Pictured: Matthew Shenoda, Courtesy Matthew Shenoda
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Matthew Shenoda Appointed to the New Position of Assistant Provost for Equity and Diversity at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)

Valencia, CA, June 24--California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) President Steven D. Lavine announced that Matthew Shenoda has been named Assistant Provost for Equity and Diversity. Mr. Shenoda will work with the Provost's and the President's offices, and throughout the Institute to increase awareness of diversity as an essential component of life at CalArts.

"We are delighted to welcome Matthew as the first to hold this position," said Provost Nancy Uscher. "He is a distinguished poet and scholar with extensive teaching experience and a serious commitment to developing and enriching diverse academic and artistic settings. As an artist, he has a natural feel for broadening and deepening the concepts of equity and diversity to include aesthetic and cultural views of the world."

Working to create an inclusive and supportive environment for CalArts' diverse student body, faculty and staff, Mr. Shenoda will be the point person in an Institute-wide effort to encourage greater sensitivity towards differences in cultural and ethnic backgrounds and to develop policies and programs that help prepare students to live and act effectively in a complex and diverse world.

"This position is a natural extension of my work as an artist and educator to foster diverse academic and artistic settings and reflects my long-term commitment to community-inspired arts education," said Matthew Shenoda. "I am deeply interested in contributing to the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty, helping students build organizations that reflect their specific cultural interests, and creating campus-wide policies that will institutionalize these efforts at CalArts for the long term."

Mr. Shenoda has taught extensively in a broad range of subject areas within the fields of Ethnic Studies and Creative Writing. Before coming to CalArts, Mr. Shenoda taught in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, Goddard College's MFA Writing Program and the Creative Writing Program at Mills College.

While at San Francisco State University, he significantly expanded the Ethnic Studies curriculum in contemporary literature, writing and media of various ethnic communities both in the United States and abroad, and developed several courses focusing on comparative literature. He wrote the curriculum, created the program framework, developed and taught several courses for a new initiative within the college of Ethnic Studies to reflect the diasporas of the Middle East and North Africa, and to look at their intersection with other more established communities of color in the United States.

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is recognized internationally as a leading laboratory for the visual, performing, media and literary arts. Housing six schools--Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater--CalArts educates professional artists in an intensive learning environment founded on artmaking excellence, creative experimentation, cross-pollination among diverse artistic disciplines, and a broad context of social and cultural understanding. CalArts also operates the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles.