By Jonathan Wynne-Jones From The Guardian

The honour Baroness Amos feels as she prepares to take over a top London college is tempered by dismay that only 85 out of 18,500 UK professors are black

Making history as the first black woman to lead a British university causes mixed emotions for Valerie Amos, who is honoured by her appointment but dismayed that the breakthrough has taken so long.

The baroness, a former Labour minister, expresses concern at the lack of diversity in higher education, referring to the scarcity of black academics and the struggle of students of African and Caribbean heritage to succeed at university.

Figures showing that only 85 of the UK’s 18,500 professors are black are alarming, she says. “I was taken aback when I found out I’d be the first black female head of a university,” says the baroness, who will take up her role at Soas [the School of Oriental and African Studies] at the University of London in September.

“I was very concerned when I saw the national figures. There is clearly a broad national issue and I want to examine what we should be doing to address that.”

Despite its racial problems, the US is far ahead of Britain in the “diversity stakes”, says Amos, who argues that Britain needs a similar cadre of black role models to America, where they have been leading universities for decades. “You had a segregated society, so as you got an emerging black middle class they wanted their children to be educated, so black colleges were formed, so people were educated, they taught in those colleges, they took on leadership roles in those colleges. So you had a cadre of people when you got into the post-segregation era who could then move into other higher education institutes.”

She has been inundated with messages telling her how important her appointment is and feels a weight of expectation: “To have a black woman leading an institution like this and being a role model, people are expecting me to do things.”

As an apparent testament to the battle faced by black academics, Dr Nathaniel Coleman claimed earlier this year that UCL refused to give him a permanent job after he proposed a course that would have “put white hegemony under the microscope”. The university denied the allegation made by the Oxford-educated philosopher, who crosses out his surname to highlight the stigma of a name given to his ancestors by slave owners.

“Higher education is going through a tricky time in the UK,” says Amos, arguing that the roots of inequality in the world of academia could stem from the challenges confronting black students from school to university.

Studies by Warwick University have found that black Caribbean pupils are subjected to institutional racism, with teachers underestimating their abilities and assuming that they and their parents are far less interested in education than white students.

“There has been a lot of concern about issues of achievement and assumptions that are made about black children and what they can achieve and the way that prevented children from fulfilling their full potential,” she says. “We’ve had debates about the impact of where you live, the impact of deprivation. We’ve had those debates over a long period, but still haven’t come up with an answer to any of it.”

Even black students who do make it to university are more likely to drop out in the first year. “Some of it is to do with young men coming from families where they’re the first to go to university, and some of it is about them coming from boroughs in London where there isn’t the expectation that they will do as well as they can do.”

The Amos bursary was established in 2009 to address this and has seen the number of students it supports grow from seven to 75 over the past six years, offering professional and peer mentors and training in presentation skills. “It’s important that young people feel that education is open to them. It’s all about access and opportunity,” Amos says. “There aren’t any easy answers.”

She is nevertheless determined to seek answers when she takes up her new role after five years at the UN responsible for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief.

School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), London Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Almost a third of professors at Soas are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Photograph: Jeffrey Blackler/Alamy
In contrast to the national picture, almost a third of professors at Soas are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, giving it a diversity and global perspective she would like to see replicated across the country.

However, the Guyana-born peer fears that rather than becoming more inclusive, Britain is becoming more insular and less welcoming.

“As someone who came to this country as a migrant and someone who has been totally formed by being British, by growing up here, being educated here, one of the things I always valued was a Britain that was very outward-looking.

“It was always very welcoming to people from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. I worry that we’re beginning to be seen as a nation that is not welcoming, that we look as though we’re turning inwards rather than looking outwards.”

There are a number of reasons for this trend, argues the former Labour minister, who succeeded Clare Short as international development secretary in Tony Blair’s government. Unemployment among British workers and rising immigration are two key factors, but she believes it is politicians’ lack of credibility that has made it harder for them to manage the change.

Recalling her political days, she says that she was deeply troubled by “a growing gap between the political parties and the people on the ground” that she found when she talked to people on their doorsteps.

“[There was] a real feeling that we just didn’t understand the issues, that we didn’t understand the pressures on people’s everyday lives. It’s becoming harder and harder to talk in honest terms about people’s concerns and what those mean.

“I live in a part of London where I can walk up the street and hear several languages in the space of 10 minutes. For me, that’s really interesting, but I can also see how it can feel very different, that ‘this is not the neighbourhood I grew up in’. Managing that change is difficult but part of political leadership is about helping people to manage those uncertainties.”

One of the things she hopes Soas can contribute is to better inform policymaking with its research work. She looks forward to taking over at the university, which celebrates its centenary next year, after an “emotionally and physically demanding” experience at the UN.

“It was very intense. You see the absolute worst that humanity can do to each other and you see the absolute best. I saw the real impact of conflict, the trauma children suffer, the violence and abuse.”

While nothing can compare to the harrowing images she witnessed when she was at the UN, in vowing to fight inequality in higher education she has taken up a challenge that will be no less daunting.

“I know you can never please everybody. There will be huge expectations which I’m not necessarily going to be able to meet, but I do think it’s an opportunity to think about these issues.”

IMAGE: valerie amos soas Valerie Amos takes over at Soas in September. Photograph: Katherine Anne Rose for the Observer

For more on this story go to: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jul/18/valerie-amos-black-university-professors