The Race Equality Charter Chair post is focused on delivering the University’s ambition that equality, diversity, and inclusion should be at the heart of the St Andrews experience.    

The Race Equality Charter Chair will be expected to contribute positively to the ‘Diverse St Andrews’ theme of the University Strategy, and will be expected to provide academic lead for the University’s institutional Advance HE Race Equality Charter application.   

Principal areas of responsibility: Reporting to the Vice-Principal (Governance), you will have responsibilities for leading the University’s Race Equality Charter submission (24-month submission period), in line with the Race Equality Charter Principles (Appendix 1).  

Supported by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Team, you will chair the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team (SAT), acting as the core group to progress the Race Equality Charter submission at institutional level, and to progress actions for future renewal, as well as leading the direction of associated sub-groups.  The SAT will be supported by the EDI Team (particularly the Equality Awards Advisors), EDI Faculty Leads, EDI Unit Network Co-Chairs, Human Resources, Organisational and Staff Development Services (OSDS), and the Planning Unit, with additional input from the Students’ Association.  

You will also work closely with the Principal and other members of the Principal’s Office, as well as regularly reporting to the Central EDI (CEDI) Committee. You will be a full member of the CEDI Committee, which meets twice per semester.  

A key aspect of the role will be to understand and address the experience of people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities at all levels of the University, in order to enable the University to make meaningful interventions in respect to, for example, staff recruitment, representation, pay gaps and promotion gaps; student admissions, representation and attainment; discrimination, bullying and harassment; and curriculum reform. You will play a central role in progressing REC actions with a view to meeting the requirements of the relevant action plans.

The candidate should ideally be able to show:
·         Evidence of relevant leadership experience and/or experience of leading teams;
·         Awareness of current race, ethnicity and intersectional equality practices with the ability and credibility to lead in this area;
·         Experience of leadership or participation in antiracist and other EDI initiatives,
·         Knowledge of relevant race/ethnicity academic literature and policy;
·         Understanding of staff and student development needs;
·         Evidence of an ability to effectively advance change;
·         Ability to build and to effectively lead diverse teams;
·         Appreciation of issues around bias, bullying, discrimination and harassment;
·         Personal qualities of judgement, integrity, discretion and initiative.  

This position will be part-time at 0.4 FTE, for a period of 2 years in the first instance (with the possibility of renewal given the continued institutional commitment to this area).  The role will begin on 31 January 2022, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Applications are open until 18 November 2021, with expressions of interest to be made to Mr Alastair Merrill, Vice-Principal Governance: vpgov@st-andrews.ac.uk    

Appendix 1: Advance HE Race Equality Charter Principles  
Source: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/equality-charters/race-equality-charter  

The Race Equality Charter is underpinned by five fundamental guiding principles.  

• Racial inequalities are a significant issue within higher education. Racial inequalities are not necessarily overt, isolated incidents. Racism is an everyday facet of UK society and racial inequalities manifest themselves in everyday situations, processes and behaviours.  
• UK higher education cannot reach its full potential unless it can benefit from the talents of the whole population and until individuals from all ethnic backgrounds can benefit equally from the opportunities it affords.  
• In developing solutions to racial inequalities, it is important that they are aimed at achieving long-term institutional culture change, avoiding a deficit model where solutions are aimed at changing the individual.
• Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and students are not a homogenous group. People from different ethnic backgrounds have different experiences of and outcomes from/within higher education, and that complexity needs to be considered in analysing data and developing actions.  
• All individuals have multiple identities, and the intersection of those different identities should be considered wherever possible.