Message regarding President Trump's executive order on immigration
Dear Fellow Members of the School of the Arts and Architecture Community:
Sometimes concision is required. So, let me be concise: The Dean’s office condemns in the strongest possible terms the executive order around visas and immigration released by the President this past weekend.
Please see a statement from UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and EVC/Provost Scott Waugh regarding the executive order as well as a message from President Napolitano signed by every UC Chancellor on this issue. The Dean’s office agrees with President Napolitano and the Chancellors that this order is “contrary to the values we hold dear” as scholars, artists, and architects seeking to build a more humane world where diversity is absolutely crucial to education.
As a school community that includes the departments of Art, Architecture and Urban Design, Design|Media Arts, World Arts and Cultures/Dance as well as the Hammer Museum, Fowler Museum, and Center for the Art of Performance, our mission is ultimately to protect and educate our students.
In protecting our students, we will work with the campus to discuss ways that we can support those affected by these travel/immigration bans (which includes staff and faculty). For our international students, the Dashew Center at UCLA will continue to provide information on resources available to you. You can access the Dashew Center's website here.
In educating our students, I offer this:
Dear Students: Sometimes education occurs outside the classroom and the studio, and sometimes issues transcend party and political beliefs. As an affront to the values that form the very core of our democracy and your education, I believe that the recent executive order fits into both of those categories. I encourage you to think about how these issues affect your lives, but then to take action.
Conversations and actions are happening around our school in a myriad of ways. Last weekend a performance I choreographed based on a musical work of South African author Alan Paton’s novel “Cry the Beloved Country” was presented by Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA in Royce Hall. We used that performance to begin conversations around the warning apartheid South Africa offers us on the destruction that hate and division can bring. In the lobby I saw Claudia Bestor the Director of Public Programs at the Hammer Museum, who reminded me that the Hammer is screening “I am not Your Negro” tonight (in my opinion there is much to learn from James Baldwin on possible ways to survive when your values are affronted). World Arts and Cultures/Dance Chair Lionel Popkin had to run home after the performance to rest since he spent his entire Sunday at LAX in protest—as I know many other members of our community did.
I am not trying to dictate how you respond. This is, of course, your choice based on your belief system. But whatever your response may be—whether making art or directly protesting or calling your congressperson or donating to the organization of your choice that is fighting for your perspective—I encourage you to contemplate the consequences of this weekend’s executive action and then to express yourself. And please know that the school, the university, and the UC system are doing what they can to have your back while you do so.
Onward and upwards.
Best,
David Roussève
Interim Dean
January 30, 2017
Statements and Resources
Cultivating Conversations: Opportunities for Dialogue
Read UC statement on President Trump's executive order on immigration
Resources from UCLA Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
Resources from the UCLA International Institute
**The School of the Arts and Architecture will update this post with additional information as it becomes available.