Black faculty promotes inclusivity and representation within VCUarts

Braxton Hare, Spectrum Editor 

VCU employs the highest percentage of Black full-time instructional faculty among Virginia universities with graduate programs, and at 6.7%, VCU’s percentage of Black tenured and tenure-track faculty is the highest among Virginia’s R1 institutions, according to the VCU September 2024 Academic Report.

However, as more students of color go to college, increasing faculty diversity is a critical step in creating a diverse and inclusive environment. A higher representation of faculty of color would help students of color feel seen, understood and confident to continue in higher education, according to forbes.com.

Gaynell Sherrod,  dance and choreography professor, said that having a representative staff and faculty is very important.

“I’m in a department where many of the students self-identify as Black or brown. Therefore, I think it’s important that students see themselves reflected in the classrooms and studios they learn and engage with,” Sherrod said.

Ensuring that there is a diverse representation of faculty develops more self-agency, autonomy and self-awareness for all students, according to Sherrod.

“All students should see folks in the classroom and the studios who represent them and what their field reflects,” Sherrod said.

Within her department, Sherrod facilitates coursework and discussions on what it means to be in the arts in a changing world. As the world shifts demographically, these conversations explore how those changes shape artistic expression and opportunities.

“I bring to the work my own background and experiences of being a Black woman. I’m immersed in my African American experience and heritage, and I bring all of that into the classroom with me,” Sherrod said. “If I were not to bring that into the classroom, if I were to try and pull that away, then I would do a self-erasure.”

Julian Glover, assistant professor of dance and choreography as well as, gender, sexuality and women’s studies, said that Black studies within the arts offer a critique of Western modernity at large.

“For me, being a Black professor in the school of the arts at VCU is an opportunity for me to show students the importance of recognizing the vast and myriad contributions of Afro-descendant people to the social, cultural, economic and political landscape of the United States,” Glover said.

Glover said they encourage their students to recognize and to lean into their own personal experiences.

“So many Black students have been taught that their experiences in a kind of academic setting don’t matter or are too queer, too different, you know, to really matter,” Glover said. “I show them that what many people have told them are likely their weaknesses are actually their superpowers.”

One of the most important things universities can do to make sure that Black professors have everything they need to succeed is to ensure access to both material and human resources, according to Glover.

“Material resources, I think, are pretty clear. We need funding to do these kinds of things. We need the right kinds of spaces. We need the right kinds of equipment,” Glover said. “But on the human resource resources side, we also need the support of other Black faculty to really help us kind of get through what it is the work we kind of do”

MK Abadoo, associate professor of dance and choreography and chair of Racial Equity, Arts and Culture Cluster, Thriving Communities Lab said, “I think that specifically for Black students, I’m able to be supportive to their unique or distinct experiences as students at VCU. Having diverse faculty allows students to feel seen and heard and represented.”

Abadoo works to create an inclusive and diverse environment inside of her classroom and provides an opportunity for students to not feel so isolated.

“There comes a point in this semester where I invite every student to do what I call a culture share,” Abadoo said. “Students bring in a story, recipe, share pictures, proverbs, whatever for them is a sustaining way of life.”

“Culture Share” is a principle that Abadoo learned from an anti-racist community organization known as the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond.

This activity builds connectivity and it supports deeper empathy and understanding when we know a little bit more about who we are in our background, according to Abadoo.

“I want Black students at VCU to feel permission to go to places where they feel valued, challenged artistically, respected and where it’s joyous, and where there is joy,” Abadoo said.

It is important to continue creating avenues and pathways for broad recruitment of Black and diverse faculty, and then providing the mentorship that Black faculty and especially all junior faculty need to succeed once they are at the institution, according to Abadoo.

“Remember to be bold. Be bold with your art,” Abadoo said.