Loyola Theatre Anti-Racism Action Plan
Over the course of Summer 2020, in conversation and in writing, we have received feedback from former and current Loyola theatre students about the need for more fully collective anti-racist work within our theatre program. We are deeply sorry that our work in these areas has not been as collective and comprehensive as it should be. As educators, we have an obligation to create a just learning environment where the conditions support artistic and intellectual bravery for all. Creating such an environment requires anti-racist work at the core of all we do.
We acknowledge serious past programmatic complacencies around the need for anti-racist action. Changes need to happen on all fronts: in department processes, policies, and committee structures; in course and curriculum design; in classroom environment; in season selection, casting, and other aspects of production; in student recruitment and retention; in faculty and guest artist recruitment and retention; in student and faculty professional development; in overall transparency of communication; and in other areas. We are sorry that often in our program the work of anti-racism has been regarded as a conversation in a specific moment or a specialty or something that comes in and out of focus, rather than a consistent, consciously-chosen priority of all. We regret that there have been group and/or individual failures to acknowledge the nature and extent of the operation of white privilege or the realities of how systems of White Supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, and Western bias have shaped our assumptions or have been inextricable with dominant practices and curriculum in U.S. theatre and beyond. Often anti-racist engagement has fallen to one person or a few, especially to BIPOC students, staff, or professors. We believe that the responsibility to structure and maintain an expressly anti-racist theatre program should fall especially to white faculty, even as such change is also a responsibility of all of us. We will work to hold each other and ourselves accountable. We also look forward to collaborating with those of you who want to be involved in these ongoing processes, but we know that the responsibility here is ours. The existing Loyola Theatre Program Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Statement, generated in collaboration with students, will be one of our guiding stars as we make continued shifts; at the same time, that statement, too, should be regularly reviewed and revised. We are excited about the individual and collective learning, growth, and additional action that lie ahead.
While we need to engage in collective anti-racist engagement specifically, we also need--as part of the broader context of that work--to engage in more comprehensive, collective anti-oppressive action as a program. We are eager to engage in more collective and individual ongoing learning not only about anti-racist pedagogy but also about a range of trauma-informed and oppression-informed practices for our classrooms, production spaces, and the program as a whole. We will seek and embrace opportunities to learn how our classrooms and production practices can be more responsive to the nuances of identity as well as the insights generated by theories and experiences of intersectionality. We will act with an understanding that the most meaningful learning happens in environments that try to take into account the felt realities of how identities overlap, intersect, and mutually inform each other. We will make decision processes more transparent and involve student representatives more fully whenever possible. We will create more opportunities for students and alumni to express their hopes and needs around the maintenance of (and the constant evolution toward) anti-oppressive spaces. We will collaborate more holistically with on-campus offices whose expertise areas include anti-oppressive practices. We will build and more actively highlight an array of pathways for students to express their questions and concerns with confidence that they will be received with careful listening and empathy. We will more actively remind students of how they can access existing systems for raising concerns with the University.
We will also embrace the importance of prioritizing impact over intention, in both interpersonal interaction and program decision-making. We understand that doing so is a fundamental aspect of anti-racist work specifically and anti-oppression work in general. We look forward to listening actively to student experiences so that practices can constantly evolve based on those insights. We acknowledge that, even within anti-racism movements or other movements organizing against oppression, there are of course divergent approaches and points of view. As we move forward, we will remain mindful that, even when a choice may be made with anti-racist intention, it could also still have reverberations that are experienced as counter to that intention. We will facilitate more open community discussion of complexities so that we can engage more collectively and inclusively toward justice.
We can do better. We must do better. We will do better. We recognize that these phrases are being spoken repeatedly in this historical moment, but they are nonetheless sincere and heartfelt. As our action plan below attests, we know that statements are in many ways mere words. Only sustained action will demonstrate our genuine commitment to change. The action plan below is also a living document; it will and must continue to evolve regularly, in consultation with students, alumni, university collaborators, and our broader field. We are also paying careful attention to a range of ongoing and recently initiated movements for racial justice in theatre and in academia, and we will work to actively fold recognition of the insights and demands of those movements into our evolution.
Thank you again to our community for catalyzing our collective reflection and action.
Finally, we acknowledge that the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade--among countless other instances of systematic destruction of Black lives--were among some of the most prominent acts of violence that sparked this specific historical moment of more widespread U.S. uprising against racism and anti-Blackness specifically. We state unequivocally that Black Lives Matter and that we have an obligation to help dismantle anti-Blackness in higher education and in the broader world. We also acknowledge that this moment of more widespread institutional reflection happening across the U.S. theatre and the U.S. academy (and other fields and contexts) arrives as a result of anti-racist labor that has been done by BIPOC individuals, communities, and institutions for an achingly long time, work that has historically often gone unsupported or even been actively thwarted or opposed by white people. As we pursue our action plan and continue learning, we will be indebted to insights built or collected by BIPOC activists, organizers, educators, and artists, as well as other people who have experienced systematic oppression. We pledge to honor that history of labor with seriousness of purpose.
Recognizing that the work of anti-racism must be ongoing and requires continuous learning and structural revision, the Loyola Theatre Program will continue to revise and update this action plan. We will be requesting resources from the College of Arts and Sciences and the University to support these initiatives.
These action items represent our collective desire to reflect our values in action more fully and consistently. As the academic year unfolds, some actions specified below may be amended or supplanted by other anti-racism initiatives by the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, the College of Arts and Sciences, the university-wide Anti-Racism Initiative, or the newly formed Institute for Racial Justice.
Though this document is labeled as an Anti-Racism Action Plan explicitly, there are some items included below that will intersect with anti-racist work but that also relate to a range of other areas of anti-oppressive work or to other aspects of professional theatre practice: actions related to changing structures around trauma-informed learning, casting, intimacy direction, fight choreography, or other elements of work relevant to diversity, equity, access, and inclusion not always explicitly linked with race any more than with other aspects of identity. We include these categories of action not to conflate them directly with race or anti-racist work specifically, but instead as recognition of the ways that forms of identity, experience, and oppression intersect and overlap. In this respect, some action items work toward the advancement of anti-oppressive structures overall, recognizing that those structures have implications for creating the conditions necessary for sustained anti-racist work.
These commitments come together to constitute a living document. We aim to deepen, sharpen, refine, and expand them over time, as our ongoing collective and individual learning continue.
To learn more about anit-racist efforts across Loyola University, visit the Division of Academic Affiairs Anti-racism Initiative.
Return to the Transparency Page
Over the course of Summer 2020, in conversation and in writing, we have received feedback from former and current Loyola theatre students about the need for more fully collective anti-racist work within our theatre program. We are deeply sorry that our work in these areas has not been as collective and comprehensive as it should be. As educators, we have an obligation to create a just learning environment where the conditions support artistic and intellectual bravery for all. Creating such an environment requires anti-racist work at the core of all we do.
We acknowledge serious past programmatic complacencies around the need for anti-racist action. Changes need to happen on all fronts: in department processes, policies, and committee structures; in course and curriculum design; in classroom environment; in season selection, casting, and other aspects of production; in student recruitment and retention; in faculty and guest artist recruitment and retention; in student and faculty professional development; in overall transparency of communication; and in other areas. We are sorry that often in our program the work of anti-racism has been regarded as a conversation in a specific moment or a specialty or something that comes in and out of focus, rather than a consistent, consciously-chosen priority of all. We regret that there have been group and/or individual failures to acknowledge the nature and extent of the operation of white privilege or the realities of how systems of White Supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, and Western bias have shaped our assumptions or have been inextricable with dominant practices and curriculum in U.S. theatre and beyond. Often anti-racist engagement has fallen to one person or a few, especially to BIPOC students, staff, or professors. We believe that the responsibility to structure and maintain an expressly anti-racist theatre program should fall especially to white faculty, even as such change is also a responsibility of all of us. We will work to hold each other and ourselves accountable. We also look forward to collaborating with those of you who want to be involved in these ongoing processes, but we know that the responsibility here is ours. The existing Loyola Theatre Program Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Statement, generated in collaboration with students, will be one of our guiding stars as we make continued shifts; at the same time, that statement, too, should be regularly reviewed and revised. We are excited about the individual and collective learning, growth, and additional action that lie ahead.
While we need to engage in collective anti-racist engagement specifically, we also need--as part of the broader context of that work--to engage in more comprehensive, collective anti-oppressive action as a program. We are eager to engage in more collective and individual ongoing learning not only about anti-racist pedagogy but also about a range of trauma-informed and oppression-informed practices for our classrooms, production spaces, and the program as a whole. We will seek and embrace opportunities to learn how our classrooms and production practices can be more responsive to the nuances of identity as well as the insights generated by theories and experiences of intersectionality. We will act with an understanding that the most meaningful learning happens in environments that try to take into account the felt realities of how identities overlap, intersect, and mutually inform each other. We will make decision processes more transparent and involve student representatives more fully whenever possible. We will create more opportunities for students and alumni to express their hopes and needs around the maintenance of (and the constant evolution toward) anti-oppressive spaces. We will collaborate more holistically with on-campus offices whose expertise areas include anti-oppressive practices. We will build and more actively highlight an array of pathways for students to express their questions and concerns with confidence that they will be received with careful listening and empathy. We will more actively remind students of how they can access existing systems for raising concerns with the University.
We will also embrace the importance of prioritizing impact over intention, in both interpersonal interaction and program decision-making. We understand that doing so is a fundamental aspect of anti-racist work specifically and anti-oppression work in general. We look forward to listening actively to student experiences so that practices can constantly evolve based on those insights. We acknowledge that, even within anti-racism movements or other movements organizing against oppression, there are of course divergent approaches and points of view. As we move forward, we will remain mindful that, even when a choice may be made with anti-racist intention, it could also still have reverberations that are experienced as counter to that intention. We will facilitate more open community discussion of complexities so that we can engage more collectively and inclusively toward justice.
We can do better. We must do better. We will do better. We recognize that these phrases are being spoken repeatedly in this historical moment, but they are nonetheless sincere and heartfelt. As our action plan below attests, we know that statements are in many ways mere words. Only sustained action will demonstrate our genuine commitment to change. The action plan below is also a living document; it will and must continue to evolve regularly, in consultation with students, alumni, university collaborators, and our broader field. We are also paying careful attention to a range of ongoing and recently initiated movements for racial justice in theatre and in academia, and we will work to actively fold recognition of the insights and demands of those movements into our evolution.
Thank you again to our community for catalyzing our collective reflection and action.
Finally, we acknowledge that the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade--among countless other instances of systematic destruction of Black lives--were among some of the most prominent acts of violence that sparked this specific historical moment of more widespread U.S. uprising against racism and anti-Blackness specifically. We state unequivocally that Black Lives Matter and that we have an obligation to help dismantle anti-Blackness in higher education and in the broader world. We also acknowledge that this moment of more widespread institutional reflection happening across the U.S. theatre and the U.S. academy (and other fields and contexts) arrives as a result of anti-racist labor that has been done by BIPOC individuals, communities, and institutions for an achingly long time, work that has historically often gone unsupported or even been actively thwarted or opposed by white people. As we pursue our action plan and continue learning, we will be indebted to insights built or collected by BIPOC activists, organizers, educators, and artists, as well as other people who have experienced systematic oppression. We pledge to honor that history of labor with seriousness of purpose.
Recognizing that the work of anti-racism must be ongoing and requires continuous learning and structural revision, the Loyola Theatre Program will continue to revise and update this action plan. We will be requesting resources from the College of Arts and Sciences and the University to support these initiatives.
These action items represent our collective desire to reflect our values in action more fully and consistently. As the academic year unfolds, some actions specified below may be amended or supplanted by other anti-racism initiatives by the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, the College of Arts and Sciences, the university-wide Anti-Racism Initiative, or the newly formed Institute for Racial Justice.
Though this document is labeled as an Anti-Racism Action Plan explicitly, there are some items included below that will intersect with anti-racist work but that also relate to a range of other areas of anti-oppressive work or to other aspects of professional theatre practice: actions related to changing structures around trauma-informed learning, casting, intimacy direction, fight choreography, or other elements of work relevant to diversity, equity, access, and inclusion not always explicitly linked with race any more than with other aspects of identity. We include these categories of action not to conflate them directly with race or anti-racist work specifically, but instead as recognition of the ways that forms of identity, experience, and oppression intersect and overlap. In this respect, some action items work toward the advancement of anti-oppressive structures overall, recognizing that those structures have implications for creating the conditions necessary for sustained anti-racist work.
These commitments come together to constitute a living document. We aim to deepen, sharpen, refine, and expand them over time, as our ongoing collective and individual learning continue.
To learn more about anit-racist efforts across Loyola University, visit the Division of Academic Affiairs Anti-racism Initiative.
Return to the Transparency Page