Corcoran Students of Color
Current students are welcome to join a student-led group, Corcoran Students of Color (CSOC). Instagram @ gwcsoc
Upcoming Events (Spring 2024)
TBA – Check back soon
Smith Hall of Art, 3rd floor in front of the Tinkerspace (801 22nd St NW)
We build bridges across the Corcoran and provide opportunities (come to our meetings to find out what this means)! We want people from every area of study and creative practice, ALL welcome. Cotton candy provided!
If you have any questions about the collective, please feel free to email CSOC's faculty advisor, James Sham, via email.
Founded in 2019, Corcoran Students of Color is a student-run collective to nurture the community of BIPOC student artists from every discipline to give them a place to commiserate, collaborate, and critique. In doing this, your artistry will be nurtured and elevated from a perspective different from what you typically receive in class. This group, open to undergraduates, graduate students, majors and minors, is meant to be a support system for artists, performers and scholars of color.
Hear From Our Student Leaders
"As students of art, we are often taught that to better our craft we must know ourselves. But in the pursuit of a well-rounded arts education, it is often difficult to come to understand ourselves as artists if our education does not consider us in totality.
When we first thought about forming Corcoran Students of Color, this was the issue we had been considering for ourselves. We understood that as women of color, and particularly as Black women who want to work in the arts, the education we sought after and the work we aspired to create diverged greatly from the canon that crafted our syllabi. So, after many private discussions and then a few public meetings in the Spring of 2019, Corcoran Students of Color was formed.
As we relaunch this collective, we do so with the firm intention and purpose to care for our community. This collective will nurture the community of BIPOC student artists from every discipline in the Corcoran to give them a place to commiserate, collaborate, and critique — resulting in the display of our work at the end of every semester. In doing this, your artistry will be nurtured and elevated from a perspective different from what you typically receive in class.
Corcoran Students of Color working as a collective can only thrive with the involvement of students of color who feel passionate about how their identity and their art intersect. This group is open to undergraduate and graduate students and majors and minors at the Corcoran. Having a support system as an artist of color is a rare but invaluable experience that we know we, not only, benefited from, but also, needed to grow into the women we are today."
— Hannah Sturgis, Theatre & Journalism and Mass Communications, BA ’21, and Jolien Louis, Theatre, BA ’21 (Corcoran Graduates and 2021 Student Leaders)
Related Resources
Outside of this student-run group, GW offers many resources that support diversity, equity and inclusion at the university:
Using Preferred Names at GW
The Corcoran and George Washington University are very supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community, and we want to be sure to use a student's preferred name and gender. Once admitted to GW, students are able to set up their preferred name and gender identity in our current student systems. The Multicultural Student Services Center website has helpful information about changing name and gender at GW on the student's GWorld ID Card, GWMail account, and on class rosters. The LGBTQIA+ Resource Center website and a separate page entitled Trans @ GW also includes GW's non-discrimination policy and the different procedures relating to name and gender changes for transcripts, diplomas, employment records, and other official documents. We hope that you feel our support during this process and that you reach out to us should you experience any difficulties.