LBGT Pride Month is a brilliant opportunity to celebrate the value and influence of the LGBT community - but this celebration shouldn’t be limited to one month a year. There is value in diversity, not just from an LGBT standpoint but young and old, black and white, able-bodied and disabled. Colleges should be embracing this, acknowledging the range of voices and solutions that can come from the communities they serve.

I have been a college governor since 2006 and like most college governors, arriving at my first corporation meeting was a daunting and bewildering experience. But there I was: 17-years-old, having just finished my AS exams, newly elected president of the students’ union with a stack of meeting papers. RAG-rated-fold-out spreadsheets in one hand and shaking hands with my (much more professionally dressed) new colleagues with the other. I had no idea what I was doing - and I was absolutely aware of that. 

My prime objective at that meeting was to not let on that I was out of my depth and to do that in a way that I wouldn’t embarrass myself. Though determined, I don’t think I made much of a meaningful contribution in my first year of college governance. But I did know that it was interesting and that, in time, I would learn the language and learn to fit in. Luckily for me, I had an unusually long run at being a student governor - most of them only have one academic year to learn everything and contribute - which gave me the time I needed to work it all out.

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Micro-communities in of themselves

Not fitting in wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling for me. Aged 17, I had known that I was gay for a while but it would be another four years before I would publicly come out. I didn’t know many gay people growing up, and those who I did know experienced horrendous abuse. Plymouth was a fantastic place to grow up, but back then neither I nor the city were quite ready to embrace our LGBT identities.

Colleges are sometimes referred to as micro-communities in of themselves. That’s true. With that comes a richness that, ideally, prepares you for life after college. But we know too that communities are rarely without conflicts. 

In my time as a student, some students arrived at college having experienced little, if any, diversity in their lives with little education on, and therefore acceptance of, people who are different. In those days, we were also trying to work out how to kick back against an infant, and infantile, emerging online ‘lad’ culture that exacerbated some pernicious and toxic behaviours. The college wasn’t rife with bullying by any means, but I saw the homophobic abuse the male student hairdressers had to put up with in the corridors, and the special support I had to lobby for as SU president with the one woman on the level 2 motor vehicle course dealing with misogyny. 

It only takes being witness to a few behaviours to make you feel vulnerable. So, I decided - with the privilege of being able to - that now was not the time and here was not the place: being myself would have to wait.

Reflecting on that experience reminds me, to this day, that colleges support the social as well as the educational development of students. It also reminds me of how today, colleges are doing this well, despite funding pressures forcing them to deprioritise enrichment and restrict teaching hours. This is also, I believe, one of the key attractions to becoming a college governor: education is, after all, about much more than qualifications.

Diversity in governance

A commonly cited reason to become a college governor is the opportunities you’re provided with to contribute your professional expertise to steer the strategy and culture of the organisation in the interests of the college and the communities it serves. 

I’d argue that personal experiences can be just as important. After all, the word ‘college’ has its origins in words simply meaning organised bodies of people. For organisations where education is the core business, you must have people with different backgrounds and experiences contributing to strategy and culture. As a college senior leader, you can’t have real robust support and challenge from your board if governors come from a narrow pool of backgrounds and experiences.

Even though my first three years as a governor started slowly, it was formative. I was involved in the college’s rebrand to City College Plymouth, a steering group overseeing a multi-million-pound capital project and the recruitment of a vice principal. Being at the heart of major decisions that had long-term impacts on my college and my city gave me a taste for college governance which I’d later come back to in my mid-20s in London. More recently, I’ve overseen two major mergers to form a large college group, recruited a CEO and other senior leaders and scrutinised multiple strategic plans. All of which help me influence the culture and direction of an organisation serving 35,000 students.

Like other charities, colleges are competing for talented and committed people from a range of backgrounds to join their boards. The charity sector has an established and well-organised agenda around the recruitment of more diverse trustees, particularly younger people and people from BAME backgrounds. Colleges can, and should, be competing in this space too.

Shane Chowen is the Association of Colleges’ area director (East and West Midlands)