Living Black at University Commission Report 2022/23 47 46 Living Black at University Commission Report 2022/23 Laura Maclean Head of Accommodation & Customer Services at University of Kent At the University of Kent, we wanted to respond to and act upon the findings of the Living Black at University report, so we set up a ‘Living Black’ working group comprising stakeholders from across the university. This included teams such as EDI, student experience, student support, campus security, catering, comms, training and development, and our student union. The purpose of this group is to respond to the findings and recommendations in the report, thereby improving and enhancing the lived experience for our Black students. We are taking each of the recommendations in turn, with each one being the focus of a different meeting. A starting point is always the good work that already goes on at Kent and we look for ways that we can improve on it or better communicate it, as well as implementing new initiatives. As the group includes such a wide selection of skill sets and influence from across the university, it’s a great opportunity to make positive and impactful change, and the 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 offer 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 offer 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 offering 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 first 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 find global food suppliers, Afro-Caribbean hair salons, and also suggestions for student societies and faith groups. 5.3 CASE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF KENT We had a fantastic response rate, which shows that our students are engaged and open to this discussion. “ 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 student body at Kent, and so we included the original research questions in our 2022/23 end of year student survey using the Commission’s Research Toolkit. We had a fantastic response rate, which shows that our students are engaged and open to this discussion, and are currently analysing the data, which we will compare against the original report findings so we can address specific areas at Kent, as well as targeting both our staff training and our support for students. We plan to repeat this survey in future, so we can measure the impact of our initiatives. It’s so important to be open to the findings and embrace change to make a positive impact for our Black students; with our working group and through continued collaboration with our accommodation partners, we look forward to seeing the results and how they evolve over time.