March 2, 2021
In June 2020, we shared our Anti-Racist Action plan. You can read it here.
In October 2020, we shared an update to that plan. You can read that update here.
Today we are sharing our winter 2021 update on our work toward to becoming an anti-racist theatre training institution. We will share quarterly updates during the 2020-2021 school year, and reevaluate this sharing structure during the summer of 2021 to determine whether more or less frequent updates are appropriate as we pursue this work long-term. An archive of these updates will be available on the School of Drama Anti-Racist Action Plan webpage. Not every update will address every aspect of the plan. If you have a question about the plan that is not addressed in this update, please email dramafeedback@uw.edu or use the anonymous feedback form. We will share our next update in early July, 2021.
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We want to lead off this update by expressing our gratitude to the many teachers, guides, and collaborators who are on this path with us, including our own students, faculty, and staff, alumni, and external mentors, facilitators, and trainers who are contributing their time, wisdom, and care to this work. As we move more deeply into this long-term commitment, we have been talking a lot about “moving at the speed of trust,” one of the core principles articulated by adrienne maree brown in her book, Emergent Strategy†. Despite our sense of urgency to repair past harm and prevent future harm, we must also acknowledge that all of these initiatives require trust and understanding to be successful and long-lasting, and that these things take time, listening, and transparency, as well as concrete action. Through the guidance of many teachers, we are seeing more clearly the ways white supremacy and patriarchal culture, with their focus on quantity over quality, urgency over thoughtfulness, and transaction over relationship, can undermine true progress toward anti-racism. This update will address several initiatives that are shifting, evolving as we learn more and move more deeply into this work.
† brown's footnote from Emergent Strategy: "This is communications strategist Mervyn Marcano's remix of Stephen Covey's 'speed of trust' concept."
FORTIFYING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
This quarter, we have been working with UW’s Professional and Organizational Development team to create a training module for faculty, staff, and students in positions of responsibility about receiving concerns. The goal of this module is to equip those in the school who are most likely to receive concerns with the tools that they need to respond in a way that is supportive, productive, and victim-centered. We want those who receive concerns to know that there are multiple layers of support available, both to them and to those bringing concerns forward. We are working to build a culture of accountability and trust, in which those with concerns feel safe bringing them to light. This training module will be completed in the coming weeks, and it will become standard training for all faculty, staff, and students in positions of responsibility (such as ASEs, teaching students, stage managers, and deputies).
SUPPORTING STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF NOW
Mentorship Programs
Graduate: Eight BIPOC/global majority* graduate students have been matched or are in the process of being matched with BIPOC/global majority mentors. (Participation in this mentorship program is on a voluntary basis for students; some students have chosen not to participate.) Those who are matched have already begun meeting with their mentors. As this program is currently in its pilot phase, it will be evaluated at the end of this school year to learn what programmatic adjustments need to be made as we enter the following year.
Undergraduate: In the fall, we announced that the school would produce a series of mentorship panels for BIPOC/global majority undergraduates this year. We contracted Seattle-based artist/activist Sara Porkalob to lead the development of these panels. This quarter, Sara has been leading regular meetings with a group of faculty and staff to plan the panels. Through these conversations, we have recognized a need to engage more deeply with our BIPOC/global majority undergraduate students in order to bring this program into alignment with our goal of building a relational culture in the school. Therefore, we will not hold a mentorship panel this quarter. Instead, Sara will host a series of small, social gatherings with BIPOC/global majority undergraduate students with the goals of building relationships and of better understanding their needs, hopes, and ideas for the program. Based on these conversations, we will work with Sara to develop a panel, symposium, or other type of programming that is responsive to student needs. That program will take place during spring quarter.
Community Circles
Members of the Drama community have been participating in community circles led by Huayruro. There has been one student circle and three faculty/staff circles thus far, with one of the faculty/staff circles reserved for BIPOC/global majority faculty and staff only.
Following the invitation for the first student circle, some students expressed questions and concerns about how this work fits into the School of Drama’s larger efforts to enact structural change, as well as questions about whether inviting students into circle was necessary, when many students have already made their concerns and experiences known. We are grateful to those students for expressing their concerns, and we are sharing our response here in the event that there are others reading this update who share similar reservations about the circles. (This information was emailed to all current students on November 24, 2020.)
- Our work with Huayruro is not short-term. We anticipate this relationship to continue over multiple years, and we see it as just one aspect of a multi-pronged approach to addressing past harm and preventing future harm in our school. Other aspects of this work include ongoing anti-bias training and anti-racism training for faculty, staff, and students.
- No one is required to step into a peacemaking circle, nor is anyone who chooses to participate in a circle required to speak. The circle is an offering for those who wish to step into it. We know and respect that there are students, alumni, faculty, and staff who feel that they have already shared all that they are willing or able to share. We also know that there are members of our community who may be in need of healing and repair, including those from whom we may have not yet heard. The peacemaking circles are part of an effort to ensure that every member of our community can find the type of support that works for them.
Based on Huayruro’s recommendations, the balance of this year’s circles will be for faculty and staff, with a focus on learning, growth and community-building in support of our goal of becoming an anti-racist institution.
Affinity Groups
Valuable conversations about the establishment of affinity groups have continued this quarter, including robust discussions in the EDIA task force. We have discovered, however, that the establishment of such groups is more complex than we had initially anticipated, particularly in a remote learning setting. The School of Drama remains committed to supporting community-led affinity groups. As with everything in this update, if you have input about affinity groups that you would like to share, please email dramafeedback@uw.edu or use the anonymous feedback form.
DEEPENING OUR UNDERSTANDING AND PRACTICE OF ANTI-RACISM
Anti-Racist Theatre
On December 17, the School of Drama participated in a three-hour Anti-Racist Theatre training session led by Nicole Brewer. The training focused on developing an anti-racist theatre ethos, both as individuals and for the school.
100% of our full-time faculty and staff attended the training, as well as 60% of our part-time faculty and staff. 68% of our graduate students attended, and 10% of our undergraduate majors and minors attended. We were also joined by colleagues from UW’s Center for Teaching and Learning, Huayruro, Cornish College of the Arts, and Seattle University.
We are reflecting on why undergraduate turnout for this training was low. We recognize that undergraduates have different barriers to participation than other members of our community. We need undergraduate input to help us understand how we can build a practice of anti-racism training that supports the participation of all members of our community. If you are a Drama undergraduate who did or did not attend this training, and you have input that you think would be useful, please email dramafeedback@uw.edu or use the anonymous feedback form.
We will have additional information about ongoing anti-racism training for all School of Drama community members in our next update.
Training for School Leaders
Cultural competency and fluency with anti-racist thought and practice is particularly critical for those people who hold positional power in the school. Those who supervise others and/or hold decision-making power in the school have the responsibility and opportunity to model best practices and make decisions within an anti-racist framework.
Because of this, the school has set aside funds to provide further anti-racist training for all area heads and senior administrative staff members. The goal of this funding is to allow people to pursue the training that meets and deepens their level of fluency with anti-racist thought and practices, and/or addresses discipline-specific issues.
New learning cohort
We are establishing a new learning cohort made up of area heads, senior administrative and production staff, and members of the current EDIA task force. Importantly, this group includes at least one representative from every standing committee in the school. With facilitation provided by Huayruro, this group will engage in a cohort-style learning process designed to develop fluency, trust, and knowledge in discussions of race and racism, in order to increase our capacity for anti-racist action as individuals and as an institution. We believe that this cohort will be the most effective way to ensure that anti-racism is infusing all decision-making in the school, as opposed to having anti-racist work siloed in one committee or task force.
OTHER RELEVANT ACTIVITY
In partnership with our colleagues at Seattle University and Cornish College of the Arts, under the auspices of the Uncharted Waters project, we produced a symposium called Relational Art Making: Cultivating a Beloved Seattle Theatre Community on Saturday February 13th. The symposium was moderated by Seattle theatre director, educator, and activist Jay O’Leary Woods. The panel included theatre professionals Jéhan Òsanyìn, Kathy Hsieh, Braden Abraham, Brandon Jones Mooney, and Shermona Mitchell, and student representatives Andrew Coopman and Talia Rossi. Their wide-ranging discussion touched on topics such as finding an artistic community after graduation, building belonging and how it feels when you are truly welcome in a space, racism and anti-racism in Seattle theatre institutions, and managing (or living with) fear and anxiety around the pandemic and the profession. The symposium, which was free to attend, streamed live on YouTube and was attended by 78 people, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and members of the wider theatre community. A recording of the symposium can be viewed here.
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*What is “global majority” and why are we using it? White people are not the demographic majority of people on our planet. Terms like “people of color,” “non-white,” and “minority” still center whiteness as the norm. This is why we are beginning to incorporate the term “global majority” into our discussions. We extend huge gratitude to Nicole Brewer for introducing us to this new language and the new way of seeing that it invites.