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BLACK LIVES MATTER Dulwich College and the ongoing response to BLM
What we hope for this scheme is OAs from a considerable variety of career spaces, who already have a significant wealth of experience to bring in The Arts, Law, IT, Medicine, Engineering (STEM), Sport, Culture, Finance, Academia, Teaching, Politics and Civil Service can model excellence and community to our pupils, and share knowledge, experience, expertise and access. We hope that an OA mentor will be involved in some of the following ways: • Speak to groups – form/subject/assemblies/ union societies on topics of special interest or indeed wide relevance • Run or organise informational workshops in an area of professional interest • One-to-one or small group mentoring • Organise Placement schemes – with a very fixed purpose. A buddy system approach. • Induction to a community and network of OAs Mentorship and that sense of community responsibility is at the core of our ethos. Many of us will have had the opportunity to do this at school and may be involved in mentoring in the workplace. It can be a richly rewarding experience and a great way to remain in touch and involved in the Dulwich community. As an OA, I am acutely aware of how important a role the school you attend plays in one’s personal development. In my professional role as a research chemist, the lack of diverse representation is evident, and if I had not been so stubborn in my ambition to pursue a career in the chemical industry, I may have been discouraged out of fear of being ‘other’. I was fortunate to be given the access and encouragement through my College education, however the limited visibility of diverse young professionals in industry means you can easily feel a hesitance to take the leap. I have been fortunate to lead my company’s Diversity and Inclusion efforts, a platform that has empowered me to give back to communities that have helped me to where I am today. Diversity in the workplace is a direct result of diversity in academia. The Diversity & Inclusion OA Support Programme aims to provide a platform to aid the transition into the post-schooling world. With the help of you, the OA network, we can cover a wide range of career fields to provide the visibility within these sectors to help further bridge the gap for current Dulwich boys. Damilola Adebayo If you’d like to find out more, or be more involved, please contact Damilola Adebayo, damilola_adebayo@scottbader.com or Trevor Llewelyn, alleynclub@dulwich.org.uk
A Greater Emphasis on Diversity and Inclusion Old Alleynians have a great role to play in helping us meet our commitments. The College and the Alleyn Club are looking to work together to gain a better understanding of the past experiences of OAs and on the needs of our current pupils in terms of diversity and inclusion. We need the help of our alumni so that we can understand what it feels like for all pupils in the community, in order to make our school as welcoming a place as it can be for everyone. We would like to invite you share your experiences with this. What did inclusion mean for you at the College in in terms of the curriculum, the extra-curricular programme, sport, and the social life of the School. We are also very eager to understand your experiences around inclusion perhaps at University and beyond so we can gain some sense of the experiences of our pupils leaving the College. It is right that we focus now on racial inclusion but we are also very keen to hear from anyone who has found themselves in any minority whether this is because of difference or perceived difference in sexual orientation, religious belief, disability, neurodiversity or gender identity. If you would like to talk to us about this, to share your views and experiences, please do get in touch with the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the College, Dr Malcolm Cocks.
auditing the curriculum. We are now laying down plans to make rapid progress in these areas. Like many institutions, we have long regarded ourselves as being non-racist – we see now that more is needed from us, and we are determined to become a school that is actively anti-racist. The College’s history shows that we are at our strongest when we are a diverse school, representing talent from many different backgrounds – ensuring that an OA is someone who neither defers nor condescends to anyone, but meets all as equals. ‘Adding to History’, our Dulwich College Black History Month programme, was an opportunity for our pupils to renew their collective commitments to social justice and to celebrate those black pioneers who otherwise might have been forgotten or hidden. “The last five months have been both a stark reminder of how far we seem from that world of social justice, but also of how communities have come together, how individuals have supported each other from across the racial spectrum. It’s made me think and hope that we’re really poised to achieve that world of social justice and for that to be soon. And I think that begins with us, with the youth, in the school and our community, and the teachers”.
Dulwich College and the Ongoing Response to BLM Many of you will be aware that October marked Black History Month. Every year, BHM is an opportunity to celebrate and commemorate those black pioneers who either fought actively for justice and racial equality in their own times and communities or succeeded in changing history or the lives of their communities for the better, in spite of the many social, legislative, and political obstacles they faced. This year, in the wake of the global BLM movement triggered by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May 2019, BHM has taken on a particular significance and the College was proud to mark this event in solidarity with people and institutions all over the world who want to see an end to racism and racialised violence. There were a number of excellent events held across the month and spilling over into the second half of term, where our pupils and staff had the chance to reflect on the ways that Black History is also British History and on how we can all work together to ensure a more just and inclusive society for all. BHM is one month in the year. But we also recognise that to become a truly anti-racist and wholly inclusive community requires ongoing commitment to inclusion and that these values need to be reflected as much in the curriculum and the extra-curricular life of the school, as in the hearts and minds of its members. Diversity & Inclusion Alliance, led by Dr Malcolm Cocks, a member of our English Department. This group consists of pupils, teachers, OAs and others, and is intended to be a group who work together to ensure that no one in the College feels undermined on account of difference or perceived difference. Diversity and Inclusion Alliance With that in mind, the College formed the The group has identified four key areas of action: increasing the diversity of the teaching body, introducing unconscious bias training, tackling casual racism more explicitly, and
Dr Malcolm Cocks, Director of Diversity and Inclusion cocksmr@dulwich.org.uk
Invitation to Join the Diversity and Inclusion OA Support Programme The Alleyn Club and the Diversity and Inclusion Alliance at the College have teamed up with Damilola Adebayo (06-13), who is the Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Scott Bader and member of our Alliance at Dulwich, to establish what we hope, with your help, will develop into a thriving mentorship scheme. The idea of the scheme is to make available to all pupils a pool of Old Alleynians whom they can speak with periodically to share experiences, to get advice about school life, and to gain a better understanding of the professional workplace and to network with OAs. We are particularly, but by no means exclusively, interested in mentors who are themselves from racialised or other minority status groups. This is because feedback from OAs and research has shown that navigating the professional world and accessing opportunities in an increasingly competitive environment presents specific challenges for those from minority backgrounds. But we also want our pupils of all backgrounds to have a diverse set of role models. It is our hope that the same pool of mentors will also be able to give talks to the many societies in the Union and set up networking events for all our pupils.
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H I S T O R Y DULWICH COLLEGE BLACK HISTORY MONTH
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