Greater Expectations
Widening participation, says Emmanuel Botwe, is all about raising standards. As the new Outreach Officer for three northern colleges, LMH, Somerville and St Anne's, he has made it his work over the next three years to prove the point.
Botwe, a Londoner of Ghanaian extraction and the first generation in his family to attend university, is adamant that an ethnically and culturally diverse community is an academically vital one.
"The task for us is to persuade talented students that Oxford is an option," he explains. As long as it exhibits chronic under-representation of certain minority groups (Afro-Caribbean men, Muslim women and Bangladeshis all came up in the course of our discussion), Oxford cannot claim to be exploiting and nurturing the nation's intellectual resources at an optimal rate. Research sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, furthermore, has documented an emerging picture of the favourable effects of diversity on academic outcomes. With a more diverse community, it would seem, everyone wins.
The impetus towards diversifying the Oxford student body is not only moralistic, however. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act of 2000 stipulates that the governing bodies of higher education institutions such as Oxford are to 'promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups'. It is with a view to fulfilling this duty that these three colleges have taken the novel move to jointly appoint an Outreach Officer.
"If interpreted in the right spirit" says Botwe, known as Manny, "this legislation could provide a positive impetus in the College's outreach programme". It was evidently in such a spirit that LMH's admissions tutor Peter Hainsworth composed an application for the funds for Manny's post to a group by the name of Atlantic Philanthropies, dedicated to supporting scholarly endeavour and research. Manny's post has funds to exist for three years and thus comprises something of a pilot scheme intended to show the benefits of an active approach to diversifying the student body.
Manny has been quick to get stuck in. By monitoring the ethnic composition of prospective students attending college Open Days (a new idea and an ongoing project) Manny discovered that some kind of self-selection was occurring. Even before applications were submitted, the audience at Open Days appeared to show that interest in Oxford was already disproportionately strong amongst middle-class Whites. Evidently the problem lay further back in the system.
"It's all about giving people something to aim for," he says of his Aspiration Days - alternative Open Days where high achieving students from specific inner-city, ethnically diverse schools are invited to Oxford in order to introduce them to the idea of applying. He targets 14-16 year olds on the understanding at it is at this stage in their lives that students begin to consider their options at university level. Interventions at such a stage ought to prove especially helpful in dispelling myths and disincentives before they appear.
The idea of increasing diversity is, of course, not new to Oxford. The Access Scheme (which Manny worked with during his first year as an undergrad at Corpus), Target Schools and the 'Widening Participation' department at the University's Admissions Office all pre-dated the creation of this new position.
As a full-time employee with a specific remit, however, Manny has made it his business to add new and unique initiatives to the university's weaponry for tackling inequality. It is his hope ultimately to leave a legacy of sustainable networks amongst the teachers of the brightest kids in English schools.
"What I really want to do is establish networks of contacts to bequeath to the university," he says. To this end he has organised Oxford's first forum for teachers leading 'Gifted and Talented' programs in state schools. The government's Excellence in Cities program evidently demands that every inner city school from an impoverished area have such a program. Manny's first day-long forum, held at LMH last term, attracted 70 teachers - 67 from the state sector. One would be hard pressed to replicate such a ratio in any other area of Oxford life.
Other proposals are in the offing. Whilst Manny doesn't think demographic quotas would be helpful in Oxford, he does make other suggestions. Statistical information on average GCSE results for applicant's school might serve to put an ostensibly average student's performance in perspective, for instance. Scoring ten GCSEs in a school where most get only three is a different achievement to doing so in an institution where almost everybody manages it, after all.
Ethnic sensitisation is a tough area, and one difficult to address in an institution which is racially imbalanced to begin with. Manny is optimistic, though. He regards the interview process as providing a unique opportunity for tutors to spot students with potential, regardless of their record on paper.
Oxford may yet have a long way to go: diversifying a relatively homogenous community is fraught with problems of misperception and resentment, even the need to overcome institutional and personal biases deep in the grain. A recent case brought by the Bush administration in the US Supreme Court against the University of Michigan in an attempt to stop that institution from systematically favouring African-American applicants in its admissions process has demonstrated just this point. Several White applicants have complained of unfair treatment, whilst Black applicants point out that said 'unfair treatment' is only fair recompense for inheriting the cultural and economic marginalisation of their forebears.
Quite how Oxford will adapt to the challenge of diversifying remains to be seen. The financial and organisational commitment of these three colleges, however, whose principals and SCRs have all been strong supporters, as well as the infectious dedication and energy of Manny himself, are all reasons to feel optimistic about the 'new buzz' about diversity in North Oxford.
22nd May 2003