The College of Visual and Performing Arts is committed to providing a learning environment that is inclusive and respectful of diverse communities. As creators, we have the power to raise awareness, create meaningful change, and impact social justice—empowering students to become informed, responsible citizens. We are dedicated to being a community of creatives who promote and advance students independent of gender identity, race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, political beliefs, age, and other social identities and life experiences. The ArtsWinthrop community encourages and appreciates expressions of different ideas, opinions, and beliefs. Listening to and respecting individual differences is critical in transforming a collection of diverse individuals into an inclusive, collaborative, and creative learning community, where we take responsibility for our actions and treat everyone with dignity.
The ArtsWinthrop Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice Council oversees the work of the department committees to ensure that the needs of the college’s BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and LGBTQ+ students are appropriately being met, including but not limited to developing a holistic and systematic approach to modifying curriculum (updating existing curriculum and creating new curriculum through an anti-racist, non-gender/orientation-biased, and critical pedagogical lens); ensuring all faculty and staff searches have appropriate diversity advocate representation; ensuring all faculty are participating in implicit bias training on a regular basis; and ensuring the college’s commitment to empowering students to become informed, responsible citizens with the potential to have a positive impact on our society.
Members: The faculty of the department serves as committee-of-the-whole in supporting compliance with diversity standards and goals for all Theatre and Dance programs. Student representatives are included.
The departmental D.E.I. Committee created a D.E.I. statement and published on the departmental website. Actions items that have been implemented:
Curriculum
Analysis of current curriculum has begun by faculty of both Theatre and Dance, with
the explicit goal to decolonize our teaching of history, theory, choreography, design,
directing, and performance. We are working to strengthen and integrate these principles
into all areas and programs of the department. Curriculum action has been submitted
to make THRT 442: African American Theatre an intensive writing course, and to be offered annually as a choice for all theatre
concentrations to replace THRT 386: Theatre History and Literature II, since they cover the same time period.
A new course, THRT 215: Black Playwriting, has been proposed, to be offered in a theatre student’s freshman year. This course will be submitted as Global Studies course, and be offered as an option to THRT 210: Script Analysis. this course action responds to the student request, by not creating a separate new requirement, but by offering students a more racially diversified option to fulfill an existing requirement. In addition, the culminating performance built into this course will be a way to encourage more performances by artists of color in the department. Ideally, the playwriting aspects of the course will also reorient student relationships to dramatic literature.
Course Policy
All Dance technique classes have made changes in their syllabi to address language in the dress policy concerning hair and nails that follows safety protocols but removes discriminatory practice and language as well as gender specifics.
Members include faculty and students.
Members include faculty and students.
Members include faculty and students.
The Department of Design actions: