In June, the university celebrated its second annual Diversity Festival, bringing staff, students, alumni and visitors together for a variety of keynote events as well as live music and dance performances showcasing the diversity of our university community.

For the next few weeks, we will be highlighting one keynote event a week for those who missed out on the live sessions. This week, we’re recapping the Acknowledging Racism towards inclusivity and change event.

The keynote session on acknowledging racism created a space for us as a university community to come together and have some really interesting and challenging conversations.

Early on we acknowledged that not everyone feels comfortable when talking about race and racism and our panellists discussed how to deal with discomfort and how to encourage genuine allyship.

There were examples shared of practical and structural changes that have been made and how to move past the ways in which we’ve always done things. At the same time, the panel acknowledged that there is a lot more to do when it comes to sharing the work that the university has been doing on the Race Equality Charter.  

There were many powerful moments and we hope that everyone walked away feeling empowered to take action to help us progress towards race equality. 

Watch the full recording below.

Catch up with other events on the Diversity Festival hub.