Brown University of Winchester Hazel.brown@winchester.ac.uk