In Spring of 2020, the College of Fine Arts and Communications branded the CFAC Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The DIA initiative strives to foster and support both learning and working environments that promote diversity, inclusion and accessibility. While the 2020-2021 school year presented plenty of new challenges to students and faculty, the college rose to the occasion while furthering its DIA goals with several ongoing initiatives: guest speakers, theatre productions and recognition of the accomplishments of diverse students and faculty.
The CFAC DIA Initiative: 2020-2021 RecapTHEATRE & MEDIA ARTS HOST LECTURES WITH THE BIPOC COMMUNITY
During the fall 2020 semester, the Department of Theatre and Media Arts arranged for the TMA community to hear from individuals with expertise in issues of racial justice.
Melissa Inouye: Life Doesn’t Happen in a VacuumInouye, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, earned her PhD in East Asian languages and civilizations from Harvard. She also works as a historian at the Church History department in Salt Lake City. The scholar, author and mother of four spoke from her perspective as a fourth-generation Chinese-Japanese American and a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Inouye delivered her inspirational lecture from a hospital room in Murray, Utah, where she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment. She stressed the need to press forward with life’s obligations no matter the circumstances, saying simply, “Life doesn’t happen in a vacuum.” Danor Gerald: Try Harder, Be BetterDanor Gerald converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when he was attending an acting conservatory in Dallas, Texas. He believes the color of people’s skin is a surface trait that has little to do with the deeper truth of everyone being a child of God. As a Black artist, he has always felt the need to try harder, to be better and to be at the top of his game in order to succeed. He highly recommended two books, “Stealing Fire from the Gods” by James Bonnet and Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Darius Gray: Unify Across CulturesGray was a member of the original first presidency of the Genesis Group of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has been a member of the Church since he was baptized in 1964.
Since then, Gray has faced racism in and out of the Church. He spoke of his time at BYU, when he was one of two African American students on the entire campus. He recalled that he was able to learn a lot, but the biases towards him were sometimes too great to bear. Gray encouraged students to recognize the biases that they hold and to look for ways to be unified across cultures.Ta-Nehisi Coates: Shaping the World Through ArtThis event was also available to members of the College of Fine Arts and Communications as part of the Listen Up! series.National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates has become a powerful voice for examining what it means to be Black in America. His bestselling books include “The Beautiful Struggle,” “We Were Eight Years in Power” and “Between the World and Me.” He has received a MacArthur Fellowship and is the current author of the Marvel comics The Black Panther and Captain America.
During the event, Coates spoke passionately about the importance of the arts in building a loving, egalitarian world. He asserted that arts and culture can shape not only the social issues of the day but also the attitudes and policies surrounding those issues.
BRAVO’S LISTEN UP! SERIESIn addition to Ta-Nehisi Coates, the Listen Up! Series included distinguished guest speakers Wynton Marsalis, DeWayne Wickham, Shirin Neshat and Nyama McCarthy-Brown.
Wynton Marsalis: Be a HumanitarianInternationally acclaimed musician and prolific composer Wynton Marsalis is known for his extraordinary talent as well as his humanitarian efforts around the world. Along with other respected names within the professional music sphere, he has added his voice to the painful but necessary conversations about race relations in America. In 1987, Marsalis co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has produced more than 100 records, won nine Grammy awards, and was the first jazz musician ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Students were treated to an hour-long virtual session with Marsalis, followed by a free streamed public performance of his new work, the “Democracy! Suite,” performed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Septet.
DeWayne Wickham: Ask the Tough QuestionsWickham is the founding dean of the School of Global Journalism and Communication. He is the author of three books and several articles and is also the founding member and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists. “We have to find a way in this country to tear down the barriers that separate us. We have to tear down the barriers that make us Blacks and whites and divide us by religion and ideology,” he said. “We have to stop connecting to people simply because they are fellow travelers in some ideological way, and we have to ask the tough questions.”
Shirin Neshat: Creating a Visual VocabularyInternationally renowned artist Shirin Neshat is a contemporary artist known for her photography, video and film work. She was born in Iran and moved to the United States to finish high school. Neshat was encouraged to stay in the US because of the Iranian Revolution, so she enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. She now lives and works in New York, and has been featured at art exhibitions in Chicago, London, Seoul, Mexico City and numerous other cities across the world.“I am a nomadic artist. I am not loyal to one specific form,” said Neshat. “Regardless of what subject I’m embracing, whether it’s photography or film or video, my art is always about things I’m facing as a human being. I became an artist as a way of creating a visual vocabulary to face existential issues in life, anxiety and separation from my country.
”Nyama McCarthy-Brown: A Group Effort for ChangeNyama McCarthy-Brown visited with students virtually from Ohio State University. In McCarthy-Brown’s work of relevant and culturally responsive teaching, she seeks to bridge the gap between past ‘traditional’ habits and habits that would make spaces much more inclusive. She spoke to dance students and faculty about racism, cultural relevancy and bridging societies.“Our culture has many racist mechanisms, and so the people within the culture maneuver in that space and negotiate that space,” she said. She explained that it will take a group effort to change the systems in place, and that it's really about learning, growing and coming to a place of understanding on how and why all these structures are working and how they harm people.
THEATRE PRODUCTIONS
Two theatre productions by the Department of Theatre and Media Arts broke new ground to increase representation at BYU.Letters from Cuba and Manual for a Desperate Crossing
Featuring a Hispanic cast, director and playwright, “Letters from Cuba” and “Manual for a Desperate Crossing” were written by Cuban American María Irene Fornés, who passed away in 2018. “Letters from Cuba” is based on three decades of letters Fornés received from her brother in Havana, while “Manual for a Desperate Crossing” is about a fictional crossing from Cuba to Key West, inspired by interviews with survivors who fled Cuba on homemade rafts. “I spent last summer immersing myself in education about race in the hopes that one day I could be a good ally,” said director Kris Peterson, who is Costa Rican. “One of the ways I felt I could do that was by representing more of my own heritage. As a Latina faculty member, I wanted to represent more of the diverse Latinx culture we have here at BYU. I spent several weeks reading scripts by Latinx authors and fell in love with the poetry of María Irene Fornés.”
African-American playwright Gloria Bond Clunie directed her play, “North Star,” remotely from her home in the Chicago area. Set in North Carolina in the 1960s, “North Star” is the story of Relia, an African-American girl searching for her place to shine. The joyous innocence of her summer is transformed by the rising tensions of her community’s battle for freedom. “This is the first time in history BYU has done a Black play — written by a Black playwright, with a primarily Black cast,” said BYU professor of theatre education Julia Ashworth, who produced the play. “The timing is largely due to the race reckoning happening in America right now. The historic nature of this play can serve as a source of healing both nationally and internationally.”
FACULTY EFFORTS
Luke Howard / School of Music
DIA Committee member and School of Music professor Luke Howard addressed ways that the college is seeking to improve. “One of the great strengths of our college is that we all understand the value of interdisciplinary, collaborative work,” said Howard. “I’ve tried to make myself more aware of how privilege has been systematically denied to people who don’t look like me, and I’m working toward redressing that imbalance.” Howard has been working with the committee on campaigns and events to support their goals, such as the Listen Up! series.
Kori Wakamatsu / Department of Dance BYU dance education professor Kori Wakamatsu recently published a scholarly article in the Journal of Dance Education. Her article is titled “Asian American Perspectives: From Microaggressions to Microprogressions – How Small Choices Can Make a Big Difference in the Dance Classroom.”
The article explores how microaggressions can affect minority students in the dance classroom. Wakamatsu examines the idea specifically from the perspective of Asian Americans, outlining the different stereotypes that affect Asian Americans and how those stereotypes can show up in the world of dance.“I hope the article helps increase awareness about personal biases. There’s this stereotype that Asian Americans are the model minority, and I tried to make the point that even a positive stereotype can have limiting and negative consequences. I hope that teachers especially can have more awareness of that,” Wakamatsu said.You Belong Here. You Matter HereFrom April 5 until April 9, 2021, the College’s Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Committee launched a special “You Belong Here. You Matter Here.” initiative to help students feel welcomed and valued in the college — particularly during finals, a stressful time for students. “Some faculty are submitting videos, other faculty are posting these phrases in their Zoom meetings, some are emailing students directly, and then others including myself are repeating them as daily mantras,” said DIA Committee member Keely Song. “I have repeated these phrases over the last several months in hopes that when I talk to students, they feel my commitment to them and my genuine sincerity in my compliments and encouragement to them.”
STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Students within the college also made great strides in their efforts to promote diversity, inclusion and accessibility. Here are just a few examples.
Black Lives Matter Designs Eleni Trapp and Sidney Fa’anunu have been friends for 12 years. Trapp graduated from BYU in 2018 with a degree in graphic design, and Fa’anunu is a current BYU illustration student and is minoring in political science. Both women said they were concerned about racial tensions in the U.S. and wanted to do something to help. This prompted them to adjust their goals for their new website, Miscelenious Squid.
Fa’anunu and Trapp invited artists of all backgrounds to submit sticker designs to their website to be sold. Fa’anunu and Trapp are donating all of the funds from the stickers to various BLM support groups, such as Reclaim the Block and the Memorial Fund for George Floyd. So far, Miscelenious Squid has raised over $2,000.
Most Promising Multicultural Students Awards
Every year since 1997, the American Advertising Federation has recognized students from universities across the nation who exemplify hard work and creativity in advertising. This year it named seven BYU students among its most promising multicultural students of 2021. The BYU School of Communications was proud to have seven students selected for the award — the most students from any one university this year. The seven winners from BYU are Kofi Aidoo, Rebekah Baker, Evelyn Harper, Hali’amai Kealoha, Lillian Maero, Joseph Nugent and Donna Wilson. “We are so grateful to have these extraordinary students recognized by the AAF as the most promising multicultural students. They are being recognized not just for their multicultural background, but because they are so talented in their area of study and expertise,” said professor Jeff Sheets
.The College has dedicated time to learn of these peoples stories and experiences–though there is still much work to be done. We invite you to read their stories, and if you or someone you know has a story of diversity they would like to share with the CFAC, please submit them here.
INVITATION
For more information about ongoing initiatives within the College of Fine Arts and Communications, please contact assistant dean Amy Jensen.