Breaking the glass ceiling: Advancing EDI leadership in universities
In this episode, Madeline Arkins, Project Officer at UIIN, talks about about equity, diversity, and inclusion in European higher education. She shares insights on the barriers underrepresented groups face in academic leadership, and the role of data in driving change.
Tune in to hear practical strategies and inspiring examples of institutions working toward a more inclusive future in higher education.
You can listen to the full interview in our podcast:
Also available on:
Transcript
Rimante Rusaite:
Today I have a pleasure of speaking with Madeline Arkins, who is my colleague here at UIIN at the research project team, and the topic for today is the state of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in European higher education and how to foster more inclusive leadership and create meaningful change within academia.
A little introduction on Madeline: She is my colleague, as I mentioned, she is an experienced researcher in equity, diversity, and inclusion, and coordinates the Erasmus ULEAD4ALL Project, that focuses specifically on this topic. She holds an MSc in Sociology from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and a BA in English Literature from Trinity College, Dublin.
Madeline, thank you for joining us.
Madeline Arkins:
Thanks, Rimante. Thank you for the introduction, it is lovely to be here.
Rimante Rusaite:
Shall we start?
Madeline Arkins:
Yeah, let’s get into it.
Rimante Rusaite:
Could you build a little bit more on your background and what initially drew you to the work on this very important topic and specifically in higher education sector?
Madeline Arkins:
Sure. As you said, my background began in arts and humanities, and then I pivoted to sociology. In my master’s, I had a focus on inequalities, specifically racial inequality in the housing policy. I really enjoyed the research element of that, and that is what drew me to UIIN.
I have been at UIIN now for just over two years, and this research initiative that we will be talking about today is a really nice marriage of both my research interest in higher education and also the important topic of EDI.
I have had the pleasure of coordinating this research initiative for the last year with four other partner universities and organisations, and it is tackling a really important topic in higher education. And one that is really immediately felt, I think, when you look at institutions today, we have more diverse students than ever before as a result of different widening participation policies, but we really don’t see that same increase in diversity and representation at leadership level.
And how is it that can happen and what can we do to make changes in the system?
Rimante Rusaite:
As I understand, you are just kicking off this project and you have done the research part. Based on that work so far, what is your perspective on the current stage of equity, diversity and inclusion in maybe specifically European higher education realm?
Madeline Arkins:
We are about a year into the project, and we did this research phase at the beginning of the year. That was your typical literature review, and we did some interviews with a variety of different profiles across both Europe and outside. It ended up being about 56 interviews, and these were both with top leadership at university, so your provosts, your deans, vice rectors; and then also what we call – at least in the project – aspiring leaders from underrepresented groups. These are early, mid-career academics or professional staff from underrepresented groups.
I will very quickly define this term because I fear I will be using it throughout. This is an umbrella term and is by no means an exhaustive list, but it refers to those who are less represented in higher education leadership than they are in wider society. And that includes women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, those with disabilities, non-nationals – as in their institution, non-nationals – and those from a lower socioeconomic background or first-generation students.
A wide net was cast in terms of our interviewees, so the research comes from that. In terms of my perspective on the current state, to give credit where credit is due, it has certainly made great strides. Most of all, I would say, in the realm of gender equality, and this is something we heard a lot through our interviews: Yes, there has been great progress made.
Just using the example of Ireland in the last 10 years, that is two top universities, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, that now have female heads. But that effort in that realm overshadows a lot of the challenges that many other underrepresented groups are still facing in terms of reaching their leadership ambitions at university.
Maybe the over-prevalence on gender is certainly something that has come up a lot in the research. Also, one significant point is the misunderstanding or misalignment among different people about what EDI work is and what, in fact, equity means and how it differs from equality.
We heard this particularly from current leadership. It also takes a lot to say “I don’t understand what it means, this concept that I’m supposed to champion and put my word in strategic plans about what that means to this institution”. It is really important that people admit when they don’t know and also have that curiosity to find out.
Academic institutions are such traditional, often deemed conservative institutions that value excellence and meritocracy, that some people can see anyone be given some kind of special dispensation or special accommodation as taking away from excellence or taking away from true meritocracy.
Understanding that equity is just factoring in the differences amongst people to ensure equal opportunity of success and is not necessarily a personal affront or is giving someone more than you is really important, and there is some fundamental training that is needed in order to really make that cultural shift in institutions.
Rimante Rusaite:
Definitely, and I guess it transcends higher education sector, but it is so important in that field because it is foundational to our societies.
Now, that is a good segue into talking about more challenges or barriers. Maybe you could name a few of other that you came across that underrepresented groups face. And thank you so much also for explaining what that means.
Madeline Arkins:
You are very welcome, any time. What could also be useful is maybe to describe what the framework we developed in the research is, because that helps give a visual aid, even though this is an audio medium, in that it structures the process or the pipeline – so to speak – of how people enter the university, how they are recruited as students or as staff members, how they are promoted or retained to higher positions, and then how they make their way up to leadership level. What challenges or hurdles they may encounter at every step, and indeed what supporting mechanisms currently exist or could exist to make that process a more equitable and fair process for all involved.
There are many a hurdle, it is often called a “leaky pipeline towards leadership” in that you may encounter low representation, but you also have the issue of high attrition rates that, even if there are inclusive recruitment practices, if you don’t create a learning and working environment where people feel like they can see themselves thrive and see a future for themselves, they will leave to go to the private sector or go elsewhere.
There are many examples in the report itself, but one example off the top of my head is those from a lower socioeconomic background or first-generation students, so people who may be the first in their immediate family to attend higher education.
Also, the early stages of one’s academic career is well documented and well known for often being characterised by much lower salaries, unstable and precarious contracts, or also short-term project cycles or short-term funding: Not a lot of stability in terms of career path.
Oftentimes this needs to be supplemented by additional financial support, be it from people’s parents or other family members or other work on the side. This is a traction moment in your early-research career where whether you come from a more affluent background can matter and really determine if you make it into a tenure track.
Another example that comes to mind is of women. One quote that came to mind from an interview we had with a researcher in the U.S. was that women are still confined to a certain role in the collective imagination in higher education, despite all the progress that we have made in recent years. We were speaking to an endowed chair from a research university in the U.S., many of her endowed chair colleagues or peers are white, much older men, and she told us the story that there were many, many circumstances where she found herself and in meetings and her peers believed her to be there just to take notes, or that she was in the wrong meeting. This is a moment where implicit bias like this can really affect someone’s feeling of belonging in a space.
Those are just two examples, but I feel over the course of this conversation, I will say more.
Rimante Rusaite:
Before we go into some strategies on how this pipeline could be fixed, let’s talk about something. I read the article that is, by the way, posted on our website Insights section, and you talk there about the importance of data for driving EDI initiatives. Could you elaborate on that?
Madeline Arkins:
Of course. Yes, so data is an interesting one. Particularly as the world becomes more digitised, we are really acknowledging that data is important, the beginning and end to any problem. If you want to understand a problem, you need to collect data. If you want to create an intervention that really targets the problem, you need data-informed solutions.
The same of course is true in EDI efforts in higher education. However, the sensitivity around the topics and the many barriers to data collection make it very difficult. I think in 2019, there was a survey of over 150 different universities in Europe, and they found that less than a third of the institutions had information about the ethnic or migration background of students.
This, of course, can be related to lack of resources, having a survey of that scale, and how to store this kind of sensitive information is quite a hurdle. Cultural sensitivities on the topics, psychological safety, … Some people don’t want to share this information with their employers and sometimes for good reason.
The fact of the matter is that if you don’t have available data on your staff and students, their lived experience, what is important to them, what is their experience being in your institution, you are not going to have even longitudinal data of policy measurement of what you are doing right now that is affecting your university community.
And it can often result in what is often a critique of EDI efforts in universities, that you can get very half-baked, paper commitments where institutions commit to their EDI commitments, but it doesn’t ring true to their university community.
If you don’t measure, you won’t manage over time, essentially. There’s a lack of data to begin with, and when data is collected, if it is at all, it certainly lacks a lot of detail. It is typically on gender or age, and it is rarely on ethnicity or socioeconomic background.
I know for the case of disability, it is usually just a “yes/no” box, and that is such a wide breadth to put on that one topic. It hinders your institution’s ability to design inclusive work and studying environments if they don’t really know what it is that their university community needs. It also has those knock-on effects in terms of data interpretation, but you can see that, when data is used to inform policies, you can have some really successful examples like certain accommodations can be made for, say, working mothers who have come back from maternity leave. Do they need new lactation rooms? Are there postponements of deadlines and time for promotion in case of staff on parental leave? Or, as I mentioned, more accessibly designed workspaces?
It is a tough one. There are examples of organisations, and one comes to mind: In Ireland, Inclusio, has been around for the last few years.
And it’s a third-party organisation that, similar to any kind of charter, employees may feel more safe and more comfortable giving their data to, and not to directly to their employer. They can then create a matrix and measure psychological safety, belonging, and cultural change in that university and see also how they can improve.
It is a difficult one, it is the one that we are beginning to see the tide change. I know Ireland just recently required that universities gather more data on their students and staff in terms of their like ethnic background, so it’s something we are seeing more of.
Rimante Rusaite:
This is one of the, let’s say, pathways towards more EDI or more successful EDI initiatives. What I hear from, not having assumptions, but real understanding on how to guide it, what could be some other strategies that academic institutions could employ to improve?
Madeline Arkins:
There are many. I think one that is good to focus on, I don’t want to call it low-hanging fruit, but I think it is one that has been around for a long time, is putting changes at the recruitment stage in terms of in standardised interview, training, anonymisation of job applicants – in terms of name, address, photograph, name of their alma mater, etc. – , and gender neutral texts in advertisements.
These are all things that have been around for quite some time, but to be honest, are not always rolled out on an institution-wide basis. It can differ depending on faculty or department. And we know that, when a non-diverse body makes decisions about candidates, there is a tendency then for those people to reproduce the natural biases of the group to which they belong.
Recognising that this is unconscious bias, that there is not going to be a scenario where we suddenly have no bias or prejudice against anyone, and with unconscious bias training, you can really teach yourself to recognise those. Particularly, if you are in that position of influence or power where you are asked to be on an interview panel where you can exercise that.
One example, which is not from higher education but has been around for a long time and I think it is an interesting one, is the example of blind auditions in orchestras in the 1970s. I believe this was in the U.S., where they found that, at that point, that there were fewer than 5% of women in orchestras. They then introduced blind auditions where candidates would audition behind a screen, and even took it a step further and asked candidates to remove their shoes so that you couldn’t hear if it was a man’s shoe or a high heel coming in to perform.
Research found that, after that step, just having a preliminary audition where you could not see who it was, made it 50% more likely that a woman would advance to the final round. These are really clear ways where you can improve it just at the beginning stage of recruitment and really steer towards a target of having more diversity in your pipeline.
Rimante Rusaite:
Great, thank you. Maybe we can come back to some of more case studies or success stories, but we have a question in the audience here from Susanna. She is asking: Do you feel like universities should be open to people with different kind of degrees and or different experiences? And if so, how should that systemic change be best guided?
Madeline Arkins:
That is a great question, Susanna. I will answer personally and say yes, I do feel like they should be open to people with different kinds of degrees or experiences. When you look back to how universities began, and you look at the historical and colonial aspect of it, universities were never intended to be as open as they were today.
Oftentimes, they were only open to white, highly-educated sons of landed gentry members, and the “openness” that exists today would have been unimaginable at that time. We have to continue to be ambitious with EDI because it can be very easy to be complacent about something like this, particularly when you make it.
I also like to emphasise that compositional diversity is very important. It is not the goal, however, or not the primary goal, because when you focus on numbers, I think you can really remove yourself from the understanding that this is a massive cultural change from what universities began as. And I know Rimante and I were talking a few weeks ago about cultural change in external engagement and how to move that process along and, in terms of how to guide it best, those cultural change tips really ring true for any kind of cultural change. EDI is sometimes seen as a different beast and, in cases of cultural sensitivities, it is, but in terms of how to manage it, I think it is actually very similar. You have your same leadership-by-leadership commitment.
You need those who have access to budgetary line and access to allocating resources on your side, and you need them to be involved not having it on the margins. You need to embed these efforts in your institutional strategy, in your institutional goals, and it be seen to be a commitment from the institution side.
Equally, you need bottom-up champions: You need people on the ground who are going to champion this effort for you, and have people be involved so it isn’t also seen as a dictatorial thing. You want to integrate these efforts into every facet of the organisation and academic life so it is not just seen as “this is the EDI event we do every year where we welcome people with different degrees or different experiences”.
I don’t know if that is a very clear answer to your question, Susanna, but those are my thoughts on it for now.
Rimante Rusaite:
Thanks, Madeline. And Susanna, if you have any follow up questions, feel free to pop them in the chat.
I know you collected some case studies, is there maybe something that stood out for you as a great one to share with us?
Madeline Arkins:
Not even one is a great one, but I think this is certainly because – and I myself am a victim to this – it is sometimes a lot easier to talk about the challenges than it is to talk about the supporting mechanisms, what is already out there and what is working.
One of the partners in this research initiative is Trinity College Dublin, so we had a lot of examples from Ireland and also from the UK on what is going on in the realm of EDI in higher education, charters and award schemes, positive reinforcement measures that universities can implement, and one example that kept coming up was the Athena Swan Charter.
The Athena Swan example is a very large-scale Charter that you can apply to, but it requires a lot of cross-institutional collaboration, a lot of measurements and, more importantly, a lot of not even just maintaining but improving progress over time.
We heard from interviewees that it really encouraged a lot of cross-institutional collaboration and encouraged institutions to take initiative and begin measuring things that maybe they haven’t before, with the view to receiving a bronze, silver or gold Athena Swan for their department and their institution.
That kind of “checking the pulse” of the institution through that regular monitoring is just good practice in any kind of efforts. It was brought up by interviewees as something that had really spurred them on.
Similar to that, talking above an institutional level, but more like international, is that Horizon research applications require gender equality plans. That is just a small nudge that we heard even from other interviews in Italy and Portugal that was maybe the sole reason that their institution took initiative to get a steering committee together and work on a gender equality plan.
There is, of course, the critique that, if it is a top-down thing from the commission or a top-down from the government, then the institution may show less initiative to follow up on it or make it a continuous process. But having that initial foot in the door is crucial.
Rimante Rusaite:
Everything starts with just raising awareness. It resonates so much what you are saying just about change in general and focusing on positive aspects. Maybe the last question, because we are suddenly at the end of the session: What is your vision? You already mentioned there were great strides, but let’s say in the next decade for this field.
Madeline Arkins:
I would love, of course, to see more diversity in leadership positions for people to enter in a university as students and see themselves represented in the leadership of their university, feel a connection to that and be able to see themselves represented in those roles.
We know that it takes time, particularly, I am going to use the example of gender in fields like engineering, where you really have to plant the seeds from the moment that young girls are choosing what subjects to study at 15 for their end of high school exams. That is where the seed needs to be planted because if you don’t put in that effort there, it is not going to carry through and you have an ever decreasing pool to pull from for leadership roles.
It is a long-term effort, but in terms of my vision, you want graduates to graduate who are both skilled and also believe in their ability to reach their ambitions, and I think training people, educating people on what EDI is, the benefits of it, why it is important and understanding that change in this regard is good
If the purpose of the university was just to advance itself, it would continue to reproduce itself and the same people that have gone before. Having this kind of change can only mean good for research excellence, for more diversity of perspectives and people.
Rimante Rusaite:
Thank you. That is really beautiful. Thank you everyone for participating. We also have a range of more long-form events such as workshops, how to sessions, as well as training programs where you can learn practical skills to apply in your own work. UIIN members get complimentary access and discounts to these services, so head to our membership page to find everything about it.
And lastly, please save the date to the 2025 UIIN Conference in Amsterdam June 10th to 12th. The weather will be great, the call for abstracts is now open so you can browse through our website and learn more about the conference, sub-themes and submission types. The deadline for this is the 20th of December.
Lastly, Madeline, where can people find out more about this initiative and in general your work and how can they reach out to you?
Madeline Arkins:
You can find me on LinkedIn, but if you are interested in hearing more about the project, you can find that also on LinkedIn, ULEAD4ALL or our website, ulead4all.eu.
Rimante Rusaite:
Thank you.
Madeline Arkins:
Great. Thanks Rimante. Thanks everyone.
Rimante Rusaite:
Thanks Maddie.
Ready for more?
If you are interested in the topic of cultural change at universities, in our report brief, Fostering engaged and entrepreneurial culture at universities, we explore the findings and recommendations from our research that focus on fostering a culture of engagement and entrepreneurship within Higher Education Institutions.
During the 2023 UIIN Conference in Budapest, we spoke with Monroe France, Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice at Tufts University, about how to champion the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) across all levels of an institution, including in strategic partnerships approaches. You can hear about it at our episode Towards a more diverse, equitable and inclusive university.
Stay tuned for the next episode on this series and don’t forget to follow us on your preferred podcast platform!
