The NERUPI Race & Ethnicity Glossary emerged as a result of discussions about language and terminology at the NERUPI Student and Staff Race and Ethnic Equity (SsREE) Working Group.

The NERUPI Race and Ethnicity Glossary was presented at The Open University’s Access, Participation, and Success seminar ‘Words Matter’ on October 12th, 2023.by Research Assistant and Student and Staff Race and Ethnic Equity (SsREE) Co-chair, Fatmata Daramy, along with Dr. Constantino Dumangane Jr, Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Education at the University of York.The seminar aimed to bring together a diverse range of experiences within the higher education sector to discuss how spoken and written words can impact the goals of widening participation and overall student success.

The presentation, titled 'That’s Not What That Word Means…' commenced with a discussion on the term 'Woke' during which Dr. Dumangane Jr. provided an overview of its history and highlighted how the misappropriation of terminology can result in the weaponisation of terms originally intended for different purposes.

Fatmata Daramy then outlined how this process of misappropriation and weaponisation affects marginalised groups and discussed the approach taken by the SsREE working group to address this issue. This led to a detailed exploration of the design process behind the presented glossary.

The PDF version of the glossary is currently available for viewing with an interactive online version exclusively for NERUPI members set to be released on the website soon.