Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design

The AICAD Post-MFA Teaching Fellowship is a year-long Fellowship that seeks to provide teaching opportunities for highly qualified individuals from populations that are underrepresented in higher education. By doing so, the AICAD schools are contributing to a climate that recognizes and values diversity as central to excellence, and contributes to our shared goal of diversifying the faculty of AICAD institutions.  Candidates must have completed their MFA within the past three years at an AICAD member institution and not currently hold a full-time teaching position within higher education.

Fellows are provided:

  • A near full-time or full-time teaching load guaranteed for one year, with potential for renewal for a second year.
  • Professional development funding or commensurate support.
  • Assignment of a faculty mentor.
  • Salary commensurate with the institution’s starting salaries for full-time faculty, including health benefits.
  • Participation in the AICAD Fellows Gathering at Cranbrook Academy of Art.

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C4 Atlanta

In fall 2015, C4 Atlanta began piloting a new program called Hatch. The Hatch curriculum was created to answer a need in the Atlanta artist community for skills training related to working in community. Through the Hatch training program, artists will learn the valuable “soft” skills needed to create community related studio artwork, facilitate artistic interaction, create public artwork and more. A major part of the Hatch curriculum includes training around equity and inclusion practices. The focus of Hatch is working with community and not "to" or "for" community. We worked with content collaborators to build the curriculum. Contributors and facilitators are based locally and also come from other parts of the United States. Later this year, C4 Atlanta will share the Hatch curriculum online and will be made available to any interested person(s). All of our programs align with our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy which can be found on our website. The development of Hatch is funded by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

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Chorus America

As the advocacy, research, and leadership development organization that serves the choral field, Chorus America has adopted a key goal: to ensure that our policies, programs, and operations include diverse perspectives. We started with a simple phrase as our mantra—we would become intentionally inclusive rather than unintentionally exclusive.

This goal is reflected in our mission to build and connect a dynamic and inclusive choral community, in our vision of a future where choral singing bridges cultures, ethnicities, and generations in every community; and in our strategic plan.

As part of this journey, we have turned to our own and others’ research to identify key attributes of choruses that naturally lend themselves to diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Our cultural equity efforts draw on the following strengths:

  1. Choruses are everywhere. Chorus America’s research shows that there are that 47 million men, women, and children—that’s 21% of the population—singing in approximately 270,000 choruses in this country, in big cities, in suburbs and in small towns in the most rural parts of the country.
  2. We are portable. Choruses are natural creative place-makers. Indoors or outdoors, a cappella or with instruments, in concert halls or town squares.
  3. We are efficient. Our administrative costs are modest, and in many cases our talented labor is free.
  4. Our barriers to entry are low. Choruses are inclusive of a wide range of talents, from serious amateurs to serious professionals.
  5. Our singers are good for communities. Our research shows that in addition to the music they make, choral singers are more likely to vote, to volunteer, to make philanthropic gifts, and to hold leadership positions in their communities.

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Grantmakers in the Arts

Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) continues to work on Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy.  Please see our statement of purpose here: http://www.giarts.org/racial-equity-arts-philanthropy-statement-purpose

Currently the racial equity board committee is working to hone our definitions of Asian, Latin@, African, Arab and Native American (ALAANA) arts organizations and an equitable funding portfolio.  GIA is currently going through a racial equity audit of our internal policies and practices and our external communications and programs. We will share findings of this audit with the field later this year.  We are also currently researching successful programs that explicitly support ALAANA artists, arts organizations and communities. We will use these case studies in a new workshop that will be available for communities in 2017.  In July, we will host a series of racial equity in arts philanthropy web conferences.

League of American Orchestras

The League of American Orchestras has long pursued diversity, equity, and inclusion in the orchestral field.  This work is informed by the League’s mission as well as, more recently, by its statement on diversity (2012), www.americanorchestras.org/diversity, and its strategic plan (2016-2020) www.americanorchestras.org/strategy.

A Diversity Committee of the League’s Board of Directors was established in 2011 to guide the League’s work in support of orchestras’ efforts related to audiences, orchestra and staff personnel, artists, boards, and governance practice.

The League’s 2016 – 2000 strategic plan makes diversity a priority by committing to increasing orchestras’ capacity to be relevant and responsive to the civic and artistic needs of their diverse communities, and to serve audiences that are more reflective and inclusive of their communities.

The theme of the League’s 2016 Conference in Baltimore (June 9-11) is “The Richness of Difference”—and an important precursor to the Conference took place on December 2 and 3, 2015 in New York City, when the League cohosted a convening with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Some 50 leaders from across the country gathered to consider strategies to increase participation of musicians from underrepresented communities at American orchestras, explore the pipeline for musician development from early childhood onward, and identify possibilities for collaboration with partners within and outside the orchestral world.

Attendees included a diverse representation of professional musicians and administrators from professional and youth orchestras, community music schools, conservatories, and El Sistema-inspired programs, as well as community engagement experts. They identified current gaps in services necessary to increase the number of competitive musicians from underrepresented communities and how the field might best strengthen efforts across the continuum of professional musician pathways, both as individual organizations and collectively.

The 2016 Conference, http://americanorchestras.org/conference2016, will be a critical venue to broaden these discussions.  It features a number of sessions focused on diversity as well as a pre-conference forum in which participants will further develop, lead, and execute the work that began at the December convening.  

Additional programmatic work to date includes an Online Diversity and Inclusion Resource Center and Diversity Assessment Tool for Board Members. League commissions, grants, and awards include commissions for women composers, and recognition for best practices in engaging underrepresented communities. Our emerging research includes a focus on diversity.  League communications, including regular feature articles in Symphony magazine, routinely highlight efforts among our members. The League also serves in a leadership role through carefully curated content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in League events.

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Theatre Communications Group

TCG's strategic plan includes a multi-year, six-point Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (EDII) to transform the national theatre field into a more equitable, inclusive, and diverse community.

  • REPRESENT – REPRESENT is a demographic survey platform where theatre people self-identify across the intersections of difference. Through an evolving survey platform, REPRESENT will: measure the current diversity of theatre staff, board and artists; provide robust, real-time snapshots of diversity based on parameters provided by the user; and empower shared language and goal-setting for advancing diversity and inclusion field-wide.
  • The Well– TCG will curate a Literature Review of critical thinking about diversity and inclusion, including historic resources on race, ethnicity, gender and other areas of identity. The Well will include reference materials and guides to assist theatres in launching diversity and inclusion initiatives within their organizations, providing a comprehensive study of historic and current resources, articles and thought-leadership pieces to provide year-round opportunities for support and learning.
  • Legacy Leaders of Color Video Project – Through a series of video interviews, the Legacy Leaders of Color Video Project will chronicle the stories of theatre leaders of color who created the work, founded the organizations, and led the vanguards of the resident theatre movement. These leaders were inspired by the need to create opportunities lacking for artists of color; to challenge appropriation and misrepresentation through staging the full richness and complexity of diverse racial, ethnic and cultural identities; to gain political power and creative autonomy; and to contribute their unique aesthetic and social perspectives to the American theatre and wider culture.
  • Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Institute –TCG launched a three-year national cohort of over 20 TCG Member Theatres, including TCG, to create and execute action plans around diversity and inclusion. This intensive approach not only creates a climate within each individual theatre whereby institutional change is more likely to take hold, but it also adds significantly to the collective impact and national momentum of diversity and inclusion efforts already taking place. In 2016, TCG will launch two new Institute cohorts.
  • SPARK Leadership Program – From 2014-15, SPARK provided 10 rising leaders of color with the opportunity to participate in a year-long curriculum of professional development. In 2016, TCG launched the Rising Leaders of Color (RLC) program, which expands and re-envisions the YLC program to nurture and support early-career leaders of color in all areas of theatre. Together, the SPARK and RLC programs will form an intergenerational network of theatre professionals who will change the face of the theatre field.
  • Nurture Theatres of Color – TCG will develop programming to address capacity-building amongst culturally-specific theatres, and raise the awareness of the importance of these theatres around the country. TCG has convened leaders of theatres of color at TCG’s National Conference and Fall Forum on Governance to identify their unique needs and challenges.

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