The Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance at IUP stands in solidarity with communities in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Louisville, Tallahassee, and across the nation who are fighting for racial justice. We stand in solidarity with those fighting for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery, and the countless deaths that preceded them. We stand in solidarity with those fighting around the world for the safety of Black lives. We stand in solidarity with our Black students and students of color working to bring their artistry into the world. Black Lives Matter. Black Art Matters. Black Students Matter.
It is not enough to simply disavow racism. We must be actively anti-racist. The Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance commits to taking concrete actions reflecting IUP's public statement issued by President Driscoll:
“Today We Grieve, Tomorrow We Must Actâ€
We commit to learning anti-racist practices and implementing these practices through the curriculum and co-curricular activity.
- Complete anti-racist training and practice for departmental faculty and staff in 2020-21.
- Host a two- to three-hour department-wide town-hall forum in fall 2020 to collectively identify and take direct action to address inequities. This will extend to the creation of a campus-wide Forum Theatre event for addressing campus-wide inequities.
- Continue and expand faculty and staff critical examination of the canonical biases in what we teach and how we teach to support underrepresented communities through curricular review that seeks to embed anti-racist content across all departmental courses and production shops.
- Continue and expand curricular offerings such as Theater for Social Justice, Devising, and Exploratorium to connect artistry with civic engagement.
- Continue and expand our active participation in university-wide initiatives for campus-wide change, including the Office of Social Equity and the President's Commission for Diversity and Inclusion.
- Continue and expand targeted recruitment of students of color to increase the diversity of the student body.