The efforts of UW-Madison administrators to create a more diverse campus have been aided recently by accomplishments made within the Department of Theater and Drama.
The department, chaired by James Moy, has been successful at recruiting and retaining a more diverse faculty.
'The professors and school and the student body should be reflective of the greater world,' said Baron Kelly, a UW-Madison doctoral candidate studying the effect of an African American on Norwegian theater. 'My hopes for the diversity in the theater department is that it becomes the norm, and not a special issue.'
Moy said the theater and drama department's main accomplishment has been the successful recruitment of students of color, which he said was the result of a more diverse faculty.
Kelly said he hopes diverse casting will encourage other UW-Madison departments to aim to diversify their own faculty and students.
One of the keys to the diversity in the theater and drama department has been interacting with the Madison community, Moy said. The department encourages students to travel into the community to work with elementary school students, he said.
'We need to let people of color know that they too can become a part of the representation of life in America,' Moy said.
He said he believed this can be accomplished by starting recruitment as early as elementary school.
Diversity among faculty and students at UW-Madison is an ongoing issue for the administration. A recent survey of 157 public universities by U.S. News and World Report showed that in student body diversity, UW-Madison ranks in the bottom 20th percentile. The survey also shows that UW-Madison is one of the only schools ranked in the top 50 for public universities that is also in the lower 20th percentile for diversity among students.
Moy said it is predicted that in the year 2050, people of color will be considered the majority of the population in the United States. Moy said he is ready to gear the department toward reflecting this change in both the students and faculty.
'I am committed to the idea of training talent to represent the majority of the future,' he said.
This year, five of the 17 tenure-track positions in the theater and drama department are held by people of color. Three years ago, there were only two faculty members of color in the department.
