Embedding inclusion at the heart of a university curriculum is essential for fostering an environment where all students feel represented, respected, and empowered to learn.
Here are steps that universities can take to help ensure students, regardless of background or identity, have equal opportunities to succeed and feel valued in their academic journey.
Lead by example
University leadership, including deans, department heads and faculty, should publicly champion inclusivity. Their commitment sets the tone for the institution. Those in leadership roles should actively demonstrate their investment in inclusivity by participating in initiatives and supporting policy changes.
Inclusivity should be embedded at the heart of the institution’s strategic plan. By making it a core priority, universities demonstrate that these goals are not an afterthought but central to their mission.
Communication is key
Articulate inclusivity goals in a way that resonates with everyone across all levels of the institution. Workshops tailored to different audiences, which are evidence based and reinforced by data, ensure all staff and students understand the goals and can see the relevance of these to their own practice.
Share progress and challenges through regular communication so the entire community understands both the university’s commitment and their individual roles in achieving inclusivity goals. Our weekly and fortnightly Citizen newsletters to staff and students respectively, provide an excellent channel to communicate successes and share examples of best practice and good news. We host termly Q&A sessions with our executive board members which reinforce and update on strategic aims and objectives.
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Finally, create mechanisms for ongoing feedback from students, faculty, and staff, ensuring everyone has a voice in shaping inclusivity strategy. Students and staff play a key role in our committee structure, through which they can shape our institutional approach to inclusivity. We work closely with students through student staff committees, student representatives at school and college level, and student listening events. We also host regular “You said, we did” sessions that close the feedback loop, and showcase the positive changes made as a result of student input.
Faculty and staff training
Regular workshops and training on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) help all staff develop the knowledge and skills to foster an inclusive learning environment. Topics might include unconscious bias, inclusive teaching practices, and supporting underrepresented and minority student groups.
Know your data
Different attainment impacts many protected groups. One of the most pervasive gaps across the sector is the ethnicity awarding gap, in which minority ethnic students are systematically awarded lower degree outcomes than white students. This can have long-term effects on students’ future lives and career paths.
Analysis of data allows you to identify and address the root causes of disparities in academic outcomes among different student groups. By looking at data on academic performance and student demographics you can pinpoint where awarding gaps at your institution exist and take targeted action. At Leicester we have:
- Introduced race inclusion workshops across all our schools
- Made race inclusion action plans mandatory for all schools, divisions and departments
- Developed a “Talk about Race” module for undergraduate programmes.
Diversify course content
Making curriculum content more diverse is an important step in making education more inclusive and reflective of global perspectives. It involves critically rethinking and reshaping what is taught and how it’s taught.
This involves regularly reviewing the traditional texts that are seen as essential to a discipline. It’s important to continually question why certain works are considered central, and whose voices are missing.
Ensure that the curriculum reflects diverse perspectives and experiences. This can mean incorporating more diverse readings, case studies, imagery or topics that acknowledge and celebrate differences in race, gender, culture, socioeconomic status, and more.
Faculty diversity
Diversifying the curriculum also involves addressing who is teaching it. The academic workforce across the UK has not diversified at the same rate as the student body.
The scarcity of Black professors, for example, reflects broader structural inequities that affect recruitment, retention and advancement in academia.
By addressing these issues through institutional reform, mentorship and recruitment policies, universities can help create a more inclusive and diverse academic environment that benefits all.
We have initiatives in place to increase the diversity of our staff, ensuring that we recruit in a way that promotes fairness and transparency at each stage of the process, and where skills and experience are the only factors taken into account. This involved the following actions:
- We commissioned a comprehensive review to identify potential barriers to success that minoritised applicants face when applying for roles
- From this we developed an Inclusive Recruitment Toolkit with resources to help ensure that each stage of the recruitment cycle is free from bias and is conscious of the systemic challenges faced by applicants
- We provide annual Diversity Data Dashboards, so each area of the university has a breakdown of its staff demographic (disability, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) and equity pay gaps.
Empower students to work with you
Involve students in decision-making, discussions about inclusivity, and all aspects of their education and experience. By establishing student voice committees or advisory boards, you allow students to express concerns and make suggestions. This helps tailor initiatives so they reflect the actual experiences and needs of students. Support this by creating safe spaces where students and staff can engage in open, respectful dialogue about inclusivity.
In addition, create opportunities for students to co-lead projects that will generate real change. From the micro to the macro scale, empowering students ensures that the work being done is relevant and reflects their real needs.
A great example is Leicester medical school’s MedRACE, a student-led, staff supported group that was formed following the release of the BMA Racial Harassment Charter in 2020. The working group meets regularly and has implemented a number of initiatives that have impacted practice not only within the medical school at Leicester but beyond, including:
- Delivering bystander training within the curriculum
- Addressing racial harassment on work placements
- Creating surgical headwear representative of the medical school population
It is clear that delivering truly inclusive education requires a multitude of actions, on many fronts. In all of this, co-production with students must be at the heart: only through understanding diverse lived experiences and by empowering students to be equal partners, will we make real change.
Liz Jones is pro vice-chancellor for education at the University of Leicester.
The University of Leicester is shortlisted for University of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards 2024 #THEAwards. A full list of shortlisted candidates can be found here.
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