Collaborative Arts Lab course engages with institutional history
By Sarah Murtaugh
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Originally posted in The Collegian
A collaborative arts course is being taught for the first time this spring to commemorate the University of Richmond’s institutional history. The class is part of a series of new courses being offered that is connected to the goals of the Making Excellence Inclusive report.
Collaborative Arts Lab: Dance, Humanities and Technology will be taught by theater professor Patricia Herrera and dance professor Alicia Díaz. Herrera and Díaz have both taught a number of performance-based classes that use art to engage with social justice issues.
As of fall 2019, the two professors have been part of a faculty cohort dedicated to “uncovering UR’s history and legacies.” The Office of the Provost created the cohort to engage students with UR’s legacies in light of research efforts regarding the school’s history of race and racism.
Professors Patricia Herrera (left) and Alicia Díaz pose for a portrait. Photo by Adam Loudin of The Collegian
Among these efforts include research led by Lauranett Lee, a public historian and current visiting faculty member of UR. This research seeks to uncover information regarding the possible burial grounds beneath campus, as well as information about Robert Ryland and Douglas Southall Freeman, who have campus buildings named after them. Ryland was the founder and first president of Richmond College, and Freeman was a Richmond College graduate.
The course is a part of the dance curriculum at UR but has never been taught before, Díaz said. After wanting to teach the class for over a year, she and Herrera decided now would be the best time to do so.
“[The course] aligned with the direction the university is taking, but it’s in line with the kind of thinking and the work we have been doing and envisioning,” Díaz said. “So in thinking what could be done in a course like this, we decided to collaborate and engage with this history that we were becoming aware of together.”
The course is expected to draw in students from a variety of disciplines including, but not limited to, dance, theater, American studies, women, gender and sexuality studies and music, Díaz said.