A Message from FIDM's President

Dear FIDM Community, 

In my recent letter in response to the acts of racial injustice in our country, I shared with you our pledge to focus on efforts that make a real difference in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. 

Today, I want to report back to you on the work that we have done as a community over the past month, as well as the initiatives we are putting in place for the future.

• We have added additional workshops and student activities with the goal of promoting and celebrating diversity, and are reviewing our upcoming events to ensure that guest speakers and panelists truly represent the diversity inherent in our talented community. We hope you will join us on July 23rd for an online workshop, Amplifying Melanated Voices: A Conversation with Black Designers.
   
• Our Student Activities Team has been focusing on new ways to promote inclusivity and support all members of our community, from hosting a San Francisco campus virtual street fair on Juneteenth to supporting the launch of a new student club, the Black Student Union (BSU), on our Los Angeles campus.
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• We are looking across our curriculum, thoroughly evaluating the authorship and content of the textbooks we use as well as our syllabi, for opportunities to diversify. We are planning to restructure some of our art and fashion history courses to include topics such as the civil rights movement and the Harlem Renaissance, as well as more post-colonial and non-western perspectives.
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• The Dean of Education is collaborating with a diverse group of faculty members and students to develop a new 10-week General Studies course, “Perspectives in Diversity,” with the goal of exploring what it truly means to be an inclusive society.
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• Our librarians have compiled a growing collection of over 90 titles connected to systemic inequities and the movement for racial justice. We want to encourage the use of these resources to augment curriculum and classroom discussions, and for individual research. Learn more here.
   
• On our social media and blog, we have been committed to making sure that our posts speak to the diversity of our talented students, faculty, and alumni. 
   
• We are listening and engaging in solution-oriented dialogue by hosting a series of "Real Talks.” In a recent online discussion, "We See You: A Black Lives Matter Discussion," faculty members Mimi Su and Andre Barnwell, personal counselor Jessica Cattani, and a representative from student activities, Kirsten Mesa, conversed with students about Black Lives Matter and changes they would like to see at FIDM.
   
• We plan to host additional “Real Talks” next quarter, touching on topics our students want to discuss in a safe-space environment. Contact Student Activities to learn more. 

As we move forward, we are continuing to analyze our educational programs and our community engagement for more ways we can continue to make a difference, now and in the future, and we will continue to seek out and listen to the perspectives of our student population. 

We must not stop here. True change takes commitment and effort that goes beyond a news cycle. We ask every member of the FIDM Community to join us in combating racism in all its forms, with the goal of ending anti-Black bias and achieving racial equity, inclusion, and justice for all. 

Together, let’s help create the world we want to live in. 

Sincerely, 

Toni Hohberg
FIDM President