Building Better Boards through Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

This public session is delivered as part of WorkInCulture’s Growing Careers Program. If you are interested in participating in the full, multi-session intensive program, please visit our website for more details on how to apply.

This session will address how vital it is that arts and culture boards in the Windsor-Essex region reflect the community — recognizing that diversity is a core value, not a policy statement or quota. We’ll look at how boards that are intergenerational, diverse in perspectives, backgrounds and abilities, transparent in their functions and are collaborative thrive and benefit the organization as well as our communities.

Lead by guest speaker Irene Moore Davis, we will explore core principles, best practices and examples of how to reflect on and apply equity, diversity, and inclusion when it comes to board recruitment, retention and policies for arts and culture organizations.

Arts and culture organization staff/volunteers/members, current and aspiring arts and culture board members, and those interested in forming an arts and culture organization that will be board-run are encouraged to attend this session. While the content will be primarily framed for the Windsor-Essex region, participants from other regions are encouraged to attend.

MEET OUR GUEST SPEAKER:

Irene Moore Davis is an educator, author, activist, artist, historian and podcaster.

She speaks and writes frequently about diversity, equity and inclusion and African Canadian History.

She is the Manager of Continuing Education and English Language Programs at St. Clair College, and co-creator/co-host of All Write in Sin City, a literary podcast which just reached the 100 episode milestone. Recently she has become involved in film, appearing in award-winning director of The Inheritance, Ephraim Asili’s Fluid Frontiers. In 2020 She co-produced and appeared in The North Was Our Canaan, directed by Anushray Singh.

As an avid historian, Irene Moore Davis has greatly contributed to the recording of the history of the Windsor/Essex area and her work on Canadian Black settlements is included in the book Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, And The Underground Railroad In The Detroit River Borderland. Her passionate contributions to the research and teaching of Black history in Windsor and Essex County earned her a 2015 University of Windsor History Department Community Heritage Medal.

She has been the president of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society since 2010 and is active in a wide array of community activities including board and committee roles with BookFest Windsor, the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She was co-founder of Black Women of Forward Action and serves on the Anglican Church of Canada’s Dismantling Racism Task Force.

Irene Moore Davis was raised in Windsor, and is proud that her family has been here since the mid-19th century. She is a graduate of the University of Windsor, Queen’s University and the University of Western Ontario.