From September 2021 to February 2022, the Bloomingdale School of Music (BSM) engaged the team at Creative Generation to facilitate and document the work of its Diversity Task Force. During this time, the committed group of individuals comprising the Task Force authored a set of recommendations intended to inform the development of the organization’s next strategic plan.
Creative Generation Facilitators oversaw an integrated series of convenings, which incorporated community-building, knowledge sharing, and multi-modal pathways of engagement to elevate the most effective practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts and cultural/music education fields, while honoring the deeply powerful expertise of the Task Force members. From this experience, the facilitators and documentarians at Creative Generation offer a set of observations from the process of co-creation within the Summary Findings section of this report. They are itemized into five categories:
“What’s Going on?”, focusing on transparent communication;
Honoring Both the Musician & the Person, focusing on holistic organizational and social systems;
The Lifelong Learning, focused on the individual and collective growth of the BSM community;
Knowing Your Backyard, focused on engagement with the immediate community around BSM; and
We’re Here Because of Students, focusing on student voice and agency.
It is our hope, at Creative Generation, that BSM can continue to engage in reflective communal practices like this one in order to deepen their knowledge and find multiple access points to their learning about the complex topics presented throughout the intertwined set of recommendations.
