An excerpt from our 2020 Virtual Conference from our President, Dr. Kyle Fleming.
On June 25, 2020 the CoACDA Board of Directors unanimously approved a proposal by CoACDA President, Kyle Fleming, to form a Task Force to address issues of racial equity and diversity within our shared profession.
The work of the Task Force will fall into four areas:
- An inward examination of Colorado ACDA (the organization and the culture) looking for infrastructures, policies, norms, procedures, etc. that foster and perpetuate racism in all its forms with the goal of making recommendations for change to the Colorado ACDA Board of Directors.
- Lead efforts to invite and challenge members of our shared profession to undertake similar examinations in their personal and professional spheres.
- Connect the Colorado choral community with partners and allies who can help guide us, equip us and inspire us to do the hard work of identifying and vanquishing racism from our classrooms, rehearsal halls and performance arenas.
- Assemble resources that are accessible, practical and relevant for asynchronous access via the CoACDA webpage.
Overview:
- The task force will have an initial two-year lifespan after which the Board of Directors will reassess.
- The Board of Directors has asked Katy Lushman to serve as the inaugural leader (chairperson) of the Task Force.
- Individuals interested in serving on the Task Force will be asked to walk through a short discernment process with the Task Force chairperson and members of the CoACDA Executive Team.
A note about the make-up of the Task Force…
We are encouraged by the initial outpouring of interest in the Task Force. It confirms that the ground is fertile for the work ahead. It is essential that the Task Force is poised to affect real change, one of the main determinants of which will be the team members themselves. To this end, we move forward with two main areas of discernment. First, while the Task Force must include diverse representation, it is not a “representative council” where individuals come to advocate for their own constituency, ethnicity, or people group. While these activities are admirable and needed, the Task Force needs to develop a collective conscience from which it can guide the profession as a whole which brings us to the second area of discernment regarding the make-up of the Task Force. Conversations and work around diversity and equity are, understandably, challenging and sometimes combustible. We bring our personal narratives to this work including places of hurt and healing. While it is not the role of CoACDA leadership to determine if an individual is capable of undertaking the work that lies ahead, with a sense of care and respect we do ask that interested persons pause and look within to make sure that it is the right time and season to be a part of the Task Force.
The taskforce has been notified/assembled. Please e-mail Kyle Fleming with questions.