Melanie Greene (’13 MFA Dance) is a dancer and writer who hosts the Dance Union Podcast, with dancer J. Bouey. When the document titled “An Open Letter to Arts Organizations Rampant With White Supremacy” began circulating on the internet, Greene and Bouey used their podcast to begin dialogue and action to make a difference.

Their work is featured in this New York Times article, A Model for the ‘Dance World We Want’.

Dear CVPA Colleagues, Students and Families, and Alumni,

I am outraged by the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others by those who are sworn to protect. I am disheartened and angry at the violence shown against those who are peacefully protesting the widespread and systemic racial injustice in our country. It is a time to take action and to redouble our efforts to fight racism and to eradicate it from our College, our University, and ultimately our society.

Together we can build a College of Visual and Performing Arts at UNCG that is committed to dismantling the legacy of white supremacy in higher education; that is steeped in a sense of justice and equity through our policies and our practices; that protects the dignity, individuality, and safety of our students at every turn; and that is actively anti-racist in our decision-making. We must overturn the dominant paradigm and build a new system founded on equality and respect for all. We have made mistakes in the past. We have a long way to go. But our efforts to live up to these non-negotiable standards have begun in earnest.

We must have a diverse faculty representing our society at large, providing professional mentoring for all of our students and broadening our curricular perspectives. We must ensure that our faculty and staff fully reflect, respect, and advance the values of our College to fight against racism and for equality. Last fall we implemented a new set of policies and procedures to diversify our faculty and staff. All search committees have an underrepresented faculty member or a current or past member of the CVPA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee and student members. The EDI Committee drafted a “Successful Practices” document, which together with the new procedures have become the backbone of the search process. Every search committee member is required to complete Diversity EDU training to address implicit bias. We spend time with every faculty search committee in reviewing how to run an unbiased search, and any search that does not have a diverse pool of applicants is extended.

As a result of this intentional, shared effort involving faculty, staff, and students, 3 of our 9 searches this year resulted in hiring professors of color, and 2 of our 5 staff searches resulted in hiring staff of color, thus reversing a trend of declining numbers of professors and staff of color. Our work is not over, and we have just begun. We have set goals for next year and where we aim to be in five years.

We are committed to listening to our students and to decolonizing our curriculum. At the very soul of the UNCG CVPA is a diverse student body rich in talent, individualism, and creativity. To cultivate fully the capabilities of this incredible student body, the academic environment must be culturally inclusive, safe, and responsive. Individual dignity, mutual respect, and a deep understanding of who we are vital to our creative success. We can and will do better to ensure that our students find in our College a place that holds itself to the highest, most rigorous standards in all these areas.

I am acutely aware that we need to do more. I know that there are very immediate, pressing issues related to certain actions of our faculty and staff regarding treatment of our students. The voices that have until now been unheard or silenced and the issues that until now have been ignored or dismissed are now front and center as we look at our College. I and others are actively addressing these issues that have been raised recently on social media and in other communications. We take your feedback to heart and are investigating fully and fairly. We will not tolerate racism in our College, and all of us must take actions to reflect this commitment.

Racism will not be tolerated in our College, and my hope is that we can turn our personal anger into positive collective action. I look forward to working with you in this fight for justice and equality.

Sincerely,

bruce d. mcclung, Dean
College of Visual and Performing Arts

Photo: A mural in downtown Greensboro by artist Raman Bhardwaj

Yophi Bost says that majoring in music education was a pretty predictable path for her:

“My mom is an Actors’ Equity Assocation actress, so my younger sister and I were pushed into professional musical theatre as toddlers. I was singing before I learned to talk, and music has always been my passion. On top of that, all the role models I had growing up were educators, including my grandmother and great aunt who hold PhDs in education. This inspired me to want to teach and to teach something that I’m passionate about. Arts education changed my life, but coming from an impoverished rural area in Georgia, I was deprived of it until high school. Majoring in arts education is my way of ensuring that I can provide that experience to others.”

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Maya Simmons is graduating with a double major — a BA in Art History and in African American and African Diaspora Studies — and she knows just how she plans to use both of them:

“I have loved art from a very young age. As I started researching art historians and curators, I realized that there are not many people of color in this profession. I made it my goal to help diversify the field as much as possible, and create spaces of diversity and inclusion in museums and galleries.”
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College of Visual and Performing Arts Dean bruce d. mcclung has announced the appointment of Natalie Sowell as the new Director of the School of Theatre.

Sowell has taught and served in administrative roles at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts for the past 16 years where she founded the Child Drama and Community program. Sowell currently serves as Dean of the School for Interdisciplinary Arts and Dean of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.

Specializing in applied theatre for social change, creative drama, critical literacy, and oral storytelling, Sowell is a trained Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner having studied with Augusto Boal, Julian Boal, TOPLAB New York, and the Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed NE.

Sowell has conducted applied theatre workshops, classes, and artist residencies in schools, prisons, community centers, and churches throughout the United States and in Nigeria. She has worked as the Artistic Director of UJIMA YOUTHEATRE and Associate Managing Director of Manbites Dog Theater, and has served on many arts organization boards.

Sowell has directed dozens of socially conscious plays for young audiences and adult audiences and is a consultant on issues of diversity, inclusion, and access for several organizations.

She currently serves as an Arts Ambassador for the Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education and is the faculty consultant for Five Colleges Inc.’s Doors to the World: Global Children’s Literature for Critical Multicultural Literacies project.

Sowell received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Creighton University, and an MFA in Theatre for Youth from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Please join us in welcoming Natalie Sowell to the CVPA faculty!

Photo by Sigal Gerson Kadden

About CVPA
The College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) at UNC Greensboro is the premier and most comprehensive set of visual and performing arts programs in North Carolina with Schools of Art, Dance, Music, and Theatre. CVPA has been designated by the UNC System Board of Governor’s as an “area of distinction.” CVPA transforms lives by providing exceptional artistic and academic experiences.