Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

For over a decade, JD Samson has proven herself to be one of NYC’s most enduring creative forces. Since the early 2000s as a member of the feminist electro-pop band Le Tigre, Samson has gone on to work in almost every medium. A formidable songwriter, producer, visual artist and internationally renowned DJ, Samson has amassed a body of work that not only spans a variety of fields—everything from pop music and fine art to curatorial work, political activism, and fashion—but has also helped galvanize NYC’s LGBT community. She has been photographed and featured everywhere from Interview to Vogue Homme and has written for the likes of the Huffington Post and Creative Review. A valiant supporter of LGBT issues, Samson has provided a glowing example for the lesbian and gender-queer communities.

Erin Tonkon is a producer, engineer, mixer, and educator. She is a proud graduate of The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts. Erin is an internationally recognized producer and part of the Grammy-award winning team for David Bowie’s “Blackstar”.

Growing up in San Diego, Erin learned engineering as a teen and worked at local radio stations and recording studios prior to moving to New York to attend The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU. During her time studying at NYU, Erin began a mentorship under legendary producer Tony Visconti, and after a month of mentorship, she was hired as Visconti's full-time engineer and production assistant. Her first day on the job was also her first day working with one of her personal heroes—David Bowie. Erin’s contribution to the Bowie discography includes engineering, mixing, and vocal performance on “Blackstar, as well as “The Next Day (Extra)”, “Nothing Has Changed”, “No Plan (EP)”, and “Lazarus (Original New York Cast Recording).” Erin’s work spans genres and generations from punk icons Richard Hell and The Damned, to jazz legend Esperanza Spalding, indie rock bands such as Gustaf, Lady Lamb and Cafuné, fashion muse Daphne Guinness and pop powerhouse Grace Ives. She was also a featured producer on Audible’s hit podcast “Breakthrough”, executive produced by The Chainsmokers and hosted by Daveed Diggs with judges Sara Bareilles and Kelly Rowland.

Prior to accepting a professorship at NYU, Erin taught at The New School and Manhattan School of Music.  She has been featured in publications such as “Forbes” and “Playback” and has traveled the world speaking at conventions and music festivals about her expertise in the music industry and championing the need for more diversity and inclusion in recording studios. She is overjoyed to be returning to her alma mater to educate the next generation of engineers and producers.

Naima Cochrane is an award-winning music industry veteran, journalist, and leading voice in Black music and culture who specializes in putting Black culture in context. Naima spent more than 20 years in the entertainment industry, from culture- shifting labels Bad Boy and Arista Records to legacy majors Columbia and Epic

Records. She worked with mold-breaking acts including Beyoncé, John Legend, and Tyler, the Creator as a marketing executive; and continued her work with EGOT Legend, then later Oscar-nominated, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award-winning actress and singer Cynthia Erivo, as management.  In 2017, Naima created #MusicSermon, a curated storytelling series on Twitter about pre-blog era Soul and Hip-Hop. The series was a viral hit, with Sunday “services”often drawing engagement from Ava Duvernay, Lin Manuel Miranda, Missy Elliot, and a host of others. #MusicSermon transitioned Naima into journalism, and since 2018 she

and/or her work have been featured in/on outlets including Billboard, Essence, and the NY Times. In 2021, she was a contributing essayist for the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap. Because of her unique experience as both an industry insider and journalist, she’s a sought-after researcher for her specialty in highlighting connections between past and present. Naima has worked with partners including Spotify, LeBron

James SpringHill Company, and Sirius XM/Pandora on special and/or scripted projects, including Sirius/Pandora’s Webby-award winning All Music is Black Music podcast. Naima keeps one foot on the business side of the entertainment industry through consulting and was a marketing lead for Empire’s Clio Award-winning 2021 re-release campaign for late singer Aaliyah’s catalog. Naima is a founding board member of the Black Music Action Coalition, an advocacy organization of music managers and lawyers formed in the wake of George

Floyd’s tragic murder in 2020 to address systemic racism within the music business and beyond. In 2021, she authored the organization’s inaugural Music Industry Action Report Card. This first-of-its-kind public accounting assigned music companies a grade for their work reinvesting in the executives, artists, and communities who drive the most popular genre in the world.  While home in NYC, Naima watches too much TV, weaves riveting threads as a Twitter raconteur, and teaches herself how to DJ. You can sometimes find her in the snack aisle of grocery stores dancing to 80s and 90s R&B.

Bobby Wooten III is a composer/producer/instrumentalist raised in Chicago, IL. He credits his family’s gospel Wooten Choral Ensemble as his main influence & inspiration. Bobby has written/produced/recorded with David Byrne, Carly Rae Jepsen, Post Malone, Jennifer Lopez, Mac Miller, Jennifer Hudson, Rick Ross, Machine Gun Kelly, Jake Troth, among others. Commercial production credits include Empire TV series, Google, Adidas, Lebron James, ESPN, among others. Bobby composed & produced the score for the 2023 film "Rare Objects." Broadway credits include Moulin Rouge! & the Grammy/Emmy-nominated & Tony-winning production of David Byrne's American Utopia, the latter filmed by Spike Lee.

In 2020, Bobby launched the internet series "America, Learn Your History." In two minute episodes, he retells history as seen through a minority lens –– Revisiting stories that have been misunderstood, misled, or lied upon in American education.

2023-2024 Equity Task Force Members:

Faculty

Matthew Morrison (Chair)

Dan Charnas

JD Samson

Naima Cochrane

Erin Tonkon

Staff

Subrina Moorley

2021-2022 Equity Task Force Members:

Faculty

Matthew Morrison (Chair)

Carol Cooper

Lauren Davis

Dan Charnas

JD Samson

Staff

Subrina Moorley, Student Services Administrator

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During the 2022-2023 academic year, the Equity Task Force engaged in the following efforts and initiatives:

1. Circulating a survey to assess student perception of our departmental equity climate

2. Facilitating an IDBEA training session for CDI full-time and part-time faculty and staff

3. Supporting and empowering CDI student affinity groups

4. Devising mechanism for students to apply for emergency funds 

5. Collaborating with students to plan the Fall student-led IDBEA orientation event

2021-2022 Equity Task Force Members:

Faculty

Jason King (Chair)

Carol Cooper

Lauren Davis

Errol Kolosine

JD Samson

Staff

Subrina Moorley, Student Services Administrator

Students

Ben Gordon, CDI 2024

Madi Richardson CDI 2023

Angelique Shie, CDI 2022

Dani Tyas, CDI 2022

Alumni:

Giovanni Lobato, CDI 2013

Terrell Kiser, CDI 2016

Kyra Williams, CDI 2020

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This year, CDI launched CONCERNS @ CDI – an online program that offers a way to make CDI a safe place to register complaints. It offers students the opportunity to feel that their complaints will be addressed in a timely and effective way and to bolster transparency. Concerns @ CDI functions as an internal reporting system for complaints that do not rise to the level of official bias. A clear email to the CDI community that explains how our reporting system works was delivered early in the academic year.

ETF relaunched the Canvass Project, a climate survey, this year. Additionally, members addressed a wide range of ten tasks during the 2021/2022 Academic Year, including fundraising and development; ways of increasing institutional support for the Future Music Moguls high school program; taking a closer look at bias, especially in production language, and unconscious bias; and investigating ways of addressing exclusivity in the curriculum.

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Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Year End Report from the Clive Davis Institute Equity Task Force (Edited for Length)

To the Clive Davis Institute community:

We last shared with you a letter in October 2020 that outlined our mission and intentions as a Task Force for the academic year. Now, at the close of the academic year, we’d like to update you on the Equity Task Force’s accomplishments during its first year of existence in the 2020-2021 academic year.

Here are some tasks we carried out this academic year: 

1. Launched and hosted The Equity Sessions, a series of IDBEA training sessions for faculty and staff—the first ever for the Institute.
2. Launched the inaugural Canvass Project, a climate survey for the CDI. The ETF developed and administered this project, which is designed to take the pulse of the CDI and assess its climate. 
3. Launched an annual artist residency program. 
4. Contributed to the diversification of adjunct instructors. 
5. Formalized an election process for Student Representatives, as part of a larger plan to create clear channels and systems for governance and communication at the Institute. In Spring 2021, elections were held for student reps for each class. Results were announced on April 5 2021. 
6. Conducted regular communications and meetings with student groups at CDI. The ETF created faculty and/or student liaisons for these groups; and supported a number of diverse events and programming. 
7. Helped refine, revise and publish a selection process for performance and production opportunities.
8. Met with IEM Institute of Emerging Media (IEM) programs to discuss the creation of a student mentorship program for the IEM, similar to the existing IPA Student Mentorship program. 
9. Contributed to a Values Statement, which was published in April 2021—it is the first ever values statement for the Institute. 
10. Started planning an annual community conversation / symposium focused on IDBEA. 

LOOKING AHEAD TO A/Y 2021 / 22 

●      The ETF will contribute to a protocol system for student complaints and grievances. We have already begun to work on establishing clear protocols and a system for student reporting of non-academic issues and concerns. 

●      The ETF will take a closer look at bias, especially in production language, and unconscious bias in the “tracking” of students toward particular production and performance classes.

●      The ETF will suggest ways of “decolonizing” the Recorded Music curriculum.

●      The ETF will suggest ways to increase institutional support for the Future Music Moguls high school program.

●      The EFT will be working with the Chair and Institute leadership to address development/fundraising to support scholarships for all students - with a special focus on opportunities for identifying, recruiting, enrolling and retaining BIPOC students.  

Faculty members of the ETF would like to thank ETF student and alumni members as well as staff members for their contributions this year. We are looking forward to the next successful year of Equity Task Force actions and accomplishments.

Signed,

ETF Faculty Members: 

Dan Charnas
Lauren Davis
Jason King (Clive Davis Institute Chair)
Matthew Morrison
JD Samson

Welcome Letter from the Clive Davis Institute Equity Task Force

October 5, 2020

To the Clive Davis Institute Community:

As a follow-up to Interim Chair Sheril Antonio’s charge email entitled “Equity Task Force Announcement,” we would like to tell you more about the Clive Davis Institue Equity Task Force. We are a diverse group of faculty, students and staff whose role is to foster and help realize equity, accessibility, belonging and inclusion at the Clive Davis Institute.

As Task Force members, we believe that those ideals—inclusion, diversity, equity, belonging, and accessibility—are essential, integral aspects of what it means to pursue excellence at any institution of higher learning. We are committed to those ideals, even as we are aware that there are often gaps between institutional objectives of inclusion and belonging, and their realization. Those gaps are not just theoretical--they are lived and experienced, sometimes in difficult ways, by students, staff and faculty alike.

The Equity Task Force has definitive and specific objectives that we intend to achieve in our official role as a task force (as opposed to a committee). Beyond just offering recommendations specific actions to improve diversity, inclusion, equity, accessibility and belonging at the Clive Davis Institute, our charge is to implement meaningful policies and practices at the Clive Davis Institute and TSOA in consultation and collaboration with the Clive Davis Institute and TSOA leadership. Those policies and practices are mandated by and fully consistent with Tisch’s Diversity Commitments (TSOA Actions Against Racial Inequities,) and they are consistent with the work of the NYU Office of Global Inclusion and Diversity.

Our mission statement is as follows:

Comprised of faculty, administrative & technical staff, students, and alumni, The Clive Davis Institute Equity Task Force will take action to build a better, safer, and more equitable NYU Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Our role is to assess the current state of inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity and accessibility (IDBEA) at the Clive Davis Institute, and to recommend, advance and implement policies and practices that embed IDBEA core values in all aspects of the Clive Davis Institute experience. We work collaboratively to foster a culture of personal, interpersonal and institutional accountability through listening, reflection, review, research, investigation, data collection, advising, advocacy, recommendation and support (among other methods). Our work is mandated by and wholly consistent with Tisch Actions Against Racial Inequities and with the stated goals of the NYU Office of Global Inclusion and Diversity. We encourage faculty, staff, and students to grow and develop in their understanding of diversity, equity, belonging, accessibility and inclusion.

We will shortly be announcing our inaugural public initiatives. And we will be working to institute a forthcoming student and alumni advisory board that will allow us to include even more diverse voices in the work we are planning. In general, we look forward to having conversations and advocating for policies and procedures that support a more fluid space for building, changing, growing, and flourishing as a program. And as our work takes shape, we will be working closely with Sheril Antonio, the Clive Davis Institute interim Chair, and closely with all members of the Clive Davis Institute community including faculty, staff, students and alumni. We intend to work closely with the next the Clive Davis Institute Chair. We are proud to lead the charge for this inaugural Task Force, and we are serious about taking action towards the realization of a better and more equitable ReMu. 

If you have any questions, please get in touch via remuequitytaskforce@nyu.edu.

2020-2021 Equity Task Force Members:

Faculty
Dan Charnas, Associate Arts Professor
Lauren Davis, Arts Professor; Director of Business Studies
Jason King, Associate Professor; Director of Writing, History & Emergent Media Studies; Director of Global Studies
Matthew D. Morrison, Assistant Professor
JD Samson, Assistant Arts Professor

Staff
Kyle Alfred, Administrative Aide II
Ayanna Wilson, Faculty Services Administrator

Students
Cameron Franklin, REMU 2021
Dani Tyas, REMU 2022
Maya Lopez, REMU 2023

Alumni
Dana McCoy, REMU 2020
Kyra Williams, REMU 2020