UA School of Music Establishes “IDEA” Committee

Professor and Director, Skip Snead, has established a new standing committee that will exist (ongoing) in our School of Music. It is named the “IDEA” committee; the “Inclusion”, “Diversity”, “Equity”, and “Access” committee. This committee will have an open charge to discuss, assess, and take action as they see necessary in order to ensure that the University of Alabama School of Music does and always will offer the most open and accepting environment possible standing securely against any forms of racism or intolerance of any kind, whether overt, implied or perceived. This conversation is, and always will be extremely important and central to our mission.

The committee name is borrowed from Professor Jason Geary, a well respected colleague of Snead. Geary has been the Director of the School of Music at The University of Maryland and was recently appointed Dean for the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Our “IDEA” committee consists of 10 invited/appointed members including: 4 faculty members (2 senior, 2 junior), 3 alumni, 3 current students (one graduate student, two undergraduate students). The current established membership is:

Faculty: Dr. Alexis Davis-Hazell, (Co-Chair), Dr. Moises Molina, Dr. Susan Williams, Dr. Amir Zaheri, (Co-Chair)

Alumni: David Caddell, Zyda Culpepper Mellon, Joshua Williams

Students:  Malik Rowland (Graduate), Ashton Jah (Undergraduate), Korynn Hill (Undergraduate)

Work for the committee will begin immediately and will proceed as determined by the membership of the committee. Snead will not formally sit on this committee, but will rely heavily on its recommendations and advice.

Our School of Music community is invited to reach out to any one of the committee members, or the committee in its entirety, with thoughts, concerns, or “IDEA”s of any kind.