This seminar has been cancelled.
With members of the School of Geography URGE (Unlearning Racism in the Geoscience) Group.
All seminars online. Please contact sue.davis@nottingham.ac.uk for the link. Subject to change.
Part of the Geosciences Seminar Series.
There is an evident diversity crisis within the geosciences and physical geography: between 2014 and 2019 just 9.4% of geology and 7.54% of physical geography undergraduate students in the UK identified as being from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds (Dowey et al., 2021). These numbers are far lower than both the proportion of BAME students studying physical sciences over the same time period (14.5%) and the UK population aged between 18 and 25 (18.5%). Retention of geoscience and geography BAME students into postgraduate studies is also lower than their white contemporaries, which is highlighted by only 9% of UK Research and Innovation PhD studentships awarded to BAME individuals. Retention of BAME individuals across academia declines with seniority; in 2020 the Guardian reported that just 1% of UK professors are black.
It is clear that as a discipline we need to tackle this injustice and become actively anti-racist. Over the past academic year, a group of PGR students and staff in the School of Geography have, through the ‘Unlearning Racism in the Geosciences’ curriculum, been examining how we can begin to better serve BAME students and staff and become an actively anti-racist department. In this seminar we will be discussing the causes of this inequity, the major obstacles that BAME students and academics face, and the ways we can begin to end racial inequity within our department and discipline.
We invite all members of the school, including undergraduate students, PGT and PGRS, and staff from all disciplines of geography to attend this seminar.