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Ralph Zito, chair of Syracuse University’s Department of Drama, has agreed to a series of demands from Black students in the program.

The demands, which 11 students signed, include removing pre-selected studio classes for second-year students and offering Black students at all course levels the opportunity to play three-dimensional Black characters written by Black playwrights.

Zito agreed to students’ demands for the department to provide Black students participating in SU Drama or Syracuse Stage productions with healthier options for styling their hair and to include conversations about race as a part of initial table and scene work.

“We’re pleased, excited and grateful to see this commitment from not only our faculty, Ralph, the chair, and also Dean Tick to implement these things to ensure the future, better experience of Black performance majors in this department,” said Isaiah Brooks, a senior acting major and a core organizer behind the demands.

The department chair also agreed to work with the Office of Enrollment and the Student Experience toward meeting a demand to ensure that people of color make up at least 40% of the entering Acting and Musical Theatre class.

In response to a demand for hiring an additional Black acting professor by the 2021-2022 academic year, Zito said the university’s current hiring freeze may temporarily preclude the department from making a full-time hire. In the interim, the department will work to hire Black visiting and part-time instructors to teach courses equivalent to the number taught by full-time faculty members.

The demands from the SU Drama students come after the program’s alumni and current students issued a call to action in June urging the department to address its “pervasive institutional racism.” The call to action, which has garnered nearly 700 signatures, includes pages-long accounts of racist incidents students have allegedly experienced or witnessed during their time at SU.

List of demands from Black SU Drama students signed by department chair by The Daily Orange on Scribd

The students issued the new demands because they wanted to address what many students have said is a lack of urgency from the department to address racism, Brooks said.

“It’s time that we make sure they hear our voices,” said Spencer Lombardo, a junior musical theatre major and core organizer behind the demands. “The call to action, the initial one, was great, but there are also things happening here that students, that our alumni wouldn’t know.”

SU’s Student Association also passed a resolution in support of the students’ demands at an Assembly meeting Monday night.

The #NotAgainSU movement served as an inspiration for the demands, Lombardo said. The movement, led by Black students, held two separate sit-ins last academic year to protest systemic racism at SU and the university’s response to a series of hate incidents on campus.

Chancellor Kent Syverud signed a list of demands presented by #NotAgainSU in November, and the university made further commitments to the movement after organizers occupied Crouse-Hinds Hall in the spring. The movement’s success in creating change at SU inspired the students to push for change in their own department, Lombardo said.

“We have power when we mobilize, as Black people,” Brooks said. “When we mobilize, there’s nothing we cannot do.”

Published on October 8, 2020 at 12:24 am

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu