Goal 3: Scholarship & Teaching

In keeping with its goal of connecting students with artists and designers from across the globe, the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan invited NYC-based performance artist Ayana Evans to be a Roman J. Witt Visiting Artist during the Fall 2020 semester. Internationally known for guerilla-style street performances that explore the body, race relations and gender bias, Evans has performed internationally at New York’s El Museo Del Barrio,the Barnes Foundation, arts festivals in Great Britain and Ghana and more. The visit was organized by Stamps professor Rebekah Modrak, who brought together cheerleaders from the U-M Cheer team, vocalists and actors from the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance and professional artists based in Detroit to bring Evans’ new performance to life on U-M’s Elbel Field. Stamps students in Modrak’s “Dressing Up and Down” course created costumes for the performance. With Evan directing remotely from NYC, the group created a video performance entitled You Better Be Good to Me.

“While there was planning done for the performance, there were also many decisions that had to be made on the day of filming, and I was really grateful that she put so much trust in us to deliver her message,” said Stamps senior Shannon Yeung (BFA ’21) of the collaboration with Evans.

The performance, which was supported by the U-M Arts Initiative, was featured at the 2021 U-M Reverend Martin Luther King Junior Symposium and can be viewed on vimeo and as part of Evans’ Penny Stamps Speaker Series talk.

In order to assure that social justice and anti-racism are focal points of its entire curriculum, SSW developed online, self-paced modules to help faculty explore Privilege, Oppression, Diversity and Social Justice (P.O.D.S.). These modules help to identify how to act to center justice in our society and classrooms. The Centering Justice modules consist of five lessons including: Centering Justice; Diversity and Positionalities; Privilege, Oppression and Intersectionality; Social Justice; and Act to Center Justice. Relevant aspects of Centering Justice were also included in the SW 590 course, Introduction to Social Work Practice, which is required for all incoming MSW students. In addition, the modules built on the principles presented in the SSW’s Undoing Racism workshop during student orientation. Together, these efforts provided our community with a common framework and shared language relating to privilege, oppression, diversity, social justice and anti-racism.

The Taubman College Student Group Coalition, composed of students and multiple student organizations, partnered with alumni to spearhead the Design Justice Actions Letter. One of Taubman’s largest student-led DEI activities to date, this initiative called on leadership, faculty, staff and students to dismantle the racist structures embedded within our institution. In response, college leadership and the DEI team developed a framework to accelerate progress and add new approaches to the current DEI plan. To date, all 12 actions are either completed or in progress. Most notable is the syllabus equity review led by a working group of architecture students and faculty. In all,15 working groups held 30 working group sessions with architecture faculty and students to review all core—and many non-core—courses for the Fall and Winter semesters. In urban planning, the department chair met with students multiple times to determine how best to partner with faculty in a syllabi equity review effort.