News

A home-schooling project geared towards inspiring hope and celebrating Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) diversity has been awarded funding from the OU’s COVID-19 Rapid Response scheme.

A new Black and Minority Ethnic Researchers (BME) Group has been made possible by the OU’s Rapid Response to COVID-19 scheme.

The Group, which will launch on Thursday 28 January 2021, received £5,000 to discuss research and scholarship around ‘race’, ethnicity, coloniality and decolonisation through a seminar series and conference.

A new staff network has been launched to give transgender or gender-diverse colleagues at The Open University (OU) a safe space to meet and share experiences with people who live similar lives.

Amo King (pictured), Senior Adviser for the OU in Wales, recently set up the OU Trans Staff Network after emailing members of the LGBT+ Staff Network to see if anyone was interested in a community specifically for trans or gender-diverse people.

The Open University (OU) has launched a new short course in its suite of microcredentials, designed to help education and training professionals across the world to plan, design and deliver accessible and inclusive online learning to students with disabilities.

The Open University’s free learning site, OpenLearn has today launched a new hub page to offer fresh perspectives on race, racism and ethnicity. The Race and Ethnicity Hub will host existing and new content, including articles, videos, audio recordings and courses, which draw on expertise from across the OU’s core faculty areas.

Jermaine Francis left school at 16 with GCSEs but no A-levels. After a couple of stop-gap retail jobs, he joined the police aged 20, where he would spend the next 10 years. However, when Jermaine turned 30, he began to question whether he could challenge himself further.

“I came from a big family and was eager to get my own place, so I left school,” said Jermaine. “When I was in the police, I realised that I’d never really pushed myself to see what I was capable of. I’d left school at 16 but, at 30, I wanted to see what more I could do.”

A rare eye disease diagnosed after his first birthday would eventually take Darren Harris’ vision, leaving him completely blind by the time he reached his 20s. But while his sight gradually deteriorated over the years, the dual Paralympian’s ambition to succeed always burned bright.

The OU psychology graduate who loved sports from an early age spent his formative years in the 1970s getting told off by his mum for playing football in the house. “I used to knock over vases in the living room and kick the ball against the window,” Darren says.

Professor Marcia Wilson  joined The Open University as Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in December 2020. Previously in post as Dean of the Office for Institutional Equity (OIE) at the University of East London (UEL).  

The OIE, established by Marcia to address inequalities within UEL and across the education sector, is the first of its kind in the UK. Her work included equality projects with Universities UK and London Higher to tackle racism in higher education institutes.  

The Open University has partnered with Three Ways School, learning disability charity, Generate and independent consultant and researcher, Dr Nicola Grove to launch a project to collect and archive the stories of people with learning disabilities through the pandemic.

The Open University is offering ‘Open Futures Bursaries’ to support new OU students who identify as being from a Black, Asian, or other minority ethnic (BAME) background.