No one can see me cry: understanding mental health issues for Black and minority ethnic staff in higher education

Abstract

Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities continue to experience differential outcomes within the United Kingdom (UK) mental health system, despite increased attention on the area. The trauma of racism for BME academic and professional staff within higher education remains problematic against a backdrop of cultural and organisational institutional racism. Within higher education (HE), BME staff consistently face barriers in terms of accessing contextually appropriate mental health interventions that recognise the sophisticated nature of insidious racism in all its overt and covert manifestations. This paper attempts to address the issues facing ethnic minority staff within the Academy with regard to accessing mental health services at university. Importantly, this paper explores the impact of racial discrimination on BME faculty within the sector and the impact upon mental health, in addition to considering the paucity of psychological interventions available in dealing with discriminatory episodes and the need for universities to diversify healthcare professional cohorts. This study utilises the narratives of 40 BME academic and professional university staff to examine the impact of negotiating racial inequality and discrimination at university and the impact upon mental health. Other aspects examined consider the impact of belonging, isolation and marginalisation on mental health and how this consequently affects BME university staff. Conclusions and recommendations provided advocate greater diversification of mental health support systems for BME staff within universities. Conclusions drawn will also consider how existing systems can function to dismantle racial inequality and improve mental health invention for ethnic minority service users.

Mental health in academia: Hacks for cultivating and sustaining wellbeing

“…1 1 We are mindful of the fact that we do not address a critical group within academia: university staff. This in no way is meant to minimize or elide the indispensable role university staff play in academic life, nor to dismiss the significant pressures, stressors, and mental health concerns staff contend with (Arday, 2021; Morrish, 2019). A thorough engagement with such issues would require a detailing of roles, challenges, and potential interventions that merits a separate, targeted engagement beyond the scope of the current paper. …”

‘Whiteness is an immoral choice’: the idea of the University at the intersection of crises

“…Women are over-represented in precarious positions (O’Keefe & Courtois, 2019; UCU, 2020 ), and this is compounded for BEM staff who are as follows: less likely to have open-ended/permanent contracts; less likely to be in senior positions; more likely to leave academia than their white peers; more likely to suffer microaggressions and mental ill-health (Advance HE, 2019; Wright et al, 2020). Addressing such issues, which ‘intensified at the height of crisis’, remained an ‘after-thought’ for universities (Arday, 2021 ), and ‘the response to COVID-19 by well-meaning white people and universities has failed to account for the ‘racial realities’ of our current crisis including the trauma of the disproportionate number of [BAME] deaths’ (Wright et al (2020), discussing Guliford (2020)). Here, the business as usual focus of universities has generated an environment that is at once hopeless for many (Hall, 2021 ), and also shaped through culture wars that defend whiteness.…”

Promoting Mental Wellness among Black Faculty: Strategies for Coping

“…Research on the actual mental health impact of Black faculty experiences in the academy is limited, which could be due to a lack of reporting. However, researchers have found that the inability to recognize symptoms of mental illness, rejection of mental health related symptoms, and fear of stigmatization lead to a lack of reporting (Arday, 2020). Alternatively, the ability of Black faculty to navigate hostile environments is essential to their survival within higher education.…”

“…Feeling like an outsider within social networks, along with tokenism, exacerbates stress among Black faculty (Louis et al, 2016). Lack of social networks results in compounded feelings of marginalization and residing on the periphery of social circles, which negatively affects mental well-being (Arday, 2020). Isolation also has a negative influence on spiritual well-being.…”