‘Our focus is to understand exclusion’
Manning has been connecting with faculty like Tsabary to create a culture of change across the university. By December, the class will have organized into five different projects, with Tsabary mentoring the one on gender in sound.
“In gender studies and women’s studies, our focus is to try to understand exclusion,” Manning says.
“It’s not that women’s studies can understand how to fix electroacoustics, but it can help us think about what might be useful interventions.”
Students are trained through feminist theory and social action research methodologies to tackle institutional inequities. Their outcomes could take many forms, from curricular or syllabus changes to events. Manning hopes that students in her course will start to build the infrastructure to transform Concordia into a feminist university.
“The idea is to get students to engage critically with the idea, develop some kind of intervention, present it and critique it.”
‘Change is slowly starting to surface’
Chris Lackey is a third-year electroacoustic studies student taking the seminar. He was inspired by the work of his fellow student Joanne Mitrovic last year, who led the charge for change within the Department of Music.
“As I started to educate myself, I became more and more interested. Eldad introduced me to Kimberley at the Loudspeakers conference. It was inspiring to see the potential for action.”
Lackey says more students within the program want to continue where Mitrovic (BFA 17), who has since graduated, left off. "Things are being poked and prodded. Stuff is happening. Change is slowly starting to surface."
Electroacoustic studies at Concordia formally acknowledged the lack of gender balance in their student body and the need to address it during their departmental appraisal this summer.
It was an important step, Tsabary says.
“I see the potential to bring people together based on this shared goal. To think about it and to learn from it.”