Updates from the UCLA Arts AEDI Commission
Dear School of the Arts and Architecture Community:
We hope that the winter quarter is going well for everyone. While there are many reasons to be optimistic in the months ahead, the past year has been extremely challenging. Every one of us has been affected—whether physically, emotionally, economically, or all of the above—and the loss and instability continue to take a toll. While acknowledging the challenges ahead, we’re inspired by the passion of the AEDI Commission and many others across the school that are working to create a better future.
We are writing to provide an update on the AEDI Commission’s progress and our next steps. As you know, this past summer, Dean Steele and Assistant Dean Chung refocused the school’s strategic planning efforts to put anti-racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion at the center of the school’s vision for the future. The AEDI commission was formed and tasked with identifying priorities and strategies to transform the school’s climate and culture and to firmly advance principles of anti-racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion in all areas of the school.
The commission met weekly throughout summer and fall, with participation from faculty, staff, and students from across the school’s four academic departments, Fowler Museum, Hammer Museum, and Center for the Art of Performance. The commission delivered a set of recommendations and a clear framework for the school’s five-year strategic plan in October. The UCLA Arts Strategic Plan 2025 organizes the work into three key areas with specific goals:
- Curriculum: create a culturally responsive learning environment by deconstructing Eurocentric and white-supremacist academic models by adopting inclusive curricula and pedagogies.
- Training and Professional Development: raise awareness about the impact that systemic racism has on the personal, academic, and public lives of those across our school community; provide concrete tools to address and mitigate racist behavior; and create and enhance professional development opportunities, including mentorships and internships.
- Structure, Accountability, Restoration, and Recruitment: identify ways to transform the school’s structure to establish and maintain protocols for accountability, transparency, and equity.
We have begun enacting this plan, working closely with the entire school community. Immediate actions include:
- School-wide AEDI Climate Assessment: this quarter, we will begin a school-wide AEDI climate assessment to better understand the perceptions, needs, and lived experiences of our students, faculty, and staff.
- Review of Admissions Processes: since this year began, all individuals involved in admissions reviews are now required to complete annual anti-bias training. We are also working with departments to introduce rubrics into the admissions process that work against bias and make the process more equitable.
- Classroom Climate and Curricula: the Faculty Executive Committee is exploring updates to teaching evaluation forms to take into consideration AEDI practices in the classroom and reviewing course proposals for AEDI-specific and allied curricular changes. Further conversations with students and faculty are needed to determine how best to support faculty in making their curricula more inclusive.
- Develop Schoolwide Training: a recommended training plan for TA’s and students will be developed by the end of winter quarter, we will hold a faculty training this spring, and plans for further training for faculty and staff will be forthcoming, pending the results of the schoolwide climate assessment.
- Amplify and Augment Fundraising Efforts: increase support for Black, Indigenous, people of color, and LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff. The development office will concentrate on raising funds for enhanced student aid and scholarships and all school AEDI initiatives.
- Communications and Storytelling: ensure a diversity of voices and viewpoints in internal and external communications initiatives, and expand storytelling around the lived experiences of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni from diverse backgrounds.
There is more to come. The School of the Arts and Architecture Strategic Plan 2025, which you can find on the school’s recently revamped Equity, Diversity and Inclusion page, is conceived as a guide and living document as we continue to learn more from the school-wide climate survey, better understand the school and campus financial outlook, consider strategic academic and programmatic aims, and chart a path forward as the university navigates through the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are grateful to our colleagues and collaborators on the commission and from across the school and welcome your continued feedback as we advance this work together. You can reach out to us anytime. We look forward to hearing from you.
Lauren Lee McCarthy
Interim Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
lmccart@ucla.edu
Amy Landau and Nikki Parrish
Co-Chairs, AEDI Commission
aedi@arts.ucla.edu
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