Faculty Affairs and Academic Programs
UCSB Arts+Racial Equity Commons Campus Communities of Practice Residencies (CPR)
UC Santa Barbara, 2021-2022
Project Principal Investigators
Kim Yasuda, Chair/Faculty, Department of Art (ART)
Laurie Monahan, Chair/Faculty, History of Art & Architecture (HAA)
Project Abstract
UC Santa Barbara proposes a three-year pilot for a “workplace climate intervention.” It provides the groundwork for a renewed ecology around the arts, culture and communities of practice to improve campus climate and retention through a reconceptualization of three arts research units within the Division of the Humanities and Fine Arts (HFA). As a pilot for an Arts and Equity Research Commons at UCSB, this project will include an Arts Administrative Support Center (AASC) that will be developed to support faculty through an interdisciplinary research commons to foster collaboration, intergenerational research mentorships, enhanced cultural programming and artists’ residencies across multiple arts and racial justice-focused departments and presenting venues at UCSB. In coordination with a campus DEI divisional initiative, “Racial Equity in the Arts and Creative Economy,” the project includes a working network of cooperative chairs, faculty and administrative staff committed to building upon collective research strengths, resources, programming and DEI strategic planning by each of their arts practice based departments to better align and leverage overlapping academic and curricular planning opportunities. The project is designed to include an artist in residence incubator program as a catalyst for leveraging existing units, staff and attendant programming as a demonstration model. The first year of the three-year intervention will be dedicated to strategic self-study, mapping of alignments in faculty, staff and student leadership and support personnel, curricular initiatives and program opportunities across the units.