Diversity Initiatives
Visual & Performing Arts
The College of Visual and Performing Arts envisions being a cultural force in and for the arts, locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
The College of Visual and Performing Arts values and is committed to:
- Creativity, critical thinking, reflection, and innovation;
- Alternative ways of knowing, communicating, and understanding.
- Student-centered learning in the arts;
- Diversity of ideas, cultures, and experiences;
- Cooperation, communication, and mutual respect;
- Pursuit of excellence;
- Academic and intellectual freedom;
- Community service and leadership.
- Merit-based Academic Achievement Scholarships – recruitment, retention
Academic Achievement Scholarships are awarded at $1,000 per year and are available to continuing and transfer students. - Need-based H.Y. Price Scholarships – recruitment, retention
These $3,500 scholarships are awarded based on considerable financial need, character, and desire for education.
The College of Visual and Performing Arts’ goals are to recruit, retain, and graduate qualified and capable students with varied backgrounds and artistic interests.
The College of Visual and Performing Arts embraces and promotes diversity in individuals and perspectives and is committed to the educational and cultural needs of multiple populations. In addition, the units of Art, Music, and Theatre & Dance actively “pre-recruit” by including outstanding female and minority professionals among visiting artists, lecturers, and/or leaders of workshops in order to introduce these individuals to the excellent resources that Tech offers. In several instances, these visits have been instrumental in developing a broader pool of candidates for faculty position openings.
Faculty and students from different colleges and departments regularly work together on a variety of art events produced by the College, resulting in an annual performance and exhibition schedule rich in both diversity and collaboration. As a result, the College contributes cultural enrichment and enhances an understanding of the arts on campus, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The arts are a fluid, constantly changing field, and the richness of all the colors and textures of the world’s populations must affect the directions of our change.
For example, the college is collaborating with the School of Art, the Department of English, the President’s Special Assistant for Diversity, the annual Comparative Literature Symposium, and Dr. Feisal Mohamed to establish a Chicano/Chicana speakers series titled the Gloria Anzaldúa Memorial Lecture Series. Maria Fernandez, Ph.D., whose research explores connections among Latin American art, cyber-feminism, electronic media theory, and post colonial studies, provided the inaugural lecture on Strange Encounters: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s “Relational Architectures,” which examined recent interactive installations by the Mexican/Canadian artist in Austria, the Netherlands, Mexico City, and the United Kingdom. “Relational Architecture” is itself a global concept drawing from sources as diverse as Humberto Maturana’s and Francisco Varela’s writings on neurobiology and the relational objects of Brazilian neo-concrete artists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica; Lozano-Hemmer will represent Mexico in the forthcoming Venice Biennale.
The School of Music integrates diversity into every aspect of learning. It draws students worldwide who participate in shared communication when instruments play or voices sing, which creates instant rapport and mutual respect among students, faculty, and audiences. Students are exposed to music of diverse cultures with performances by guest artists from all over the world and also by participating in performances celebrating customs and musical styles from other places and times. This exposure to differing cultures is presented to a public comprised of thousands of patrons from the community. Musical talent also can be the key that opens doors of opportunity for the socially or economically disadvantaged.
An example of this commitment to diversity is the growth of jazz studies under the directorship of professor Brad Leali. His Jazz Ensemble concerts attract an audience more diverse than is usual in Lubbock, and have featured African American jazz greats such as vocalist Cynthia Scott, trumpeter Derrick Gardner, and Shelley Carroll from the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Following up on this opportunity, the School of Music has hired a part-time position to teach jazz improvisation, which has increased the ethnic diversity of its faculty.
Diversity is the cornerstone of all exhibitions and speakers series programmed by Landmark Arts for the School of Art and greater University community. The Exhibitions and Visiting Artists Committee which guides the selection of exhibitions and visiting artists and speakers is vigilant in seeking to assure that diversity of cultures, genders, sexualities, ideologies, and artistic media are presented in all Landmark Arts programming. In one recent year, twelve speakers were presented of which seven were women (one of them lesbian) and five were male. Among the twelve, three were Hispanics (one of them gay), one was African American and one was native Korean. Thus, a balanced assortment of culturally diverse perspectives was presented.
The School of Art also promotes understanding of differing cultures, that is, global civilizations of the past, in its art history courses and speakers. Ranging from preliterate to contemporary eras, recent offerings include those of Olmec, Mayan, Aztec, Post-Conquest, Colonial American, Greek and Roman, Italian, Flemish, Dutch, French, United States, African American, and Chicano/a cultures. These are examined in intellectually-diverse ways that incorporate traditional, contemporary, and/or experimental critical strategies and, thereby, promote transdisciplinary thinking.
The Fine Arts Doctoral Program is a one-of-a-kind program where students from 33 states and eight countries gain multidisciplinary knowledge in art, music, theatre and philosophy, then specialize in a specific area of visual or performing arts.
Art class teaches at an elementary school
For 11 weeks, the Art 3364 class teaches at a Lubbock elementary school composed of primarily minority students that does not have an art teacher.
Art class teaches and mentors to children
Art 3372 students teach and mentor to students from predominately minority elementary schools during a five to ten week after school program.
Art students teach incarcerated students
Art 4361 students teach incarcerated youth at minority and at-risk student sites for 10 to 12 weeks.
Dia de los Muertos celebration
Approximately 1,200 to 2,000 people attend talks, workshops, and exhibitions held during the School of Art Dia de los Muertos celebration.
Recruitment
School of Art faculty members visit South Texas College, University of Texas Pan American, Edinburg North High School, and Ideal Academy. The intent of the visit is to recruit from schools whose populations are largely underrepresented in the School of Art.
Music
Recruit in all Lubbock Independent School District high school music programs
Recruit all students to summer music camps
Recruiting posters and mailings to all schools in the state and at least three surrounding states
Initiatives in Honduras and Mexico that promotes recruitment of students
Two Music faculty members, along with a graduate student from Honduras, travel throughout Honduras, taking supplies and instruments to students, and teaching many older students to be teachers. A Music faculty member and a graduate student from Mexico have traveled to various locations in Mexico, performing in concerts and master classes. Through both initiatives, prospective high quality students are identified.
College of Visual and Performing Arts Scholarships support talented individuals of all types: