King’s runs its first ‘unconscious bias’ workshop

Last Thursday, first year Liberal Arts students attended a compulsory workshop led by Suky Bains from Challenge Consultancy.

The aim of the session was to raise awareness of hidden biases in order to create ‘an inclusive educational environment’ in the classroom.

Speaking to The Tab, PoC Officer Nadia said: “this is a result of conversations that happened between some Liberal Arts students and their department.

“We are currently working on ways to campaign the whole university.”

The presentation began with a slide of computer generated random dots. Some students said they saw dalmatians, others bears – the ones that didn’t see anything were not susceptible to the influence of others according to Bains. The purpose of this exercise was to see how our brains categorise objects and people unconsciously – they wear this so they belong to that group. You can guess the stereotypes.

Bains explained how and why people developed racial, gender, age, disability and sexual bias – this was done with audio and picture aid.

Depending on feedback from students this workshop could be extended to other departments.