Six projects funded to explore diversifying the curriculum

Six teams have received funding as part of UCL’s Liberating the Curriculum (LTC) initiative.

LTC aims to challenge Eurocentric, male-dominated curricula at UCL and find ways of fairly representing marginalised voices in the mainstream curriculum, specifically black, queer, disabled and feminist contributions to knowledge.

UCL is at the forefront of responding to growing awareness across the Higher Education sector of the need for inclusive curricula and curriculum change. Since 2016 the team have funded staff and students at UCL to run projects to explore ways of changing the curriculum.

The initiative is part of the wider UCL Connected Curriculum which aims to ensure that all UCL students are able to learn through participating in research and enquiry at all levels of their programme of study. This approach ensures our students will be better equipped with a range of essential skills needed for an unknown future; they will be more engaged with their learning, and will be more autonomous thinkers. 

This funding round, the panel were particularly interested in call for proposals for programmes addressing intersectionality (the interconnectedness of race, gender, sexuality and disability).

Dr Teresa McConlogue, co-chair of the LTC working group, said: ‘We are delighted to see so many substantial LTC curriculum development projects going on across UCL. These projects will provide examples of how LTC can be implemented in a range of disciplines and will have impact beyond their departments. We look forward to engaging with the projects and tracking their development throughout the year.’

The funded projects are:

• Julian Walker (Bartlett School of Planning)
  Development Theory from the Grassroots
   
• Mark Webster and Rebecca Freeman (Special Collections, Archives & Records, Education, Practice & Society, IOE)
  Sustaining the liberated curriculum: developing enhanced resources for archival handling and exploration
   
• Faye Gishen and Amali Lokugamage (Clinical & Professional Practice)
  Fine tuning, celebrating and sustaining the LTC agenda in UCL Medical School
   
• Peter Howell (Experimental Psychology)
  Video to encourage pupils with diverse backgrounds to consider UCL as their choice of place to study
   
• Emanuela Tilley (Engineering)
  Inclusive Engineering
   
• Caroline Garaway (Anthropology)
  Diversity in Anthropology 

This year, the team are also hosting a Liberating the Curriculum symposium on 29 March which will bring together academics and students from UCL and other institutions to consider what LTC looks like in the biological and physical sciences, engineering, maths and medicine through presentations and discussions.