Recommendations and Activities:
1
A
B
1
- Re-assessing PTR guidelines to match the values of the department’s anti-racism statement and goals.
- Supporting progress on the tri-campus graduate department’s committee for anti-racism and equity.
A
- Continuing to fund an association for Black, Indigenous, and racialized theatre students; planning to support a similar group for English students, which will build on the track record of Black editors for the student journal.
- Continuing to fund an anti-oppression task force in Theatre and Drama, comprised of racialized graduates who help inform the program’s selection process and organize mentorship panels and events.
- Changed the English curriculum to require specialists to take at least two courses in race, Indigeneity, and diaspora, including courses in Black literature and Black studies.
- Continuing to fund events that promote anti-racist scholarship, including this year’s Conference on Race Before Race, organized by Profs. Liza Blake and Urvashi Chakravarty from UTM and UTSC.
B
- Continuing to focus on equity and anti-racism in faculty hires, including in our four most recent searches, all of which hired a Black, Indigenous, or racialized candidate.
- Leading an international job search in 2022 for a new assistant professor in Black and Diasporic Theatre; actively lobbying for more faculty positions for Black, Indigenous, and racialized candidates.
- Using our postdoctoral fellowship program to promote anti-racist scholarship—e.g., the 21 Black Futures Project—and create a pipeline to the tenure-track for racialized scholars.
- Expanding curriculum to include more courses in Black literature and Black studies, including the new Caribbean Literature; African American Literature; Black Feminist Poetics; and Black Women’s Writing.