DEAI Update
Since the last update in April 2022, BGC has continued its DEAI efforts throughout the institution.

DEAI Working Group
BGC’s DEAI Working Group—Ebony Allen-Reece (staff), Daniel Chamberlain (student), Emma Cormack (staff, MA ‘18), Freyja Hartzell (faculty, MA ‘05), Jesse Merandy (faculty), Sebastian Moya (staff), Alexis Mucha (staff, MA ‘07), Antonio Sánchez Gómez (alumnus, PhD ‘20), Samuel Snodgrass (student), Drew Thompson (faculty), Leonie Treier (student), and Maggie Walter (staff)—have met multiple times since April to continue their work on diversity, equity, access, and inclusion at BGC.

The Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning subgroup (Freyja Hartzell, Jesse Merandy, Samuel Snodgrass, Drew Thompson) presented their DEAI teaching and learning resources website at the Graduate Council Meeting this past spring to introduce the project and to solicit feedback. They are now actively developing a phase-two strategy to broaden and build from that work. This will include adding the contributions of resources from the other working groups, and establishing an online archive of work done by this and past DEAI groups. The latter will help document the cumulative DEAI efforts at BGC and act as a resource for future members of the group.

The Gallery/Exhibitions subgroup (Ebony Allen-Reece, Emma Cormack, Alexis Mucha, and Maggie Walter) is continuing to focus on gallery accessibility following the opening of Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. After conducting a survey of accessibility needs from various BGC departments, work this fall included developing large-print gallery labels, improving the building’s accessible entrance, and the ongoing development of a gallery accessibility best-practices handbook. The group also met with BGC’s Alumni Exhibitions Committee for feedback about the Gallery’s upcoming exhibition schedule, which will be the group’s focus this coming spring.

The Student Experience subgroup (Daniel Chamberlain, Sebastian Moya, Antonio Sánchez Gómez, and Leonie Treier) is planning to share a survey with new students soon and is developing a protocol for gathering data from one-on-one meetings with students. They will work on analyzing their existing data, and they hope to present the cumulative data next semester after integrating this semester’s survey results.

Next Steps
The full DEAI WG will meet in December to discuss overall goals and subgroup progress. The subgroups will meet monthly to continue their individual work.