The team behind De Montfort University Leicester’s (DMU) anti-racism programme has been given a national award for its approach.
The Decolonising DMU (DDMU) project challenges racism and aims to build an anti-racist university that creates fair outcomes for staff and students.
The project team behind the programme is made up of diverse staff and students from all areas of the institution – and now the team has been recognised nationally, winning the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) from higher education charity Advance HE.
The award is given to university teams which enhance teaching and learning through collaborative approaches.
In the past few years, the Decolonising DMU team has initiated a number of projects which have helped promote racial equality within and beyond DMU.
These projects have been developed collaboratively between staff and students and have included:
- the development of a toolkit and online resources designed to help DMU staff work towards an anti-racist institution
- Student-centered events encouraging student involvement and feedback in the development and delivery of the DDMU strategy
- workshops involving more than 100 professional services staff, providing clear links between DDMU and day-to-day tasks such as communicating with students and holding meetings
Kaushika Patel, project lead for Decolonising DMU, said: “The award is an encouraging recognition of the great work the team are undertaking.
“The Decolonising DMU team is not just made up of interested individuals of staff and students at DMU. Quite uniquely, it is a team of anti-racist activists with a genuine commitment to effect institutional change.
“The work we are doing is vitally necessary yet challenging and I think the fact that the team’s approach has been so warmly received by staff and students, with so many commendations – and now nationally and externally with this award – shows that we have found a way to make a real and lasting change within a large and complex organisation.”
The CATE award comes only months after DMU became the first ever university in the country to receive a silver award in the Race Equality Charter, a programme run by Advance HE, which aims to improve the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education.
Posted on Thursday 3 August 2023