Bernardine Evaristo appointed president of UK drama school
Harriet Clifford
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Rose Bruford College has appointed Booker-prize winning Bernardine Evaristo as the president of its college, making the novelist, critic and activist the first Black female president of a major UK drama school.
Having graduated from Rose Bruford in 1982, Evaristo will take up the ceremonial role from January 2021, serving as a ‘symbol’ and an ‘ambassador’ of the College.
Speaking to the Guardian, Evaristo said she hoped that her position will make drama schools feel more accessible: ‘If they see a Black person in a position of power in an organisation, that makes it more attractive to students of colour, and not just somebody who’s in a position of power, but somebody who is an outspoken activist as I am.’
She also pointed out that the appointment was not tokenistic, as around 13% of the College’s students are from a Black or minority ethnic background.
Following her time at the College, Evaristo went on to co-found Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company, Theatre of Black Women, with Paulette Randall and Patricia Hilaire.
Evaristo commented, ‘It is quite surreal that nearly forty years after I graduated from Rose Bruford College, I am returning as president. I loved studying at the College and credit it with laying the foundations for my lifelong career as a creative practitioner and activist who believes in social change and the power of the arts to transform our society.
‘The College has always blazed a trail and its change-maker ethos is impressively in keeping with the spirit of our times. I look forward to the next five years ahead.’
Evaristo won the 2019 Booker Prize for her eighth novel Girl, Woman, Other - the first Black woman and the first Black British person to do so. At Rose Bruford, she studied on the Community Theatre Arts course and became a Fellow of the College in 2018.
Claire Middleton, principal of Rose Bruford, said, ‘Bernardine is a creative artist of considerable integrity who has been a Change-Maker all of her professional life, and she will be an enormous inspiration to us as we continue to deliver the highest standards of learning and teaching and strive to make our own change in the field of creative arts higher education and to motivate our students to become the Change-Makers of the future.’