Widening Participation

Our commitments

Look into more BAME-specific outreach activities that Widening Participation can undertake
Focus on targeted pre-entry work
Include more BAME-related questions in follow-up focus groups, for the First-Generation Programme, regarding support in their pre-entry phase and transition phase into university
Look at proactively recruiting a more diverse range of professional mentors within the university

We have reviewed our WP activities, and the schools which access them. We have increased our activity over the last year and are responding positively to requests for visits and activities. We have refocussed our Primary activity on Hulme and Moss Side, and are therefore engaging with a higher Proportion of BAME students than previously through these interventions.
We have therefore not identified a need for BAME specific general WP activity, as we reach a high proportion of BAME students by nature of the schools and colleges we engage with. However we have committed to running a mentoring and summer school programme targeted at BAME students with an interest in the Digital Arts (funding through a donation from Sony). This is in recognition of the lack of diversity in this growth sector, and we will look to deliver this programme in the Summer 2023.

Over the last 12 months we have developed a new institutional outreach strategy, providing a framework for the development and delivery of outreach interventions. This includes a clear commitment within Faculty Outreach to:
Increasing diversity – by targeting schools/colleges with a diverse student body who are key feeders for the institution, but not necessarily for the subject We have supported several departments to analyse their feeder data, and identify which institutions with a high proportion of BAME students they should be working more closely with to increase recruitment (and therefore diversity of their student cohort).
This work has been coordinated through the Faculty Outreach contacts, which currently cover 2 of the 4 faculties. We have also now restructured the team so that the First Generation Programme manager will now also manage faculty outreach, and we are also looking to obtain funding for another faculty outreach post.
In this way we will be able to take a more strategic approach to the development, delivery and evaluation of outreach activity to increase diversity within those course areas which currently attract very few BAME students.

A number of questions have been added to the First Generation focus groups which will be taking place in the Spring/Summer term.
The focus groups have an emphasis on transitioning to university, and the questions aim to specifically identify issues scholars may have encountered in relation to transitioning to and settling into university in relation to their ethnicity.

We use an external agency called 1MM to recruit mentors for our students. 1MM are a mentoring organisation that embraces diversity in all forms, and this is reflected in many aspects of their work, including finding and matching mentors.
Whilst mentors and mentees are matched using a digital process which matches what mentees are looking for with mentors who have the skills and knowledge to meet their needs, they proactively work to recruit a diverse range of mentors. Diversity is fully reflected in their marketing and comms.
Occasionally we use alumni mentors, as well as employers who host visits for groups of First Generation students.
It is now considered business as usual for both the First Generation and Development and Alumni Teams to seek mentors and hosts who reflect the diversity of our student body wherever possible – and this is consistently communicated to the organisations we work with.