We know many of our students have been deeply affected by the appalling killing of George Floyd and by the anti-racism protests. Some of you have told us of issues this has made you think of regarding your experiences at the Centre for Journalism, at university and about the media in general. Thank you for all your words and thoughts, which we have been reflecting on.
We would like to begin a bigger conversation with you about how the CfJ can work to ensure that all students in BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) communities feel they belong and are fully supported at the CfJ.
We would like to invite you to an informal meeting to talk about this on Thursday 18th June at 5.30pm. The meeting will be on Zoom.
The meeting is specifically for students – and former students – who identify as BAME. We’ll be publicising it on social media to try to reach BAME students who studied at the CfJ in previous years. If you are in touch with any former CfJ students that you think should be invited, please do pass on this email to them.
Current students have recieved an email cointaining the Zoom link for the meeting. We would love as many former students to join us as possible too. Just email me on my university address and I’ll send you the Zoom link. Alternatively, direct message us on the @cfjkent Twitter account and we’ll message you back with the link.
This meeting is intended as an informal gathering to develop ideas about some of the changes we may need to make to the centre’s culture. Angela, Dave and I will be facilitating things to start with – but we are aware that it might be appropriate for us to step away at some point to enable freer discussion. We’re very keen for this to be a student-led process, and hope that this preliminary meeting will lead to a more formal plan of action that we can implement together. All other staff support this meeting too, but we didn’t want to overload the meeting with staff members.
Hope to see you there on Thursday at 5.30pm.
Ian,
On behalf of the CfJ team.
