Living Black at University Commission Report 2022/23 Living Black at University Commission Report 2022/23 5.3 CASE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF KENT Laura Maclean At the University of Kent, we wanted to respond to and act upon As the Living Black at University report is a national piece of work, we wanted to ensure that the work we do is really relevant for our Head of Accommodation & the 昀椀ndings of the Living Black at University report, so we set Customer Services at University of Kent up a ‘Living Black’ working group comprising stakeholders from student body at Kent, and so we included the original research across the university. This included teams such as EDI, student questions in our 2022/23 end of year student survey using the We had a fantastic experience, student support, campus security, catering, comms, Commission’s Research Toolkit. “ training and development, and our student union. The purpose We had a fantastic response rate, which shows that our students response rate, of this group is to respond to the 昀椀ndings and recommendations are engaged and open to this discussion, and are currently which shows that in the report, thereby improving and enhancing the lived analysing the data, which we will compare against the original experience for our Black students. report 昀椀ndings so we can address speci昀椀c areas at Kent, as well our students are We are taking each of the recommendations in turn, with each one as targeting both our sta昀昀 training and our support for students. engaged and open being the focus of a di昀昀erent meeting. A starting point is always We plan to repeat this survey in future, so we can measure the good work that already goes on at Kent and we look for ways the impact of our initiatives. It’s so important to be open to the to this discussion. that we can improve on it or better communicate it, as well as 昀椀ndings and embrace change to make a positive impact for our implementing new initiatives. As the group includes such a wide Black students; with our working group and through continued selection of skill sets and in昀氀uence from across the university, it’s a collaboration with our accommodation partners, we look forward great opportunity to make positive and impactful change, and the to seeing the results and how they evolve over time. excitement and the dedication of the group is really inspirational. So far, we have looked at our acclimatisation and integration activities to ensure that we o昀昀er a diverse range of options during our welcome period, and we are making this a real focus for our ResLife programme to ensure that this continues throughout the academic year. We’ve also looked at our student demographics to make sure that we are providing culturally relevant services. We’ve considered our catering options as part of this and invited students and suppliers to a food tasting event, which was really well-received, where we gathered feedback about the food on o昀昀er using surveys. As a result, in September 2023 we launched an on-campus West Indian micro- brand called Three Little Birds, while we are also o昀昀ering a selection of African and West Indian drinks and snacks in our catering outlet. In terms of other culturally relevant services in the area, we spoke to our current residential students about what advice they would give to new students moving to Kent for the 昀椀rst time. We’ve created a welcome booklet called ‘Living Black’ which features peer- to-peer advice from our current students, signposting to where students can 昀椀nd global food suppliers, Afro-Caribbean hair salons, and also suggestions for student societies and faith groups. 46 47