Belonging and Inclusive Engagement+

“To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality." -bell hooks

One of the reasons that the world values artists is that we tend toward building things. Things like melodies and harmonies, shapes and structures, stories and movements, images and insights that offer people a chance to step outside themselves, if only briefly, and join a community of shared experience.

That community is at its richest, best, and most human when it reflects and includes the glorious diversity of the human condition. And we artists are at our best when we engage that diversity in our work, in our lives, and in our deepest imaginings.

In the College of Visual and Performing Arts, we stand strongly on belonging and inclusion both because they are inalienable rights of being human, and because they make our work more urgent, more necessary, stronger, and more beautiful. We are committed to providing an inclusive environment because it is a fundamental principle of our university, and because the nature of our work brings us into daily contact with their nourishing inspiration. We do this by agreeing to create and sustain a community in which all are welcome, valued, and supported, both because it is socially just to do so, and because as artists we know that creating community is one of our highest callings.

I invite you to join in this commitment as a member of the CVPA community, whether as student, faculty, staff, patron, supporter, or friend, both because we need and value your ideas, energy, and spirit, and because together we can build the kind of community that embraces inclusion and belonging as a basic condition of its existence.

Thank you.

Rick Davis, Dean