The UNCSA Community

Good morning and thanks for being here. We’re already four weeks into what promises to be another challenging but immensely rewarding year here at the school of cool.

One month ago yesterday, I had the pleasure of sharing the podium with our new BOT Vice Chair, Erna Womble, and our student member, SGA President Greer Hutchison, as we welcomed college students at Convocation. Together with the provost and leaders of the faculty and staff councils, we delivered a unified message to students: We’re here for you. We’ll help you, guide you, protect you. We’ll keep you safe, and celebrate your successes. And when you fail, we’ll pick you up and set you back on course.

Now, I’m sure that at colleges and universities all across America, chancellors and presidents, board members and student leaders have said much of the same. But I’d like to think it’s more heartfelt at UNCSA. Ours is an unusually tight-knit community, so much closer than most, and many of us here are sensitive creative souls (myself included) whose success depends on being bold, taking risks, braving vulnerability, and facing judgment in every rehearsal, every performance, and every review.

At that podium last month, Provost English reminded us that Convocation means “to gather.” So this morning, as the board officially convenes for the first time in the new academic year, we’ll have our own Convocation of sorts. I’ll get us started by sharing a few themes from the remarks I delivered a month ago, and some inspiring ways our students and alumni live up to these institutional values.

First theme: Courage

It took great courage for our students to listen to the inner voice that led them to UNCSA, and many have overcome great challenges to be here. In the weeks and years that led up to their auditions, interviews, and portfolio reviews, they no doubt experienced a lot of second-guessing, self-doubt, and parental angst about the path they’ve chosen.

Studying economics or business is considered the sensible thing to do—the path to safety and security in this crazy world we live in. But there’s no such thing as job security anymore. What happens five years after graduation when the jobs these students “trained” for become irrelevant after the latest industry disruption, management shakeup, or economic downturn? Then what?

It’s hard even for me to tune out the overwhelming noise of critics and naysayers who want to defund the NEA, devalue arts education, and force an entire generation of students into narrow “job training” programs to make sure we have enough scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematicians.

But our students must fearlessly answer their artistic calling, learn to live with the reality of their creative souls, accept the highs and lows of their artistic temperaments, and honor their interests and innate talents whether they’re appreciated or approved of by others or not.

Here’s a great example of courage. Winston-Salem native and UNCSA alumna Nia Imani Franklin, who earned a master’s in music composition in 2017, recently competed in the Miss America Contest as Miss New York, and won! I remember standing at this very podium a few years ago, after a scholarship luncheon, talking to Nia about her plans to compete in North Carolina for Miss Durham. Talk about vulnerability—for all the debate about so-called “beauty pageants,” Nia mustered her personal courage to pursue a passion that put her in a national spotlight, as many of our graduates have done. And now she has a powerful platform to advocate for one thing she has always cared about most deeply, something very near and dear to the hearts of everyone at UNCSA, the guiding principle that has saved the lives and souls of so many of our nation’s youth: the value of the arts, of artists, and of arts education. We couldn’t be prouder of her.

Before she was Miss New York she competed for the Miss North Carolina crown, and she used her platform then to promote music education for underserved children. While at UNCSA, she was a member of ArtistCorps, an artist-driven AmeriCorps service program that places accomplished artists in public schools and community-based institutions to work with high-needs students. Upon receiving her master’s degree, Nia was awarded a Kenan Fellowship at Lincoln Center Education, and she began collaborating with a New York charter school organization to promote the importance of art education.

One thing you probably don’t know about Nia is the courage she has shown beyond the spotlight. When she was an undergraduate at East Carolina University, Nia underwent a stem cell transplant as a donor for her father, who has a rare form of lymphoma. At 18 years old, she seized the opportunity to save her father’s life.

That’s courage.

Second theme: Grit

You’ve heard me talk many times about the importance of grit. Angela Lee Duckworth, a teacher turned psychologist, defines grit as “the passion and perseverance for very long-term goals,” She has proven through extensive research that Grit — more than family income, social status, or even IQ — is the deciding factor in achieving success.

It takes grit to make it in the creative industries we serve. Here’s a great example:  High school Drama alumnus Orin Wolf, who produced the most celebrated musical of the year, “The Band’s Visit.” Orin’s grit led the show to Broadway, where it earned Tony awards in 10 categories. Becoming an overnight success took over a decade. The inspiration was an art film that Orin aspired to adapt into a musical; then he spent years finding the talent, scraping together the funding, and agonizing over every detail to realize his vision. And like Nia, he finally earned national recognition.

It also takes grit to make it at UNCSA. Consider, among the many inspiring stories I could share from across this campus, the backgrounds of just four of our William R. Kenan Excellence Scholars, who hail from as far away as Serbia and as near as Guilford County:

• Marta Djorović, a violist who began playing at the age of seven and has performed in benefit concerts to help flooding victims in southeastern Europe, as well as refugees from Syria and Afghanistan;
• Belle Le, an actor who sings, dances, plays the ukulele, is fluent in Vietnamese and basic French, and completed multiple advanced placement classes with a GPA of 4.1;
• Blaine McIndoe,  an actor and playwright turned filmmaker who already has contributed to public service announcements in New York City for Habitat for Humanity and a program that helps at-risk women find an alternative to incarceration;
• and Houston Odum, a stage manager who already has shadowed Cirque du Soleil nine times, has written and directed a production using 3-D video mapping projections, and holds a bronze medal in Juniors World Championship Juggling.

And then there’s Mariah Anton, the recipient of our most coveted prize, the Sarah Graham Kenan Scholarship. Mariah not only excels as a contemporary dance major with beautiful technique, strict discipline, and steadfast motivation, she also maintains a 4.0 GPA, serves the campus through the Student Government Association, Peer Mentors, Student Ambassadors, and Welcome Squad; and in addition to all that, she volunteers for her local YMCA and church youth programs in Long Island, N.Y.

As I’ve said before, UNCSA is the grittiest place I’ve ever been. 

Third theme: Belonging

Many of our students have struggled to fit in somewhere—like grade schools and high schools where standing out from the crowd attracted the wrong kind of attention. I speak from the personal experience as a kid who routinely and incredulously feigned illness to escape the humiliation of gym class, and sought the collusion of my grade school nurses to hide out for the hour with my sketchbook in the health services office.

So it truly prides me to say that UNCSA has never been a place for fitting in—it has always been a place for artists to belong, the kind of place that welcomes and embraces individuality, where showing up to class with pink hair, a leopard print dress, and bedazzled shoes is the norm.

You might be wondering about the difference between fitting in and belonging. Research professor and author Brene Brown interviewed a bunch of eighth-graders who described the distinction this way: “Belonging is being accepted for you. Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else.”  And also: “If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.” She goes on to define belonging this way: “True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”

Authenticity is one of our most sacred values, as exemplified by our beloved mascot, the Pickle. If our Pickle can rock a keyboard tutu and feel comfortable in pimply-looking green skin, then surely all of us, and each of our students can safely show up anywhere on this campus as who they are, too.

When I think of belonging and authenticity, I picture 2017 UNCSA High School alumna Hunter Schafer, a transgender student who graduated from the Visual Arts Program and was a Presidential Scholar Semifinalist. Today, she’s an artist, designer and model who has appeared in runway shows for Versace, Marc Jacobs and Helmut Lang, among many others. She’s also graced the cover of Teen Vogue as one of their 21 “Girls and Femmes Changing the World” Younger Than 21. Along with her incredible Raleigh family, I have to think UNCSA provided a supportive and nurturing environment that allowed her to flourish and BE HERSELF.

Fourth theme: Balance

While they’re here and at many times in their lives, our students will no doubt fall back into the terrible trap of defining who they are by what teachers, peers, critics have to say about them. As artists and students, they have to sell themselves and their work without selling out. That requires a great deal of exposure and—I can’t emphasize it enough—vulnerability. Along with praise, they’ll face tough criticism. And unless they have a heart of stone, they’ll take much of it personally.

Artists always have to hustle for applause, awards, positive reviews, and “likes” on social media. Every day, we have to prove our worth to those who want to cut funding, withhold support, question our motives, or diminish our work. We face stereotypes about our looks, our politics, our temperaments, and our job prospects.

So while they’re here, in this place apart, way-way-way off Broadway and far from the politics of Hollywood, I encourage our students not to give in to fear and insecurity, but instead to lean into it, to observe inner doubts and negative self-talk as passing storms, and an inevitable part of the creative process. The safety net and sense of belonging we provide at UNCSA allows students to embrace and make peace with vulnerability of being judged in the classroom before they go on to bare their creative souls to whole world. We must instill them with the courage and grit to thrive and persevere, no matter what career path they choose to follow.

This year I’m especially proud to announce that we’ve amassed additional resources to strengthen our safety net. With a Blue Cross/Blue Shield-funded grant from UNC System office, we are the fifth college campus in the state to receive consultation and training in mental health services from the JED Foundation, a nonprofit created to protect emotional health and prevent suicide by teens and young adults.

JED Campus is a nationwide initiative designed to guide schools in developing comprehensive systems, programs and policies with customized support to build upon existing student mental health, substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts. Our students already have completed JED’s Healthy Minds Survey to identify issues and pinpoint risks. I also met earlier this month with JED’s practitioners as we embark on this four-year program that advances our commitment to serve the emotional wellbeing of our students. In becoming a JED campus, we join many of our peer institutions and conservatories, as well as Wake Forest, Elon, Davidson, and Appalachian State here in North Carolina.

I’m grateful to our Counseling Center for taking the lead on this project, and to UNCSA Police, Residence Life, Health Services, Student Engagement, the provost and associate provosts and all the faculty who serve on the JED team.

And finally, the fifth theme: What it means to succeed

While pundits and policy makers yammer on about the critical importance of higher education “job training,” I aspire to so much more for our students than to “get a job” after graduation. I want them to get a life. To find purposeful work. To make meaning. To push boundaries. To grow, prosper, and lead through change and disruption.

Some of our students will eventually chose a different path—one they never expected—like law, medicine, or education. I have no doubt that the discipline, focus, and intensity of their conservatory experience will give them the inner strength they need to face life’s greatest challenges, and to rise to its richest opportunities. 

You may remember Randy Rees, the D&P alum who now works at SpaceX. He’s a perfect example of someone who’s transferred what he learned here as a lighting designer to a completely different field and built a career with meaning and purpose. 

From now on, when you read or hear the words “job training” I want you to remember this: You train animals, and you educate students. You know who taught me that? Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, (the representative from North Carolina’s Fifth District and Chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce) who urged me during our recent walk around campus never to use the word “training” in reference to students. I admire the Congresswoman’s passion and dedication to student success, and her refusal to devalue education as mere training. 

At UNCSA, we’ll continue to do our best to educate artists and citizens and ease their transition into the real world — and as you’ve seen in your binders, we’ve added some amazing artists and educators to our faculty mentors — but it’s up to students to chart their own course. We have great confidence in their abilities, as we’ve tracked the many successes of their predecessors. If you’ll bear with me for just a little longer, I’d like to share a few recent success stories from alumni who are working at the highest level of their professions.

• Two alumni were nominated for Emmys this year – Paul Tazewell as costume designer for NBC’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” and Tenase Popa as executive producer of website content supporting FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” — and more than two dozen alumni worked on or appeared in nominated programs. This fall you can see the work of our alumni on just about every television network and web platform, including NBC, CBS, HBO, TNT, FX, Hulu, and Netflix.
• As I mentioned earlier, alumnus Orin Wolf won a Tony Award this year for “The Band’s Visit.” That was one of 13 Tony nominated plays and musicals that our alumni were involved in, including Best Musical, Best Play and Best Revival nominees.
• In less than a month, you can head to local movie theaters to see the much-anticipated sequel to “Halloween” by David Gordon Green and Danny McBride, who will visit campus next month to screen the film and meet with students. Alumni have worked on additional films opening in October, including “Goosebumps 2,” “The Hate U Give” and “Johnny English Strikes Again.” You can still catch the luminous Jennifer Ehle in her latest film “the Miseducation of Cameron Post,” which opened in late August, or alumnus Danny Hoch in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman.” And of course, we can’t wait for the December release of Peter Hedges’ “Ben is Back,” starring his son Lucas, alongside Julia Roberts.
• Our School of Dance continues to send its graduates to prestigious companies across the country and around the globe. Yaman Kelemet, who graduated from the School of Dance in 2017 is a soloist with Slovenian National Ballet. Sierra Armstrong, who left in 2016 to join American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice, now has a full company contract. Other recent grads are trainees and apprentices with American Repertory Ballet, American Contemporary Ballet, Fort Wayne Ballet, City Ballet of San Diego, Ballet Tucson, Kansas City Ballet II, Ballet Austin and Georgia Ballet.
• And closer to home, students and alumni of the School of Music continue to dominate prestigious competitions including the Rosen-Schaffel at Appalachian Summer Festival, and the North Carolina Symphony’s Concerto Competition.
• And D&P alumna, Body positive yoga coach, and author of “Everybody Yoga”, Jessamyn Stanley was tapped by the New York Times as a yoga expert for its new online Q&A platform called “Ask.”

To close this convocation, I want to thank you for all that you do for UNCSA. You, too, are all considered members of our tribe. All of us have been called to serve and belong here together, and I’m grateful each of you had the courage and grit to accept your appointment to our Board of Trustees.

UNCSA Board of Trustees address

September 21, 2018