In conversation with: Professor David Mba

This Black History Month, we spoke to Professor Mba about his experience as a Black vice-chancellor and the change he wants to see in higher education.

Q: What are the biggest barriers to success for Black academics?

A: I think there are a few barriers. The first barrier is belonging.

Why might Black academics not feel they belong? This speaks to culture within the higher education sector, particularly around microaggressions and racism. Even though it’s sometimes not intended, racism is felt by minority ethnic academic staff, in particular Black academics.

Another barrier is around progression, promotion and pay.

We have very few Black professors, particularly Black female professors, even though there are a significant number of Black lecturers, senior lecturers and associate professors. So there seems to be a barrier to getting them towards professorship.

There’s also the issue of the ethnicity pay gap and how many Black academics feel that they’re not paid fairly in comparison to their white colleagues.

Q: How can universities better support Black academics?

A: There are growing numbers of Black academics leaving higher education for the private sector.

I think one way of preventing this is an awareness of bias and trying to improve unconscious bias training, which many human resources departments are doing.

Another issue is progression. Ultimately, everybody wants to do their very best and wants to progress and build on their careers.

There are schemes to help academics progress, but not many that are particularly targeted at Black leaders in the higher education sector.

So, I think where academic leaders see potential in Black academics, we need to think about how we harness that potential and give them the opportunities to progress.

But ultimately, it's about culture. If Black academics feel that they’re part of a community, they will stay.

Q: What is Black Leaders in Higher Education and why was it founded?

A: Black Leaders in Higher Education was founded because of a frustration, a frustration many of us felt towards the higher education sector, where we felt there were deep issues that weren’t being addressed: the student ethnicity awarding gap, the ethnicity pay gap, and the lack of professorial promotion for Black academics.

The group now has about 60 members and it's growing. It consists of two vice-chancellors, a deputy vice-chancellor, a Provost, many pro-vice-chancellors and professors, but also chief people officers.

The whole idea is that collectively as a group, we all understand the challenges the sector is facing. Many of us have lived experiences of having been junior academics at one point and getting up to senior level.

We want to decide what we can we do to advocate for fairness for Black academics and for Black students.

We published an article very recently outlining our first ask of the sector: to publish the ethnicity pay gap. We feel that is the start of a conversation and that's what we're going to be pushing for in the next few months.

Q: Do you think the higher education sector is serious about closing the ethnicity pay gap?

A: No, I don’t think so.

Some universities publish their ethnicity pay gap openly, which is great, and I want to encourage all universities to do that. But many don't.

And my ask, and also the ask of the Black Leaders in Higher Education group, is that this information is made available so that we can have a discussion about what we can do about the ethnicity pay gap.

Typically, it's about not having a sufficient number of Black academics at senior levels.

Then you need to ask the question, well, what does the pipeline look like? What does the development of future leaders within our university look like?

And if it means that universities begin to think about having more ethnic minority members as part of that developmental cohort, then great. That’s what we want to see ultimately.