This document summarizes key points from various sources on the topics of diversity in STEM fields, challenges faced by black and minority ethnic academics, and the importance of inclusion and dismantling covert racism. It notes that while 1 in 5 STEM students are from BAME backgrounds, BAME men are 28% less likely to work in STEM. It discusses the need to challenge subtle and covert racism in higher education. The document advocates for creating an empowering and inclusive environment that starts with the heart.

1. Connecting People & Places
Dr Erinma Ochu
@erinmaochu

2. “1 in 5 students studying STEM subjects are from a BAME
background1 but BAME men are 28% less likely to work in STEM than
white men2”
1. STEM Factsheet 2014
2. CaSE - Improving Diversity in STEM 2014
3. Thecovert racism that is holding back black academics, 2018
“many black and minority ethnic academics report experiences of
subtle, covert and nuanced racism in higher education in which white
identity is privileged and protected within the space traditionally
reserved for the white middle class…. We must continue to disrupt,
challenge and dismantle such covert racism if we are to move forward
in our quest for a socially just society.3”

3. Patterns and Trends in HE, 2015, UUK

4. ‘...it was not at all like the fear I heard
when one of us was ill or had fallen
down the stairs or strayed too far
from the house. It was another fear,
a fear that the child, in challenging
the white world’s assumptions, was
putting himself in the path of
destruction’
(Baldwin, 1963, p. 31).

6. www.hookedonmusic.org.uk

7. “This project can be commended for teaming up public
engagement, using popular accessible and accessible
platforms, with scientific discovery,
encouraging widespread interest in responding to a
critical threat of the devastation caused by dementia…”
The Lancet (Medical Journal)

8. www.togetherdementiasupport.org/together-in-song-gospel-choir/
Together in Song – Gospel Choir
Dr. Dawn Edge

13. Secretary of the national Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, which led to the UK Race Relations Act
Beresford Edwards 1930 - 2003

14. Dr. Rebecca Lee
Crumpler, 1831 - 1895
Katherine Johnson 1918 -
George Carruthers 1939 -
https://wakelet.com/wake/c300ff0f-4133-425f-9ce5-
d82af9fbd100

16. ‘Culture is a site of “negotiation,” …a space of give and
take where intended meanings could be short-
circuited…
In a free society, culture does not answer to central,
governmental dictates, but it nonetheless embodies an
unconscious sense of the values we share, of what it
means to be right or wrong.”
Hsu, 2017

18. Saarinen, Time Magazine, The Maturing Modern. 1956
“Always design a thing by considering it in
its next larger context - a chair in a room,
a room in a house, a house in an
environment, an environment in a city
plan.”
18

21. ‘The world is a
rhizomatic body of
innumerable relations’.
Edouard Glissant (2000)

23. Hernberg et al, 2017, Design+Power
“Infrastructuring seen as an ongoing
process of building long term relationships
and collaborations with various
stakeholders and aligning participants and
resources around shared things”
23

25. – Patricia Hill Collins
Intellectual Activism
“The myriad ways that
people place the power
of their ideas in service
to social justice.”

35. Marc Boothe, Nancy Barrett, Cilla Baynes, Kim
Dambaek, Beresford Edwards, Aneez Esmail,Vicky
Featherstone, Karen Gabay,Tracy Gentles,Alicia Garza,
Patrisse Cullors and OpalTometi, Hilary Geoghegan,
Stuart and Catherine Hall, Grete Halskov, Chloe James,
Jackie Kay, Lara Lalemi, Brian Lobel, Andy Miah, Bianca
Manu, Nnena McKenzie, John McGrath, Michaela
Parnell,Valerie Pickford, Else Ochu, Ellen Ochu,Thomas
Ochu, Imo Otoro, RachelOliver, Mahboobeh Rajabi,
Cindy Regalado,Anita Shervington, SaraWajid, Caroline
Ward, HayleyWalsh, ColetteWilliams to name but a few.

36. Marc Boothe, Nancy Barrett, Cilla Baynes, Kim
Dambaek, Beresford Edwards, Aneez Esmail,Vicky
Featherstone, Karen Gabay,Tracy Gentles,Alicia Garza,
Patrisse Cullors and OpalTometi, Hilary Geoghegan,
Stuart and Catherine Hall, Grete Halskov, Chloe James,
Jackie Kay, Lara Lalemi Brian Lobel, Andy Miah, Bianca
Manu, Nnena McKenzie, John McGrath, Michaela
Parnell,Valerie Pickford, Else Ochu, Ellen Ochu,Thomas
Ochu, Imo Otoro, RachelOliver, Mahboobeh Rajabi,
Cindy Regalado,Anita Shervington, SaraWajid, Caroline
Ward, HayleyWalsh, ColetteWilliams to name but a few.

37. Thanks for listening…
‘Inclusion is a feeling of belonging,
and so creating an empowering,
embracing, egalitarian
environment starts with the heart.’
- David Asai, Nature, 2019