Strategies for Diversity and Inclusion in Postsecondary Dance: How Five Baccalaureate Programs are Recalibrating

ABSTRACT

The call for substantive curricular change in US postsecondary dance programs has taken on greater urgency since the racial and cultural divides of 2020, erupting within a landscape that included a global pandemic. In response, critical discussions are informing policies to counter academia’s embedded inequities as expressed through White, Western-centered curricula. Baccalaureate dance programs must determine how to actualize values encompassing diversity, equity, and inclusion, from course offerings and faculty hirings to entrance policies and performance opportunities. The authors examine how five dance major programs are meeting today’s societal and disciplinary shifts and the ways interdisciplinarity can support such efforts. The study reveals there is not one “best” path to decolonizing curricula. Yet, the authors found recurring strategies amongst this cohort of dance programs that successfully embrace the challenges put forward by today’s ever-changing world.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• curriculum
• diversity
• equity
• inclusion
• interdisciplinarity
• anti-racist pedagogy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Cohort Websites

San Francisco State University, School of Theatre & Dance

https://theatredance.sfsu.edu/bachelor-arts-dance

Slippery Rock University, Department of Dance

https://www.sru.edu/academics/colleges-and-departments/cla/departments/dance

Spelman College, Department of Dance Performance and Choreography

https://www.sru.edu/academics/colleges-and-departments/cla/departments/dance

University of Florida, School of Theatre & Dance

https://arts.ufl.edu/academics/theater-and-dance/programs/dance/

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dance Department

https://dance.wisc.edu

Notes

1. The previous project focused on baccalaureate degree requirements exclusively at institutions without graduate programs in dance. This limitation alleviated concern for possible tensions due to competition for resources between undergraduate and graduate programs. This focus remained for this current project.

2. Due to the nature of grounded theory approach, we regularly returned to each program’s website.

3. Unless otherwise noted, cited data are from each program’s website, with primary collection occurring between July 8 and December 10, 2022.