Staff in the School of Global Studies are extending an open invitation to all staff across campus to self-refer to a coaching and mentoring network.

Professor Divya P. Tolia-Kelly is Chair / Convenor of the BAME Coaching and Mentoring Network in Global Studies. She says: “The network is premised on the idea of building and sustaining a culture of support, development and research success for BAME [black and minority ethnic] staff, women and any other colleagues facing oppressive and exclusionary cultures of academic life.

“We are here to provide an independent support network for staff who are particularly vulnerable to prejudicial micro-aggressions in the day-to-day work and wider social environment.”

The role of the network is not to provide counselling, legal support or policy advice. Rather, it is oriented to enabling staff to have a space to discuss, and to find ways to overcome, professional concerns arising from institutional stresses and structural obstacles.

The inaugural launch meeting will be on Monday 24 May, from 10-11am. Please join via Zoom (meeting ID: 916 0044 5176, passcode: 472212). 

If you are interested in becoming a BAME Coach / Mentor or receiving support, please email d.p.tolia-kelly@sussex.ac.uk

Once a self-referral has been made, each mentee and mentor sets up an initial meeting; after that, the network can offer 3-6 sessions focussed on specific issues.

The network began in May 2019 with an inaugural three-day training session for 18 members of staff in the School of Global Studies.

The training aims to create a network of coaches and mentors who are sensitised to the needs of staff in higher education experiencing structural and environmental stresses (including, for example, over issues of race, gender, sexuality, health or ethnicity).

The coaching and mentoring network has been set up independently of the central Human Resources division, which offers a separate mentoring programme that is open to all staff at the University. 

The BAME Coaching and Mentoring Network in Global Studies was initiated and is maintained by those already actively engaged in anti-racism, the gender equality gap, the attainment gap for BAME students, calls for decolonising the curriculum and pedagogy, and supporting staff and junior-career staff and students with issues of race, prejudice or cultures of negation, violence and exclusion as experienced in higher education.

For more information about the context of this initiative, see:

• Mentoring for Change
• Race Equality in Higher Education
• Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy