Changing The World Through The Arts
We strive to build and sustain a community honoring the experience, perspectives, and unique identities of our students, faculty, staff, guest artists, and audiences. We embrace the collaborative nature of our work and our world, and celebrate the rich perspectives we attain in a community with one another. We are committed to an ongoing evaluation of policies, practices, and curriculum to eliminate access barriers for all of our staff, students, and faculty, and pursue excellence in ways that make all members of our community feel welcomed and engaged.
Current Initiatives
Our ongoing efforts were developed in response to the 2023 Music & Dramatic Arts Climate Survey, which highlighted the following areas of opportunity:
- Design curricular and co-curricular initiatives which better reflect the wide array of experiences of our students.
- Fostering greater respect and thoughtfulness among faculty and students.
- Creating processes for better communication specific to the uniqueness of a performing arts education.
Present Futures is an initiative to connect our students to alumni with similar career paths, life experiences, and backgrounds, who can then provide advice, mentorship, and inspiration for our students as they make the transition into the professional world.
Interested alumni are invited to fill out a brief survey at the link below regarding their current career path, preferred level of engagement with current students, and topics they would be interested in engaging on. A list of interested alumni and their profiles will be shared with our faculty and staff, who can then coordinate through the Associate Dean to host alumni as guest speakers in classes, guests on panels, networking events, and beyond. Fees for our alums’ time and effort will also be coordinated through the Associate Dean’s office.
We hold regular workshops to provide opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to improve their creative practice, scholarship, and pedagogy by bringing in guests focused on enhancing teaching effectiveness, respectful collaboration, and ethical research practices.
This initiative works to support and enhance respectful collaboration in the college’s productions and ensembles. Faculty advocates serve as liaisons between the faculty, staff, students, and guest artists involved in these crucial industry laboratories.
Advocates are introduced at the beginning of the rehearsal process, provide support and guidance as needed throughout, and oversee reflection surveys after the final performances. The surveyed information from these activities provides important data to inform future processes.
Members of the Access & Engagement Committees regularly review, advise, revise, and/or write the handbooks, guidebooks, and strategic plans at the heart of the college’s policies to ensure they reflect the values of our community, respond to changes in the arts and cultural industries, and propel us toward more just and equitable research and creative practices.
Outreach
Our college offers a wide array of outreach activities, all of which are in service of our mission to maximize opportunities for the general public to experience and interact with the performing arts.
Listen
With over 300 performances each year – spanning a wide array of genres and art forms – our college has something for everyone to enjoy.
Learn
Though camps, school tours, and partnerships with organizations such as Kids' Orchestra, our college promotes engagement with the arts at all ages.
Live
Our research-centric culture continually fuels new discoveries and explorations of the intersections between life, education, and artistic expression.
Committees
Several working groups within our college – each representing different sets of stakeholders – develop, enhance, and propose initiatives and policies designed to support and empower our student, faculty, staff, and alumni.
Student Access & Engagement Committee
- This committee is composed of undergraduate and graduate student representatives from the School of Theatre and School of Music.
- Meetings are held monthly, with the Associate Dean serving in an advisory capacity, and selected students also serve on the college committee. Any interested students are welcome to serve.
CMDA Access & Engagement Committee
- This committee is composed of faculty, staff, students, and alumni who are interested in ensuring the continued growth, flexibility, and sustainability of our community.
- Meetings are held monthly in a hybrid format, with the Associate Dean serving as an ex-officio member. Any interested staff, faculty, or alumni are welcome to serve.
Get Involved!
We welcome any students, faculty, staff, or alumni of our college who are interested in serving on one of our committees or participating in related initiatives. If you would like more information on how to participate, please contact Associate Dean Shannon Walsh.