Dear CoPA Community,

The College of Performing Arts supports Black Lives Matter. We pledge to support the initiative announced by President Struppa to bring more faculty of color to Chapman. We are listening to the students and alumni sharing their stories and will continue to address the issue of racism with concrete steps.

We will start by bringing in artists and scholars of color as guest speakers throughout the year to engage our faculty and students and help guide us on this path; and by strengthening our efforts to hire faculty of color and to cast as wide as net as possible for all hiring. This is only a start.

CoPA is committed to enhancing our curriculum to further include topics of social justice. Just this past year, we devoted the theatre season to themes of discrimination and exclusion. However, whatever progress we might have made in some areas is not sufficient: we must engage strongly in these difficult conversations and find ways for the performing arts to be agents of change.

We need to create an environment at CoPA that is more diverse and inclusive for students, faculty and staff. We need to think how we can do better in everything we do and offer concrete actions.

We will announce more as our work continues and I sincerely hope you will all help me to move forward together.

Thank you,

Giulio Ongaro, Ph.D
Dean and Professor
College of Performing Arts