Arts for All, Carolina for All
On January 29, after eight months of lobbying, student organizers received approval from the UNC Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees for the creation of an Asian American Center on campus. Along with Upendo, the American Indian Center, the Carolina Latinx Center, and now the AAC, all students of color can find physical community spaces to call home.
However, the same cannot be said of the creative spaces — which are integral forums for making students feel seen and heard — available at Carolina. Launched in 2017, the $2 billion “For All Kind: Campaign for Carolina” lists “spaces to create and reflect” as one of its Arts Funding Priorities, but underrepresented student groups are forced to sustain themselves.
“When I came to Carolina and noticed that we had four different theater groups and they were all white, it was very different coming from...being around kids that looked like me who wanted to do the same thing I wanted to — and coming here and there’s only four of us,” said junior Elizabeth Howard, an Atlanta native.
While Howard, a journalism and dramatic arts major, has starred as the lead in student productions such as “Chicago” (2017) and “Godspell” (2018), she felt a gaping void in the theater community at UNC and sought to fix it.
On February 12, 2019, Howard founded the Black Arts Theatre Company as a subgroup of UNC’s Black Student Movement, with the intention of creating “a safe space for Black artists, Black actors, and Black creatives to come and be themselves unapologetically.” Howard had to create a GoFundMe for resources and money to put on performances.
At a university that claims to champion diversity and equity, ironically, students of color are left to run grassroots initiatives and navigate red tape and bureaucracy. For example, the student-run AAC campaign team raised $500,000 on their own. Administration may argue that money is scarce, but over $2.5 million was readily available to give to neo-confederates for the protection of a racist statue. This is not just symptomatic of the University’s lack of support for the arts, but indicative of where UNC places its priorities.
“I founded BATC under BSM because it’s a lot easier to found things as a subgroup rather than a regular student organization,” Howard said.
In order to start new organizations at the university level, according to the Carolina Union, a student must complete a new organization registration form, detailing why the organization should exist, its mission statement, who has been consulted about it, etc. Apart from creating a logo and bylaws, they must find a faculty advisor to complete the advisor agreement and attend a meeting with staff from the Office of Student Life and Leadership.
The Arts Everywhere initiative has been criticized for its inability to address the systemic neglect of the Carolina arts scene. If administration, coupled with departmental and faculty support, could listen to the needs of marginalized students and consequently finance such initiatives, the registration process could be streamlined.
“The representation and the acting was all done so earnestly, I loved it. It left a mark on me and showed that these stories can be told in a genuine way, that they are important and they are valuable. It was really powerful to see people that look like me participating in theater,” said sophomore Eric Groves, who attended BATC’s first-ever performance “Black Girl Interrupted.”
When the mere presence of organizations and spaces such as Black Arts Theatre Company can both enhance the caliber of creativity and one’s sense of belonging, there should be nothing stopping an institution from supporting these causes. If UNC wants to be a #CarolinaForAll, administration must help and support students who are working to make it so.