Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization at the School of Creative and Performing Arts

The events of 25 May 2020 were the catalyst for an unprecedented international mobilization focussed on urgent issues of racism and discrimination. While the death of George Floyd galvanized a global sense of outrage, it also served to highlight a necessity for change that has a long, complex and deeply troubling history.

Members of the School of Creative and Performing Arts recognize our own complicity in policies and practices that have long contributed to oppression and disenfranchisement on the basis of race and cultural heritage, as well as gender and sexual orientation, disability, and/or other aspects of lived experience. To face and address these dynamics, we are currently working on a range of initiatives with the objectives of community consultation, self-education, and concrete short-, medium- and long-term action. These actions include establishing multiple options for safe and effective student reporting of racism and/or harassment; the forming of a diverse, community-based Advisory Board; education and training opportunities for members of our faculty and staff; public EDID presentations and events; student peer-support programs; the review and revision of our curriculum and performance programming; and efforts to diversify our faculty and staff cohorts.

The SCPA Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization (EDID) Committee was formed in the spring of 2020 and became a formal Standing Committee of the School in March 2021. The committee’s mandate is to advance and promote equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization in all of the SCPA’s policies and practices. It is also intended to directly address issues of discrimination in terms of hiring priorities, recruitment, curricula, programming, student feedback and in other aspects of the workplace and learning environment. With sub-committees dedicated to Curriculum and Performance Programming, Events and Education, and Student Experience, the EDID Committee involves the consistent and focussed energy of a large group of committed faculty, staff and students, collaboratively working towards greater equity, opportunity and inclusion in the work we do and the environment we create.

1 April 2021
Current Members of the SCPA EDID Committee

Bruce Barton, Professor and SCPA Director: Committee Co-Chair
Adam Patrick Bell – Associate Professor, Music and Committee Co-Chair
Rod Squance – Associae Professor and Music Division Lead
Joelle Welling – Senior Instructor, Music
Marie France Forcier, Associate Professor and Dance Division Lead
Michelle Moss – Associate Professor, Dance
Melanie Kloetzel – Professor, Dance
Christine Brubaker – Associate Professor and Drama Division Lead
Clement Martini – Professor, Drama
Mary Lou Mendyk – Manager, Department Operations
Abir Bachir – Venue Business Administrator
Constantina Caldis Roberts – Academic Programs Specialist: Scheduling & Community Engagement
Cabri Boechler - Dance Undergraduate Student Representative
Allison Wenniger – Drama Undergraduate Student Representative
Filip Vujanovic - Music Undergraduate Student Representative
Oshadhee Satarasingh: Graduate Student and Peer-Support Network Co-ordinator
Cassie Holmes – Graduate Student Reprsentative, Drama
Crystal Tan – Graduate Student Representative, Music
Jason Young – Graduate Student Representative, Music

To contact the SCPA EDID Committee, send an email to scpa@ucalgary.ca.