Hello and welcome to Royal Holloway's Conversations About Race (CAR) initiative.
CAR are facilitated race-based conversations where colleagues and students from all backgrounds can share their experiences. The University has been working to resurrect this project with the aim to build community and enhance learning and understanding (beyond mandatory training), to lead to genuine and sustained positive change based on listening, inclusion, empathy and respect. We have gradually built skills and confidence, to ensure that the project will be run in a way that is supportive and safe for all participants.
June 2024 Update
To date we have run three CAR sessions with the PDA School, Doctoral School, and Students' Union. Feedback currently shows an increase in the proportion of participants feeling confident to have a conversation about race with someone in their school/department from 47% (somewhat confident) to 73% (somewhat or extremely confident). Participants have expressed appreciation of the creation of a safe space to share their experiences. The EDI Team have also worked on suggested improvements, such as ensuring that session information is provided in advance so colleagues have time to prepare, and providing more visible and transparent communications about what CAR sessions are leading to.
Key Facts
- CAR sessions are a minimum of 2 hours, with ideally 10-15 participants. They can be facilitated preferably in-person, but also online.
- All CAR sessions will be led by colleague and/or postgraduate student facilitators who have been trained in community building and leading these conversations. Sessions taking place up to December 2024 will also be supported by Citizens UK, who have much experience in delivering sessions.
- All sessions will have ground rules which will be implemented by facilitators and reviewed by all participants at the start of the session. There will also be post-conversation debriefing spaces for participants who may require support after conversations have taken place.
- There will be University-wide CAR sessions taking place in October, November and December 2024 (dates TBC).
- A key focus of the rejuvenated project will be documenting confidential insights from the sessions about race-related issues on campus, which will inform our Race Equality Charter application action plan. This will help us target priority areas of need and ensure impactful action as a result of and beyond these conversations.
If you are interested in hosting a CAR session, or have any questions, please reach out to us by emailing equality@rhul.ac.uk.
CAR was developed as a response to reports from the UUK/NUS on awarding gaps and the EHRC on racial harassment at Universities that suggested “open, meaningful conversations about race, racism and ethnicity” are needed to open up the issues that lie at the heart of both, and enable effective change to take place.
CAR sessions are intended to support participants to embed anti-racism practices in their daily lives, and support learning on issues related to race and race equality. The sessions also offer opportunities for participants to share experiences. The aim is to ensure conversations also lead to action planning around race equality, and this initative will be embedded in our University Race Equality Charter work.
In 2021, Royal Holloway ran two University-wide pilot sessions with support from King’s who had been been successfully running these sessions for a number of years, and in partnership with Citizens UK (an organisation that aims to empower communities to act together for power, social justice and the common good). Colleagues participating in Royal Holloway’s 2021 pilot noted an increase in confidence to “have a conversation about race with someone in your school/department.” Colleagues also suggested that CAR helped to develop skills and confidence to facilitate and manage conversations that may arise in the classroom.
We are currently resurrecting the project with Citizens UK following discussions at Creative Conversations and with staff networks. A key focus will be on documenting insights, ensuring these inform impactful action and strategy, so that we see a gradual but genuine change in culture. CAR will also be incorporated within our Race Equality Charter renewal submission in 2024.
Initial exploratory and planning meetings with colleagues from our Inclusive Culture and Environment Strategy Working Group, our Race Equality Group and Citizens UK (October and November 2023) highlighted the need to ‘take it slow and build it up’, so that we are confident the project is run in a way that is both supportive and safe for participants, and also impactful in terms of positive culture change.
In this vein, we are currently working with Citizens UK to ensure iterative facilitator training is in place to gradually build skills and confidence. This training includes a general introduction to community building, alongside smaller facilitator-only CAR events to gradually build experience and confidence. As time progresses, we envisage CAR gradually building up towards larger conversations, with more colleagues participating and acquiring skills that can be used in other spaces such as the classroom and in everyday discussions, with conversations becoming opportunities for learning and change.
We have also discussed the need to establish post-conversation debriefing spaces for colleagues and students who may require support after conversations have taken place.