Tag: World Cafe Live

No. 43 • 2021-09-27

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B.PHL Festival 2021

The B.PHL Innovation Festival is back this week (Sept. 29 – Oct. 1)!  This third year of B.PHL is a hybrid event: the full program will be streamed online, but most sessions will be presented before a limited, in-person audience (proof of vaccination required). The program celebrates innovation in all its forms (technology, arts & entertainment, education, social justice, healthcare, and more), and this year features such well-known speakers as CNN’s Don Lemon, Grammy Award-winning artist Eve, and 76ers President Daryl Morey. Registration is free for both virtual and in-person attendance!

I am very excited to host a conversation with renowned tech blogger, podcaster, and Drexel alumnus, John Gruber. He is the creator of the highly influential blog, Daring Fireball, read by millions each month. He is also host of the podcast, The Talk Show and co-host of Dithering (with Ben Thompson). And he’s also the inventor of the ubiquitous Markdownlanguage, used by platforms like Slack, GitHub, and Discord for formatting. This “fireside chat” will cover his career trajectory in Philadelphia, including reflections on the city as a hub for technologists and independent creators. We will discuss his views on the “1000 true fans” approach to building a business and his advice on curating one’s own content and developing an audience. It’s sure to be a fascinating conversation for anyone interested in the future of tech, design, and innovation! Our session is Thursday, September 30, 2:15-3:00pm and (free) pre-registration is required (more on that below).

Some other B.PHL sessions also feature Drexel presenters:

  • Hi! We’re Your Creative and Entrepreneurial Mindsets. Let Us Help Inspire Your Innovation (Sept. 29, 2:15pm): My colleagues Liza Herzog, Dr. Barrie Litzky, and Charles Sacco (Close School of Entrepreneurship) and Dr. Larry Keiser (School of Education) will lead a discussion about the power of creativity in entrepreneurship and help participants identify their own creative and entrepreneurial strengths.
  • Transforming Organizational Culture Through Inclusive Communications Strategies (Oct. 1, 11:30am): Faith Kellermeyer, assistant director of Digital Strategy and Design at Drexel’s College of Computing & Informatics, will co-host a workshop about how organizations can use social media to respond to social change and support antiracist causes.

The festival is packed with great speakers and sessions, so take a look at the full program at BPHLFest.com. To attend sessions, either virtually or in-person, you must sign up on the website for a B.PHL ticket (it’s free!). Important note: To participate in-person at Location215 (990 Spring Garden), you must also pre-register for each session you wish to attend to save your seat (occupancy is highly limited to allow for social distancing). And remember that proof of vaccination will be required at check-in.

Hope to see you there!

New term, new schedule! For Fall 2021, I’m going to try to publish the newsletter on alternating Mondays (there will be some adjustments for holidays).

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Dear Evan Hansen Medley [Jared Halley, feat. Peter Hollens] Great arrangements and performances of my favorite tunes from the hit Broadway show (and movie, which just premiered).
  • La voix humaine [Opera Philadelphia Channel] A new film of one of opera’s most powerful monodramas, starring acclaimed soprano Patricia Racette. Described by composer Poulenc as “a musical confession,” it’s the story of one woman as she grapples with grief, denial, and anger in the face of unrequited love, all shared through a one-sided telephone call.
  • Re-Opening Party w/ SnackTime & Deborah Bond [World Cafe Live] Yes, live music performance venues are re-opening! (Proof of vaccination required.) Really glad to see this event and upcoming acts on the calendar at our neighbors in University City!
  • Goldeneye [VOCES8 ] In honor of the new Bond film coming out in less than 2 weeks, here’s the theme from one of my favorites in the series. Our friends VOCES8 will also be touring North America in October (see here for dates and locations).

What I’m creating…

I wrote about the Minecraft Drexel Build last week. I am hosting a virtual information session and building tutorial for the project later today (Mon 9/27) at 5pm (on Zoom). All those interested can register here. (The session will be recorded for those who can’t make it.)

No. 38 • 2021-07-09

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3…2…1… Launching Podcast!

I’m pleased to announce the official launch of So Where Do We Go From Here?, my new podcast with Melinda Steffy! In this series, we talk to members of Philly’s creative community about what they’ve learned during the pandemic and what changes are informing their efforts moving forward. By sharing experiences and ideas for the future, we hope to highlight pathways and opportunities to find creative solutions for the many challenges we still face, individually and collectively.

In our inaugural episode, we speak to the amazing Dr. Natalie Nixon about the year that’s been and how creativity is critical for where we go from here. Natalie is a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker, and author of the award winning The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation and Intuition at Work, and her work has been featured in Forbes and in Fast Company. As president of Figure 8 Thinking, LLC she advises leaders on transformation—by applying wonder and rigor to amplify growth and business value. A hybrid thinker, Natalie consistently applies her background in cultural anthropology and fashion. She began her career in education and as a hat designer. Dr. Nixon was a professor for 16 years and is an early-stage investor at two social impact ventures. She’s valued for her ability to work at the intersection of commercial value and stakeholder equity.

We also posted a bonus episode, our “rehearsal” session with renowned theater director and producer David Bradley. The audio for this episode is a bit uneven (my apologies to David… we were still experimenting and learning the best ways to record the podcast). But it’s another thoughtful conversation about the performing arts during the pandemic and where we go, on stage, from here.

To listen and subscribe to our show, follow the link for your preferred podcast player or visit our podcast home page:

We’re thrilled to share these conversations with our Philly community and beyond, and we hope that others also find them as interesting, informative, and inspiring as we do. Later this month, we’ll be speaking to hip hop artist and educator, Steve Tyson (a.k.a. ELLECT) and Michele Sipics of Accenture Technology Innovation. Look for new episodes every two weeks, and follow us on Twitter or Instagram for updates!

If you have suggestions for potential guests for the show, please drop me a line.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Ten Times Virtual Choirs Stole the Show [Stay At Home Choir] A compilation of fantastic virtual choral  performances. Virtual choirs started well before the pandemic, and I fully agree such projects will continue to be impactful in the future, even after constraints on in-person singing are lifted.
  • Tech As Art: Supporting Artists Who Use Technology as a Creative Medium [National Endowment for the Arts] Last issue, I linked to the launch event for this report. Now here’s the full report, along with 10 companion essays from art practitioners. Recommended reading for everyone in the art-technology intersection.
  • Calculus Green [Prof. Robert Ghrist] I’m a big fan of these well-produced and visually stunning video textbooks for U. Penn’s calculus courses.This latest series is for those with some basic calculus who want to go deeper. Speaking from experience, I know these take an insane amount of work to produce!
  • Live from London – Summer 2021 [VOCES8 & Friends] Last summer’s virtual festival was a much-needed infusion of beautiful live vocal music from some of the world’s leading vocal groups. It’s back this summer with even more concerts and ensembles! (Streaming through August, via season pass or purchase individual performances.)
  • Minecraft Theme, a cappella [Maytree] The Korean singing group, known for lending voice to technology, drops another popular video game soundtrack. This one is particularly timely for me (see below).

What I’m creating…

We’ve already completed three weeks of our Young Dragons Summer STEAM camp. Here are some highlight videos from the first two weeks:

What I’m creating… (bonus)

The Apple Distinguished Educators (ADE) 2021 Festival of Learning is next week! This free weeklong virtual conference is hosted by teachers, for teachers.

Many sessions are open to all, including Beyond Virtual Ensembles, my workshop with fellow ADE Ellen Fishman on Wednesday, July 14 at 10am (Eastern):

Over the past year, music educators pursued projects using virtual ensembles to continue instruction and performance. These projects combine individual recorded performances into a group video performance. Though we are all excited to return to in-person music making, we believe there are many lasting benefits to virtual music ensembles, including more individualized instruction and feedback, collaboration with other schools and organizations, and the potential for very large scale works. Virtual projects introduce new opportunities for creativity, beyond live performance, introducing new media skills that may benefit students in their pursuits beyond music.

The process of producing virtual performances, however, remains challenging. We will share our experiences and offer a tutorial of best practices developed over the past year to get your virtual projects to the finish line.

No prior music experience is required. To join us for the session, click here to register. Hope to see you then!

Bonus Episode: David Bradley

So Where Do We Go From Here podcast

In this bonus episode, we chat with renowned theater director and producer, David Bradley, about performing arts during the pandemic and where we go from here on the stage.

Our apologies, the audio for this episode is a bit uneven (it was one of our practice sessions, and we were still figuring out the best ways to record for the podcast).

David Bradley brings decades of experience as a producer, theater director, writer and arts educator. Throughout his career he has specialized in boundary-crossing artistic collaborations frequently exploring civic and community themes. He’s a long-time member of the resident ensemble at People’s Light, where he’s directed over 30 productions, including The Diary of Anne Frank, The Crucible, Young Lady from Rwanda, Doubt, and The Giver. He is the producing Director of Arts & Learning at World Cafe Live. David teaches at Arcadia University and is a graduate of Yale University, and in 2020 received a Leadership Award from the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia, which recognizes individuals who demonstrate remarkable leadership, exceptional innovation, and a commitment to the community in Philadelphia.

Listen here or subscribe

Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player

No. 34 • 2021-05-07

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My Year of Creating at a Distance

This newsletter debuted almost exactly a year ago today (issue No. 1 was posted May 6, 2020). I started it because, despite the restrictions of the pandemic, I was witnessing incredibly creative work enabled and taking new form via technology. Some of these works inspired me to do everything I could to remain creative and productive, whatever the constraints of social distancing. I think it’s important for each of us to reflect on our efforts over this period, so here’s some of what I’ve created over the past year:

Group a cappella videos

Solo a cappella videos

Participated in several large online choir productions. Here’s my favorite:

Crafted a song in Minecraft

Music jam videos with my research lab

Developed videos and interactive content for 3 online classes

More online talks and workshops than I can remember. Unfortunately, most are not available for streaming, but here are a few:

Co-created a live talk mini-series, Creative Conversations for a Changing World (with Jessica Zweig, Play On Philly)

Developed an iOS app to help people participate in virtual choir projects.  I also released an Android version, but it turned out to require much more time and attention than I can give it, and I won’t be able to maintain it in the future (sorry Android users).

Developed a text-based markup format for music lyrics + chord charts

Web apps on the OpenProcessing platform (written in P5.js)

As we gradually transition back to in-person interactions from a year+ of social distancing, this newsletter will also evolve. I will, of course, continue to highlight and share my thoughts about novel creative work enabled by technology. My posts will remain a mashup of arts, tech, equity, and just plain cool stuff, but I’ll try to highlight efforts that build upon the learnings of the past year. Heading into the summer, I feel a growing sense of optimism, and I look forward to what happens next!

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Sogno di Volare [Stay at Home Choir] The latest massive choral collaboration by our friends in London, featuring 3600 singers with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing this stirring anthem by composer Christopher Tin. The organization is also launching a new album project, featuring 5 large scale collaborative performances.
  • Behind the Scenes of the Strings On-Line installation [RITMO – University of Oslo] I linked to this experimental installation of self-playing guitars last summer. Here is a short film about how it was put together.
  • Bridging the Distance: Folk Music, the People’s Music [World Cafe Live Education] Our friends from World Cafe Live have adapted one of their Bridge Sessions for young audiences as a virtual celebration of the diversity, themes and spirit of folk music from a variety of cultures. Featuring teaching artists Elena Moon Park, Joe Tayoun and Ami Yares, the program is aimed at students in grades 2-6.
  • Villanova A Cappella Palooza [Villanova University] Livestream recording of their in-person (outdoors) festival, featuring all 8 student a cappella ensembles. Glad to see they were able to make a live performance work safely. Live music is coming back soon!

What I’m creating…

See above 😀

More seriously, I have several new projects in process right now: music, tech, videos, and even a livestream conversation series. I’m just tied up with the end of the academic year, so I’m looking forward to summer to launch some of these efforts. Of course, I’ll post things here when they’re released!

No. 25 • 2020-12-16

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Making some space for joy

I’m a sucker for holiday performances. In my years with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, I sang too many Boston Pops Holiday concerts to count (imagine forcing that holiday cheer, again and again… for 12 performances in 10 days), and I get the cynicism of the season, especially in this annus horribilis. But ever since moving to Philly I’ve missed participating in holiday concerts, and this year, without the opportunity to gather socially, the loss of in-person performances feels particularly poignant.

Despite our current restrictions, many arts organizations are producing new content for this holiday season and delivering it a variety of novel ways. This issue highlights my picks for viewing and listening (some free and some paid), coming from Philly and from afar, that I’m particularly interested in checking out over this holiday break.

I’ll leave you with the immortal words of Francis Xavier Cross (Bill Murray from the 1998 classic, Scrooged):

“It’s Christmas Eve! It’s… it’s the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we… we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be. It’s a… miracle. It’s really a sort of a miracle. Because it happens every Christmas Eve…

If you believe in this spirit thing, the miracle will happen and then you’ll want it to happen again tomorrow. You won’t be one of these bastards who says “Christmas is once a year and it’s a fraud”, it’s NOT! It can happen every day, you’ve just got to want that feeling. And if you like it and you want it, you’ll get greedy for it! You’ll want it every day of your life and it can happen to you! I believe in it now! I believe it’s going to happen to me now! I’m ready for it!

Frank Cross

Happy Holidays!

Holiday (Socially) Distant Creations

  • A Philly Pops Christmas: Spectacular Sounds of the Season [The Philly Pops, pictured above] The organization undertook great efforts to recordthis year’s holiday concert at The Grand Opera House in Wilmington. Music Director David Charles Abell welcomes back Broadway star Mandy Gonzalez (Hamilton reference!) for her third Christmas with the POPS. Performances are streamed daily for free (Dec. 18 – Jan. 1), as a gift from the Philly Pops to all!
  • The Hip Hop Nutcracker, recorded live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. This holiday mash-up is a contemporary dance spectacle set to Tchaikovskyʼs timeless music. A unique and joyful event, this production set in New York City is performed by a supercharged cast of a dozen all-star dancers, a DJ, a violinist, and MC Kurtis Blow (!), who opens the show with a short set ($25, streaming performances every evening at 7pm, Dec. 15 – Jan. 3).
  • Love in the Park [Opera Philadelphia Channel] This 5-episode “musical loveletter to Philly” features 16 members of the Opera Philadelphia chorus, conducted by Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden and accompanied by pianist Grant Loehnig, performing beloved opera arias and choruses alongside musical theater selections. While not explicitly holiday-themed (it was filmed in Dilworth Park in September, hence the scenes with beautiful weather), I think it still fits perfectly with the season. Available now via the Opera Philadelphia Channel (available now: $15 for 7 days of access, or get a season pass to watch all channel content for the year).
  • Live from London – Christmas [VOCES8 and many friends] A holiday sequel to this summer’s fantastic Live from London vocal festival, with 16 concerts featuring a starry line-up from the UK, the US and across Europe. It’s truly some of the best vocal music you’ll ever hear, from the Choir of Westminster Abbey to the phenomenal Take 6. The festival also supports the VOCES8 Foundation’s global message of music education for all (December-January, $100-150 to stream concerts through Jan. 15).
  • World Cafe Live – House Concerts [World Cafe Live] This series features 8 streams over 2 weeks (one each night Wedesday-Saturday, beginning Dec. 9 and ending Dec. 19). The lineup is all WCL regulars – artists who have played our stages many times over the years, some of whom would be doing holiday shows at the venue around this time. These are pre-recorded sets from the artists’ home setups (free to watch, but donations which will be split between the artist & WCL)
  • A Christmas Celebration with John Rutter [The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra] World-renowned English composer and conductor John Rutter, celebrated vocal group VOCES8 and a stellar line-up of special guests, and the many thousand voices of the Stay At Home Choir, all join the RPO for this unique online performance (£10, available through Dec. 22).
  • Global Ode to Joy [Live with Carnegie Hall] A global celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, with artists of all disciplines to share videos that inspire joy (including a unique collaboration between our Philadelphia Orchestra and digital artist Refik Anadol). Also features a new English setting of the Ninth Symphony’s Ode to Joy by former US poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, with the thousands of voices of the Stay at Home Choir (free to stream).
  • A Soulful Christmas [Kimmel Center] The annual Soulful Christmas choral concert, featuring hundreds of choir singers from area churches, will be an online program this year with hosted by music director Dr. J. Donald Dumpson and WDAS radio DJ Patty Jackson, with special guest Bishop Norman Hutchins. Honoring the tradition, on Dec. 20 they will share recordings of previous performances as a live broadcast on WDAS(105.3 FM) at noon and via an on-demand stream.
  • The Prom [Netflix] I love an unapologetic song and dance show (this is a movie version of the Broadway hit musical). While it’s not super-deep (nor holiday-themed), the feel-good spirit certainly fits with the season. Directed by Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee, so if you can imagine an episode of that show with Meryl Streep, Kerry Washington, and Nicole Kidman, it’s pretty much this.

What I’m creating…

I’ll return to my holiday lights project later… In the meantime, here’s one of my musical projects for the holiday season. I performed this many many times as a member of the Stanford Fleet Street Singers, though usually with a group… not by myself!

Hope it brings you some joy!

No. 22 • 2020-11-04

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We can do this better

Another sleepless election night and incredibly close race. You’d think that 230+ years into our democracy, the fundamental process of voting would be reliable, robust, and routine. But as recent elections have demonstrated, for many the process of voting is not routine, nor is it easy. Elections are perhaps the single greatest collaborative act, and anything involving 130M+ people is going to have a great deal of complexity. Given the increasingly high stakes and close margins, how can we ensure that future elections are not as susceptible to misinformation, confusion, and disenfranchisement?

I made the decision to cast a vote in person on Election Day. Actually, I requested and received a mail-in ballot for both the Pennsylvania primary and general elections. I believe in mail-in balloting… as states like Oregon and Washington have demonstrated it is normally reliable, secure, and robust to interference. But over the past few months we’ve seen outrageous efforts to disrupt a straightforward process: crippling the US Postal Service to increase uncertainty of delivery, monitoring of drop boxes to intimidate those trying to avoid those delivery uncertainties, and legal efforts to block any pre-processing of mail-in ballots to delay the count (to delegitimize those votes). This is what ultimately persuaded me to cast an in-person ballot using an electronic voting machine (with printed verification), after voiding my mail-in ballot. I wanted to make certain that my vote would be counted as quickly as possible on Election Day. (Voting early in Pennsylvania was equivalent to mail-in voting, meaning those votes would be counted more slowly.) And as we’re seeing now, the morning after, the in-person tabulated vote is showing a vastly different picture of our state (with Trump far ahead) than the close outcome likely after a full count of all mail-in/early votes. Unfortunately, this has already opened the door to ridiculous claims of impropriety, playing upon people’s impatience and fear. (And yes, it is very concerning how close this election is, but that’s a topic for another time.)

So why is this so difficult?  Well it’s a complicated problem, with countless variations and nuances on an enormous scale.  One would think that technology could help in this situation, and it does (mostly behind the scenes in the tabulation of results and the rapid aggregation of counts across districts, counties, and states). But if our bank accounts, credit cards, and Amazon purchases can live on our devices and “in the cloud”, shouldn’t we be able to vote that way? There are very good reasons we don’t (current technology would make elections even more susceptible to hacking overall), but the widespread perception is that voting should be easier. And within some people these difficulties kindle misplaced suspicions, misguided assertions of fraud, and ridiculous vote-stealing conspiracy theories.

The reason it’s so easy for us to interact, transact, and just act out much of our lives online is that there have been massive investments by tech companies in developing and refining that infrastructure. We see something we like, provide a quick authentication with our fingerprints or faces, and we make payment and receive our goods, sometimes even on the same day. Much effort has been made into making the User Experience (UX) as smooth and painless as possible that it also makes us feel that everything should be so easy. 

A substantial amount of industry resources go towards recruiting top technical talent graduating from Colleges and Universities. Yes, many of the world’s greatest young minds devote their talents towards making it easier for us to shop. Why aren’t we putting the same amount of investment into advancing the voting process, efficient tabulation, and election security?  It would seem to be the ultimate UX problem, one that the very future of our society depends upon solving.  Well, if you’re a good computer scientist or UX designer you’re not going to make Google or Facebook money by working on voting infrastructure. But that’s what’s needed… the very best UX designers, coders, and cybersecurity experts working to advance the most integral process of our democracy. 

We need a way, beyond individual altruism, to incentivize the country’s brightest minds to work on this. There are longstanding models like the Peace Corps, Teach for America, the armed forces, and AmeriCorps, that subsidize education for a commitment to service. I propose a DemocracyCorps, dedicated to ensuring that everyone can vote and that every vote counts. Graduates would commit to 2 years of working towards improving the electoral process (making technical improvements, combined with voter engagement and expansion efforts). Given the exceedingly high (and rising) costs of higher education, it would create lucrative career pathways for a broader and more diverse representation of students (especially in fields like computing). Tech companies could (and should) also offer 1-year sabbaticals to current employees to work on election systems (it’s really the least they could do given the social media-fueled mess of the last few elections). An additional incentive would be the chance to work with (and recruit from) DemocracyCorps graduates.

So here we once again, sleep-deprived and anxious, awaiting the results of a far-too-close election. While there’s no perfect system for voting, at the least we should be trying harder to improve the process. Much effort is put into making our devices into essentially addictive slot machines. Let’s turn that energy towards something much more important: making our elections truly reliable, robust, and routine.

I’ve shifted the newsletter to a bi-weekly schedule,
a pace that I hope is sustainable for the long term.
My next newsletter will be posted on November 18.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Philadelphia Lullaby Project [World Cafe Live] Beautiful new lullabies written by Philadelphia-area parents and caregivers with songwriters/teaching artists from the area. Created in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.
  • Decrypted By Us: A community by and for students from groups underrepresented in Computer Science. They make videos that represent and speak to underrepresented CS students to encourage them to pursue their interests and goals. 
  • Beyond the Sea [VOCES8 Scholars] A virtual collaboration of UK and US singers participating in VOCES8’s training program. Missed this a few months ago when it premiered, but it’s a great arrangement of Bobby Darin’s classic. 
  • 17 Players in Five States, Composing Over the Internet [NY Times] A peek behind the scenes of the modern music ensemble Alarm Will Sound’s process of working with composer Tyshawn Sorey to record his Autoschediasms.
  • E.T. Theme [Samara Ginsburg] The latest of her virtual collaborative cello performances… I think we could all use a little nostalgia and inspiration today.
  • Dear Theodosia [Hamilton cast members] Another virtual performance from the musical, featuring those Burrs and Hamiltons from the different productions. They’ve covered much of the show in virtual performances… I look forward to the virtual rendition of Farmer Refuted 😉
  • Pachelbel’s Chicken [YouTube] This is a few years old, but it’s just that kind of day…

What I’m creating

I don’t intend to always focus this section on Virtual Chorister app announcements, but I do have a big update for iPad in the works… The next version will allow you to load and view a musical score alongside following and recording videos. The new version will be available in the App Store within a week. 

Virtual Chorister for iPad with score view… Coming soon!

No. 6 • 2020-06-10

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Watch Reflections on the Color of My Skin, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, renowned Astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium, or read his essay.

#ShutDownSTEM / #ShutDownAcademia and #TheShowMustBePaused (Blackout Tuesday)

I have built my professional career on the many positive connections between the Arts and STEM (science, tech, engineering, math). But another link between the two is a blindness to systemic inequities and exclusionary practices. Ironically, both areas also proclaim (embarrassingly loudly, at times) to be about progress and the future. But any tradition built almost entirely on white privilege will, by default, propagate its founding structures. In order to change, we must actively pursue a different course and resist defaulting to the cultural norms of each discipline, tacitly approving institutionalized racism.

The tech industry is rightly receiving enormous criticism right now because of the gross underrepresentation of Black and Latinx people among employees and leadership and the incredible hypocrisy of idolizing a “meritocratic” culture while accumulating enormous financial gains for an increasingly smaller and less diverse group of people. I’m fairly certain no tech founder goes into entrepreneurship with the goal of promoting discrimination… They want to solve problems and build successful businesses, and week to hire the “best” people to achieve those goals. But let’s stop kidding ourselves: It’s not a meritocracy. The tech centers and the college campuses that business and hiring networks draw from are themselves highly exclusionary.

Ah, college campuses. Having been part of higher education nearly all my adult life, I will say that we get an ‘F’ in advancing equity and inclusion. Academics, particularly in STEM, love to use the “rationality” of science and engineering to blind us to the actual discrimination that we are complicit in. Representation, particularly in the high growth fields, like computing, is no better (in some ways, ven worse) than 15-20 years ago.

Again, I don’t believe that’s intentional, but an outcome of an academic culture that is slow to change and where so many perversely believe themselves to be adhering to purely “meritocratic” ideals. Academic rigor, peer review, mountains of prerequisite knowledge, and accreditation “requirements”, are just forms of hazing that disproportionately exclude those from non-white, non-male backgrounds.

In the arts, recall that symphony orchestras employed very few women until they moved to blind auditions (literally, musicians would audition behind a screen) and still employ very few Black and Latinx musicians. It’s still “news” when a lead instrumentalist, opera singer, or ballet dancer is Black. It reminds me of when there were “serious” discussions of whether a Black quarterback could succeed in the NFL, which now seem ridiculous. There are still many many issues with the NFL (mostly having to do with an incredibly exclusive group of uber-wealthy owners), but as a society we’ve moved passed that one. (Unless you start a serious, thoughtful protest movement, in which case you’ll never work in football again.) Still a long ways to go.

Both the Arts and STEM ought to be better aligned with popular culture. While the music industry is far from equitable, Hip Hop has become the predominant popular genre. The film industry is terrible, but #OscarsSoWhite is having an impact. People, not a self-selected exclusionary group, should be the drivers of knowledge, culture, and expression. The Arts and STEM should skate to where the puck is going, and embrace a much more inclusive future.

As with last week’s #TheShowMustBePaused (Black Tuesday), I fully support #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, and this will be my only post today. This is a day for all institutions to take an honest look at themselves and their practices. A day for each of us to look in the mirror to ask “Have I done all that I can”? A day for us to commit to being on right side of history. I’ll see you tomorrow.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Reflecting on the Color of My Skin[MKBHD] Superstar tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s essay, shares his thoughts on being a black man in technology (and ultimate frisbee). Also check out his many links to black creators in the video notes.
  • #BlackInTheIvory[Twitter] A hashtag where Black colleagues share their experiences in academia’s “Ivory Tower”. See also a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  • Kill Move Paradise[Wilma Theater] Stream local playwright James Ijames’ 2018 work from June 8 to 21. The play is Inspired by the ever growing list of slain unarmed Black people by police in America. Viewers are asked to donate any amount of money they can to Black Lives Matter Philly.
  • A thread on why change is hard in academia[Daniela Witten] Twitter thread about the difficulties of moving beyond racist figures and traditions in higher education by Daniela Witten, Dorothy Gilford Endowed Chair & Professor of Statistics and Biostatistics.
  • BTS Fans Say They’ve Raised $1 Million for Black Lives Matter Groups[NYTimes] Fans of mega-popular K-Pop group BTS have directed tremendous support and attention towards #BlackLivesMatter.
  • “Share Love, Strength & One Core”[World Cafe Live and Mighty Writers] A new songs collaboration between Mighty Writers youth poets and World Cafe Live teaching artist Ami Yares, inspired by this unprecedented spring of 2020 and the theme of “Community.”

What I’m creating

In support of #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, I’m not posting any new creations today. I’ll be back with lots of new stuff next week!