Corps Directors

[tomgolf8]

First, I just want to thank everyone who has taken all my thoughts and questions seriously, especially tomgolf8 who clearly disagrees with me, but has been willing to discuss my crazy ideas anyway.

Yeah, this is the hard part. I think the best answer is just making a point of being aware of the whole idea, and if there's evidence that something might be out of kilter, be willing to try to figure out what that might be.

I think you can start with the boards. We know that corps boards of directors are overwhelmingly male. On the boards that have some or all appointed board members, often serving three year terms, maybe they should make a point of seeking out interested women and minorities to serve. I'm sure there are any number of band directors, arts organization leaders, business leaders, parents of former members who are women and/or minorities who would be happy to serve and well-qualified. I suppose some people would say that's "affirmative action" to let yourself consider their sex or race, but I disagree. In any case, this is a great place to start because those folks are going to be more likely, once the become familiar with the organization, to see these "unintentional" barriers, because they've been through them themselves.

Beyond that, it has everything to do with the inner workings of hiring processes, recruitment for lower-level staff, etc, which I don't know anything about how those things actually work.

I'm starting with the assumption that if leadership diversity doesn't match membership diversity, that something *must* be wrong, unless it's somehow the case that white males are just better suited to running drum corps, or that women and non-whites just aren't as interested on the whole. I really doubt those are true, but maybe I'm wrong!

I think you've mentioned that we have no evidence that there are women and minorities applying for positions and getting rejected. That's true, and if it's true that women and minorities are less likely to apply to be on drum corps staff than they are to participate in it as marchers, well, to me that says we need to figure out why they aren't applying. I guess you can't call that a "barrier" per se, but if the profile of applicants for jobs is out of whack with corps membership, then corps should be asking themselves how they can encourage more women and minorities to apply, especially for entry-level positions. It's not about using race or sex as a factor in the final decision as it is just about making sure you have a wide variety of applicants so you can be sure you're finding the best people.

Plus, yes I think diversity in and of itself is an undervalued asset. I think in general that organizations that have a wide diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints and experiences will make better decisions and do better things. We talk a lot about hiring "the best person", but when you look at your overall staff, if they are all the best players or teachers you could find, but they all have basically the same background, you're still missing something.

No, I don't think the government can or should address anything other than explicit discrimination. If a corps was excluding African Americans or Jews solely because of those traits--I am not a lawyer--but I believe current law would allow those folks who were discriminated against to sue the offending corps unless there was a defensible reason for the discrimination (which would be hard to come up with in those cases). And as we've already covered, drum corps does not have this kind of problem.

Maybe DCI has some role to play, but not a big one. I think really the only useful way to approach this is to convince the corps leadership itself. And you know, maybe you're right and there's not really any problem. My purpose in continuing to jabber in this thread is to try to convince other people on DCP that there *might* be something better we could do. Maybe that idea will spread. Or maybe I'm just a nut and it will go away once I give up on posting to this thread every day.

I have lurked in DCP for years. I typically don't get involved in discussions, especially ones on topics like this because so many people get down right nasty about things. I know they can be moderated but you can't unscramble an egg.

I believe people can have differences of opinions, debates those with passion then shake hands and go have a beverage of choice together.

Thing is, I don't disagree with you about everything. Just how to legislate the change. I don't think you can. Drum Corps are much like Country Clubs. They can let in who they want. They can have whomever they want run the organization. there is really nothing we can do about that stance.

SCV says you must be 18 to march (just an example, don't know if it's true). A 16 year old wants to march. They can't march with SCV, so they go some place else.

If a corps decides it's only going to have male members (easy), then they will be all male corps. Are the young women out there suing Cavies and Madison for membership? I don't know.

If a corps intentionally decides they are not going to let women or people of color march or teach or work the admin side, we can't change that. What you can do is tell them what they are doing and then boycot them. don't watch their show, don't buy the souvies. Tell everyone you know what they are doing (if you are 100% sure you can prove it). Eventually, they will go away because rational people will not participate with an organization like that ESPECIALLY IN DRUM CORPS.

We are family. Even if we haven't shared the same field at the same time in the same uniform. We have all shared drum corps and we are all family.

When I look at the field, I don't see the female keyboard player, or the black tenor player or the Chinese Euphonium player. I see my family, PERIOD.

I would also like to thank the English teachers and grammar trolls for not roasting ever single post I put up. I know I would benefit from a spell check. I may use it some day.

[jpaul]

. . . Well, I put a lot of assumptions into my model, so feel free to shoot it full of holes. But once you have, my question then is, what explains the disparity between the ideal case and reality?

Who decides what's ideal? I find it interesting that this discussion has gone on for as long as it has without one piece of "evidence" that a problem exists or that any proposed "solutions" would move us toward anything better than what we've got. Anyone?

[tomgolf8]

Who decides what's ideal? I find it interesting that this discussion has gone on for as long as it has without one piece of "evidence" that a problem exists or that any proposed "solutions" would move us toward anything better than what we've got. Anyone?

That has been my point the entire time. There is no proof of a problem, no examples of issues and no recommendations for solutions. I say we all watch 1980 Spirit of Atlanta, 1995 Madison Scouts and focus on what is really wrong with Drum Corps.... George Hopkins. Sorry. Sort of kidding George.

[Stu]

Does anyone know a Bulgarian Rapper? We need him to mediate this discussion!

[N.E. Brigand]

I think you can start with the boards. We know that corps boards of directors are overwhelmingly male.

As not-for-profit boards of directors are often composed of wealthy individuals, who donate and get their rich friends to donate to their organizations, and as the wealthiest people still tend to be white men, it's not suprising that the makeup of boards will skew that direction.

[see me]

Female Directors:

Donna Monte (Citations)

Vicki Schaffer (Colt Cadets)

Mayra Iraheta (Velvet Knights)

Minority Directors (that I could confirm):

Ray Mar (Mandarins)

Ibe Sodawalla (Legends)

*Steven McKeiver (Platinum)

Johnny Rodriguez (Revolution)

*black

Quick Note: Andre Feagin, who was the director of Memphis Sound in their championship year (2007) and is now the brass caption head at Santa Clara Vanguard, is black.

Mayra Iraheta - also a minority, i believe she is hispanic or latino

[shostahoosier]

perhaps you should articulate your view better. You said that marching bands are more diverse than drum corps. In response, I said that the top marching bands are most likely (and I admitted I was not sure) not more diverse than drum corps.

I did notice that you did not choose to respond to my statement that you have not yet proved there is a problem, yet you are trying to solve this imaginary problem that you have made up by enacting changes in DCI.

Whoah...talk about "articulating better".

First of all, why are you only talking about the top marching bands when discussing diversity? Anyway, marching bands tend to be more diverse than drum corps because 1) There are fewer barriers to entry, and 2) Audiences are willing to appreciate vastly different performance styles.

If you "read what I wrote", you'll see that I did respond to your comment and said pretty much everything I needed to say.

[oldschooldbc]

Female Directors:

Donna Monte (Citations)

Vicki Schaffer (Colt Cadets)

Mayra Iraheta (Velvet Knights)

Minority Directors (that I could confirm):

Ray Mar (Mandarins)

Ibe Sodawalla (Legends)

*Steven McKeiver (Platinum)

Johnny Rodriguez (Revolution)

*black

Quick Note: Andre Feagin, who was the director of Memphis Sound in their championship year (2007) and is now the brass caption head at Santa Clara Vanguard, is black.

Rick Valenzuela has a Hispianic surname. Should he be on this list?

Regardless, I think there are enough examples for us to state there is some minority representation, among corps directors. The figure is not at zero.

There may be barriers for minorities to overcome, in order for them to get to this level of drum corps management. But they are not insurmountable. I don't know what can be done, to eliminate these barriers.

Several years ago, the NFL instituted a rule, saying that franchise owners need to consider minority candidates, when hiring new coaches. The majority of players in the NFL are black, but there were very few black head coaches at the time. Many saw this as a sign of institutional racism. Since then, we've seen we've had a Super Bowl where both of the coaches were black. Now nearly a quarter of the coaches in the NFL are minorities. Here is the article from ESPN that outlines the progress that has been made:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs06/n...tory?id=2750645

Maybe DCI could put in place such a rule, but I am not sure if it would be more than symbolic. The NFL does not require their franchises to hire minority candidates, only that they consider them; I don't think DCI could ever force its members to hire minority directors. Maybe it would have an impact - we could try it and see.

[oldschooldbc]

I say we all watch 1980 Spirit of Atlanta, 1995 Madison Scouts and focus on what is really wrong with Drum Corps.... George Hopkins. Sorry. Sort of kidding George.

Maybe we could solve two problems simultaneously:

1) Bring in more minority representation into the ranks of the DCI directors;

2) Bring in new leaders with fresh ideas, on how to solve this activity's problems. Hopefully, those new leaders will come up ways to make shows more entertaining, engaging, and marketable to the general public. (This, in my mind, is by far more serious problem.)

Honestly, I look at the ranks of the current DCI directors, and I see a lot of dead wood. More dead wood than in the forest around Mt. St. Helens, after the 1980 eruption. There are members of the profession that have been there for decades. Maybe it's time for some of them to go.

The activity is stagnating, and maybe a new group of leaders is needed, to make the activity more creative and dynamic. If those leaders come from minority ranks, then the first problem is solved as well.

(There is some level of irony here. This activity only lets youth march for 7 years. They can start at 14 and age out at 21/22. Yet there is no "term limits" on directors, board members, or any other position. Maybe they need an "age out" or "time out" rule as well! I would argue that the U.S. Congress needs the same rule, but now we are branching into politics.....)

[corpsband]

Who decides what's ideal? I find it interesting that this discussion has gone on for as long as it has without one piece of "evidence" that a problem exists or that any proposed "solutions" would move us toward anything better than what we've got. Anyone?

I agree. The OP is just looking to inject some PC into DC. There's no evidence presented at all of institutional bias (intended or not); there's just a hypothetical statement being re-cast with the word "model" to to try to give it some legitimacy. When the OP does their research and comes up with some actual data, maybe they can come up with something worth discussing. In fact I think the OP will find that DCI is much more diverse than they suspect (especially on the admin side).

Drum corps is in fact a shining example of a diverse, accepting and open-minded community and has been that way for far longer than most other organized activities. This statement can probably be applied even more broadly to all "pageantry arts" in general.

Edited September 12, 2010 by corpsband