Black Advisory Hub Projects
The Black Advisory Hub regularly recruits students to work on projects, most often as paid research assistants or content creators. We also sometimes seek students as participants in research projects, representatives on relevant University committees, or as speakers at University events.
Black Student Experience Evaluative Research Project
This evaluative research project is being launched in the 2024-25 academic year to track incoming Black students' experiences across their first year of study at the University of Cambridge. The qualitative project will be student-led, involve reflective qualitative data and welcomes applicants for roles as research assistants from a range of courses and colleges. If you wish to give feedback about any of the BAH activities please email us at: contact@blackadvisory.hub.cam.ac.uk
APP Participatory Action Research Project
This five year staff-student partnership project investigates the awarding gaps, or differential degree outcomes, that have historically impacted Black students at the University of Cambridge (see the Access & Participation Plan 2020-25 for more information on this). Each year since 2020, the Cambridge Centre for Teaching & Learning has recruited ten students to contribute as research assistants to investigate the obstacles to the academic success of Black undergraduates, in order to develop knowledge and evidence that can inform and catalyse meaningful progress and practical steps forward. Topics have included: supervision (Black student perspectives), decolonising the curriculum, mentoring, anti-racist glossary and more.
Read about one student's experience of working as a co-researcher on the project
Here is a snapshot of one project from Cycle 2: Curricular Representation
- Research Question: "How much choice should be given for students / supervisors to discuss and explore non-white-centric material and ideas, and how much should be designed-in as core to the curriculum for all?"
- Rationale: Our research objective was to open up more discussions about Black scholarship within different Cambridge undergraduate degrees, and highlight the level of choice given to students and supervisors to study material and scholars that are non-white-centric. We conducted research to find out more about what students and staff thought about representation within their curricula, and about their own experiences with the level and types of representation.
- Sample finding: “Contrary to what has often been assumed, previous efforts to 'decolonise the curriculum' and increase the representation of Black thought and scholarship - while there has been some positive change - have not been enough to drastically improve Cambridge curricula”
- Sample recommendation for action: the appointment of a specific role within each Faculty / Department to oversee decolonisation and representation efforts, and to develop partnerships between students and staff to review the process of developing representation within a curriculum.