Please read our updates about the Department’s work to advance Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility by clicking on each of the tabs.
In the spring, we put a pause on the more frequent meetings that the departmental committee spent last year in self-evaluation of our current pursuit of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Those meetings were guided by a draft equity framework mentioned in our last update. There were a couple of reasons for this pause, including some changes to staff and a need to recuperate some focus and energy after the school year.
Individually, members of faculty and staff have continued to pursue equity and justice according to their abilities and interests, but as a departmental committee we have chosen to renew our development of an anti-racist and anti-oppressive strategy for DART by creating a subcommittee for this purpose. It is composed of faculty, staff, and student members, and will oversee the creation of a living document which can guide our policies and advocacy plans, in support of equity at DART.
Meanwhile, following on last year’s BIPOC Speaker Series, the 2021 DART Walker Cultural Leader Series is titled Transformation and Adaptation in Theatre Pedagogy and Training. It opened on 20 September with the panel discussion Black Canadian Theatre Leadership and continues on 15 November with a Production and Design panel discussion between professionals across Canada, and 28 November with a participatory casting and auditions workshop.
The BIPOC Student Council and the Association for Disabled Students are both looking to meet soon. Note that these are open only to persons who self-identify as BIPOC or disabled, in order to foster an environment for safe peer support. Please check DARTboard for announcements related to these student-led initiatives.
We’ll also use DARTboard to continue to update you on events, initiatives, and resources related to the pursuit of EDI, such as the collection of resources you may have seen circulated by David Vivian on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We invite you to reflect and research these and other shares in order to strengthen an environment more equitable to all.
As always, the department invites your input by whatever means is comfortable to you: speaking with a student rep (Alyssa Ruddock and Abby Malcolm), the EDI Liaison (Gavin Fearon), another member of faculty or staff here at DART, or by reaching out to a member of the Office of Human Rights and Equity.
Brian Cumberland, Production Manager
Roberta Doylend, Head of Wardrobe
David Fancy, Professor
Gavin Fearon, Technical Director
Karen Fricker, Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Officer
Mike Griffin, Lecturer
Ed Harris, Theatre Technical Production Assistant
Sandra Marcroft, Theatre Technician
Gyllian Raby, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Dramatic Arts
Cindy Rorke, Administrative Assistant, Department of Dramatic Arts
David Vivian, Associate Professor, (Director, Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture)
Danielle Wilson, Associate Professor
In Our commitment to you, a letter published in September (see below), full-time faculty and staff promised to develop, before the end of 2020, a clear anti-racist and anti-oppressive strategy for DART.
We have been meeting regularly to examine opportunities to increase equity and social justice in the administration of the Department, in our practices in pedagogy, and in our relationships with students. Periodically, we have been joined by members of Brock’s Office of Human Rights and Equity, and their work with us has supported the authorship of a draft equity framework to be pursued within the department’s culture and structure.
Department members engage in this reflective, careful process both as individuals working for equity in the larger university and public environment, and as members of Dramatic Arts in the MIWSFPA. Here, DART is running a 2020-21 BIPOC Speaker Series featuring Black, Indigenous and Persons of Colour who are leaders from the theatre world. The anti-supremacist analysis informing many of the interventions in the 2020-21 Walker Cultural Leaders Theatre in the Era of Climate Crisis series intersects with and amplifies the concerns of the EDI work. Full-time faculty and staff have undertaken training sessions on the subjects of unconscious bias and anti-racism pedagogy, and we’ve requested training in indigenous teaching methods. The department recently created an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Liaison, whose aim is to support education and community building around questions and actions pertaining to EDI. Gavin Fearon has been appointed to the office.
The development of a thoughtful and thorough EDI strategy for DART is slow. We are not yet in a position to share a plan with you; it is being considered from a number of perspectives and is incomplete. But we are working on it. We need an extension until the spring.
Meanwhile, the DART BIPOC Student Council has been meeting throughout the fall term and will continue to meet after the break. It invites the participation of students identifying as Black, Indigenous, or as Persons of Colour. If you have questions or if you’re interested in the work of the BIPOC Student Council, please contact the department: dramatic@brocku.ca
As a University theatre community, our work is always to engage in critique, analysis, and creative response to the world’s challenging circumstances. We continue to harness these skills, passions, and aptitudes to the important work of rooting out supremacy thinking and practice in any of its forms.
The department invites input on the development of DART’s anti-racist and anti-oppressive strategy. If you have anything to share, please reach out to a staff, faculty member or student representative on the departmental committee.
dawn e crysler, theatre technician
Roberta Doylend, Head of Wardrobe
David Fancy, Professor and Chair, Department of Dramatic Arts
Gavin Fearon, Technical Director
Karen Fricker, Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Officer
Mike Griffin, Lecturer
Ed Harris, Theatre Technical Production Assistant
Gyllian Raby, Associate Professor
Rachel Rhoades, Assistant Professor
Cindy Rorke, Administrative Assistant, Department of Dramatic Arts
David Vivian, Associate Professor, (Director, MIWSFPA)
Danielle Wilson, Associate Professor
Beginning in June, in part prompted by feedback from students and alumni, as well as in observation of momentum of Black Lives Matter, DART faculty and staff began meeting regularly with Brock’s Office of Human Rights and Equity (HRE). With the support of HRE staff, our goal is to examine and identify the department’s contributions to white supremacy and all oppressive structures and practices, whether inside or out of the classroom, in the curriculum, in our productions, in our community engagement, and in our relationships with other offices we collaborate with or who represent us.
This work is ongoing, and while we believe it is important that we communicate our intentions to develop safer and equitable opportunities for members of our community who identify as Indigenous, Black, Persons of Colour, non-white, differently-abled, of any gender, of any sexuality, neurodivergent, and as members of any minoritized or marginalized community, we also recognize that merely stating the intention is not enough. Such a statement does little to dismantle the systems of oppression that withhold such opportunities; does little to help us use our privilege responsibly or to be accountable for our actions; does little to materially improve living and working conditions at DART and in a larger community to which we all belong. Our commitment to you is to develop, before the end of 2020, a clear anti-racist and anti-oppressive strategy for DART.
Whether a current or past student or instructor, a visiting artist, spectator, or another member of the community, your experiences at DART can help us develop this strategy. We, the undersigned, acknowledge that we have not always listened effectively and that our intentions have not always had the impact we desired We also acknowledge that sharing experiences will require different emotional labour for different people, and we appreciate your generosity. We recognize that there are power imbalances, class differences, economic circumstances, and other influences on participating in this process with us. We are attempting to be open and grateful for any opportunity to listen to you now. We invite you to share your stories with us, either directly by reaching out to a member of faculty or staff that you trust, or by contacting Shannon Kitchings at Brock’s Office of Human Rights and Equity.
Even while recognizing our various privileges, it is our belief that no one is truly free while systems of oppression are in place. To invoke Lilla Watson and her associates in a 1970s Aboriginal activists’ group of Queensland, Australia: Our liberation is bound up with yours.
dawn e crysler, theatre technician
Roberta Doylend, Head of Wardrobe
David Fancy, Professor and Chair, Department of Dramatic Arts
Gavin Fearon, Technical Director
Karen Fricker, Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Officer
Mike Griffin, Lecturer
Ed Harris, Theatre Technical Production Assistant
Gyllian Raby, Associate Professor
Rachel Rhoades, Assistant Professor
Cindy Rorke, Administrative Assistant, Department of Dramatic Arts
David Vivian, Associate Professor, (Director, MIWSFPA)
Danielle Wilson, Associate Professor
See also: scholarstrikecanada.ca