By RON FANFAIR
When Dr. Elizabeth ‘Dori’ Tunstall landed at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) University in August 2016 as the first Black Dean of a Faculty of Design, there had never been a Black or Indigenous full-time staff in that department at Canada’s oldest and largest art and design educational institution.
She vowed that would change and she delivered on the promise.
When the design anthropologist and advocate left on June 30, there were six Black and seven Indigenous professors in the Faculty of Design and several racialized and Indigenous people in leadership at the university, including Dr. Kathy Moscou who is associate dean of Academic Affairs.
Moscou, the wife of George Brown College President Dr. Gervan Fearon, was among the first cohort of full-time Black faculty members hired in the Faculty of Design at OCAD U that was established 147 years ago.
The hiring three years ago was part of the university’s dedication to the implementation of its academic plan that articulates a commitment to decolonization, diversity and equity.
“We have made amazing strides in terms of enhancing diversity of our faculties, but also diversity of our leadership in the institution,” said Tunstall. “My role was to remove the institutional barriers, but had it not been for the advocacy of faculty and community support, this would not have happened. I knew from other institutions that have put Black people in positions of leadership that very little changed because they didn’t have the strong student or faculty advocacy or, for whatever reason, the community was unable to rally around them.”
In May 2020, the Faculty of Design launched the Black Sparks Initiative that’s a special donor group seeking to recruit Black leaders who will commit to contributing a minimum $100 monthly to support OCAD U’s Black students, staff and community partners.
A portion of the money raised was used to do a Black cluster hire.
“Black Sparks gave us the resources to do the work,” Tunstall said. “We have a $100,000 endowment. If we can, over the next 10 years, have a $1 million endowment, that means there will be a sovereign set of money that is by Black folks for Black folks. Most of the money we have received in the last few years have gone right back into the community. It is hiring our Black students in the Design4 program to work with small businesses and non-profits on designing strategy or thinking.”
Design4 is an externally funded initiative that introduces principles of experiential learning into the realm of paid professional opportunities for current OCAD U students.
Born in South Carolina and raised in Indianapolis, Tunstall is returning to Los Angeles where she has resided periodically since age 18.
She said the decision was made after COVID-19 travel restrictions prevented her from seeing family members, all of whom live in the United States.
“There was a great call back home to take care of elderly family,” Tunstall said. “I also didn’t want to go through that separation again.”
There was another reason for leaving OCAD U.
“I brought into OCAD U these amazing leaders and was beginning to feel the tension between how they wanted to take the vision of what it is we were co-creating within the university and, in some ways, the way in which they wanted to defer to me as the person who helped bring them in,” she said. “Realizing that I brought in not just faculty members, but leaders, I had to create the space and step aside for them to step up into full leadership.”
As a parting gift to OCAD U Faculty of Design, Tunstall authored ‘Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook’ that addresses the question, ‘What does decolonizing design mean’?
“In many ways, the intent was to document the work we have been doing to show that it could be done,” she said. “Coming out of what I call the ‘Reckoning of the Summer of 2020’ as different individuals and institutions began to respond to the murder of George Floyd and were making commitments to address their structural anti-Blackness, a lot of people were asking me, ‘Dori, what do we do and do we do this’? At around the same time, we had our Black cluster hire and they were asking how they could do something like that.
“The book is about me coming up with a guide for all these people who are in new Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) positions and showing them how the work needs to be done, how you have to rally and how you have to fight against institutions that want you to achieve the things they want you to do. It is also a message to institutions not to make things painful for the people they bring in to do this work for them.”
Is there one highlight of Tunstall OCAD U career that stands out?
For the last 108 years, the university has hosted an exhibition to celebrate the work of the graduating class.
“When I first went to GRADEX, the Black students told me their horror stories of how they had to survive in spite of OCAD U,” Tunstall said. “Some of them may have been lucky to work with Lillian Allen, Andrea Fatona or Camille Isaacs, but many of them would tell the story of succeeding in spite of the university. For me to have this year every Black student on the tour talk about how they flourished because of the work we did to build diversity was so pleasing. Almost every program at OCAD U has Black faculty representation. To have the Faculty of Design and the Faculty of Art catch up so that Black students know who and where they can go to find support is what we were trying to do.”
Tunstall has several lasting memories of Toronto. They include attending First Fridays the first two years before the pandemic and the Black Diamond Ball and being a judge at the Toronto Caribbean Carnival.
“Attending the Ball was my first exposure in many ways in Canada to that level of glamour,” Tunstall said. “We always brought Black Student Association leaders and to have them in that space feeling like they belong and to see the beauty and glamour tied to community is a wonderful memory. First Fridays allowed me to learn who the community is and what is important to them. I have fond memories of that and my exposure to the Carnival and just seeing and absorbing the beauty and culture and feeling like part of that.”
In the next few months, she will work with a corporate client to help them decolonize their design process, do book tours in the United States and other international locations and write for Fast Company, a monthly American business magazine focusing on technology, business and design.
