I confess

Cocktail lifestyle. Picture by @dubaipartyqueen on Instagram

I’m a male, middle-aged, middle-class university lecturer. There, I said it.

My students and graduates are overwhelmingly young, white and female. They jog, do yoga and enjoy beach holidays and smart hotels according to their Instagram feeds. In other words, they lead affluent and aspirational lifestyles.

And there’s nothing wrong with this: we are what we are. We either have no choice, or we have made choices that seem rational to us.

Except, so far so conventional.

Do our worldviews present a norm that excludes others? Lecturers might scoff at the popular perception of public relations as a glamorous, party-going practice – but it only seems to attract new generations of young women called Kate. Or Victoria. Or Olivia.

You get the picture. Success for some could mean lack of opportunity for others.

My British Asian students tell me that public relations is not viewed like medicine or the law or accountancy. For their families, it’s not a profession to aspire to.

Of course there are outliers. We have role models like Colleen Harris and Yasmin Diamond. But these individual success stories are not typical products of mass higher education.

We need to recruit more widely onto university courses and the profession needs to recruit more widely and sensitively. Age, gender, ethnicity are all problems: in a word, diversity.

But everyone knows this. The question is, who’s doing anything about it? What can I do?

The indefatigable Stephen Waddington and the admirable Sarah Stimson are campaigning to raise funds for the Taylor Bennett Foundation, which has a track record of action in this area.

I’ve pledged my support. Will you do too?