Anonymous Feedback

Who and what is this for?

 

The Anonymous Feedback Form for Students was published in January 2024, combining a prior Anonymous Feedback Form for Students of Color (April 2021) and Anonymous Feedback form for Accessibility and Inclusion (March 2023). This merge unifies what were previously parallel pathways for students to name issues, express concerns, and offer suggestions, whether they are experiencing racialized barriers to participation or inadequate accommodations for their inclusion in the student performing arts. 

This unified resource is intended to provide a space for students of all backgrounds to offer feedback, create accountability and transparency around problems and responses, and release the continuous burden that falls on those experiencing barriers, marginalization, or other harms to enact equity on behalf of the community.

 

Where does my feedback go?

 

Staff of Platt Student Performing Arts House and the PAC Shop review all feedback on the Anonymous Feedback Form, distil the information into proposed actions, and share those actions with student performing arts groups when it is possible to do so without breaking confidentiality.

  1. Reading a submission: Platt House (Director Laurie McCall, Associate Director Megan Edelman, Program Coordinator Sara Outing) & The PAC Shop (Technical Advisor Amanda Labonte)  have direct access to the submissions on these forms.
  2. Internal discussion and resolutions: Our staff discusses these submissions in depth at monthly internal DEIA meetings and identifies actions to address them, including new or revised programming and extending the discussion to other individuals or communities.
  3. Extending the discussion to others: Non-confidential information (as designated by the submitter) that may be used to address problems and guide progress may be shared with student leaders and campus partners. Language and formatting will make an effort to preserve the anonymity of the submitter.
  4. Community reporting: Broad topics of interest and follow-up actions may be reported in community spaces which may include email listservs, social media platforms, and the Progress Log below. 

If we do not adequately address a concern you have raised, we welcome you to submit additional notes about your original feedback.

Fill out the Anonymous Feedback Form for Students

Paper forms are available in the Platt House lobby, behind the public computing bank.

Submissions on this form are anonymous. If you would prefer to send us non-anonymous feedback in a different format, please feel free to visit our office during staff hours (9am-5pm) or contact us at platthouse[at]pobox.upenn.edu.

 

Progress Log

 

Below, you’ll find a list of our Anonymous Feedback topics and our actions to address them. These entries are organized from newest to oldest, so the most recent actions and entries will be at the top. 

If we do not adequately address a concern you have raised, we welcome you to submit additional notes about your original feedback! 

New Topic: Storage Intrusion
Topic 002: Intrusion Early May 2023

New submission: TOPIC NAME
Submitted to the Anonymous Feedback Form for Students of Color

 

What is Storage Intrusion? Student clubs can experience intrusions in underregulated public storage spaces where privacy and autonomy are expected. Group storage is not centralized at Penn, but many clubs store archival and performance assets in semi-public spare rooms and closets that are managed by the building. In Platt House spaces, when areas become untidy or when storage makes necessary foot traffic unsafe, it had been Platt House’s practice to intervene by moving items, stacking containers, and inviting groups to come reorganize the storage themselves.
The practice of shared property storage is not unique to student performing arts, but an influx of material in Platt House’s high-traffic closets has led to questions about what can be stored where, who has access to it, and how to assign oversight of the space and of the objects stored inside it. Clarity and regulation is needed, especially regarding the treatment of valuable or delicate objects mixed in with the heavy containers and stacked items in these spaces.

 

Topic 002: Storage Intrusion May 9,  2023

Platt House and the PAC Shop Staff reviewed this submission and agreed on the following actions:

  1. Addressing an impacted student group directly through the Group Advising program;
  2. Implementing new signage to facilitate non-invasive resolution of storage changes in the future;
  3. Investing in materials to create visual boundaries between  group storage zones and footpaths

 

Topic 002: ________ DATE OF GROUP ADVISING – ongoing

Over the course of May and through the following Fall semester, Platt House and the PAC Shop implemented the following actions:

  1. Addressed a student group directly through the Group Advising program (July 2023)
    • Reviewed incident and harms
  1. Implemented new signage to facilitate non-invasive resolution of storage changes in the future;
  1. Extended this conversation to the PAC and wider student performing arts communities, primarily through the following program mandatory for groups working in the comedy genre:
    • How to Not be Problematic in Comedy Workshop (February-March 2022)

This was supplemented by additional spaces for conversation in the following programs throughout the 2021-22 academic year and ongoing:

    • DEI in Auditions Workshop (August 2021, recurring annually)
    • Student-led DEI Thinktank Meetings (November 2021, recurring)
    • Anti-Racism Training for Student Performing Arts (January – February 2022, revised from April 2021)
Public Launch: Anonymous Feedback Form for Accessibility and Inclusion

The Anonymous Feedback Form for Accessibility and Inclusion is intended to provide an anonymous space for students to name issues, express concerns, and offer suggestions to help Platt House, the PAC Shop, and the student performing arts at Penn community become more accessible and inclusive entities and spaces. This form is intended to be combined with the Anonymous Feedback Form for Students of Color in future semesters. – March 2023

New Topic: Identity as Costume
Topic 001: Identity as Costume Early April 2021

New submission: Identity as Costume
Submitted to the Anonymous Feedback Form for Students of Color

 

What is Identity as Costume? Redface, blackface, brownface, yellowface, and Jewface are terms for the appropriative use of clothing, props, movement and speech styles, and face-painting to costume a person who does not belong to the ethnic/racial group in question. These practices, often derived from Vaudevillian mockery or colonial fascination with non-European cultures, perpetuates harmful stereotypes, contributes to the erasure of actual members of those identity groups from their creative industries, and denies them agency over how their own cultures are portrayed and narrativized. In film, stage, and fashion it often involves appropriating from distinct cultures broadly, inconsistently, and inaccurately in a way that centers the perspectives and narratives of Settlers, Colonizers, and Whiteness.

Follow the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA): https://www.facebook.com/ipaaonline

For more on the history and impact of redface in the performing arts, see Indigenous, First Nations, and Native Theatre (Howlround) and also Indigenous Theater and Performance of North America Resource Guide (ATHE)

 

Topic 001: Identity as Costume April 27,  2021

Platt House and the PAC Shop Staff reviewed this submission and agreed on the following actions:

  1. Addressing a student group directly through the Group Advising program;
  2. Bringing this concern as a topic for discussion among the new PAC-Exec committee;
  3. Extending this conversation to the PAC community at future meetings and through programming in the Fall 2021 semester.

 

Topic 001: Identity as Costume July 18, 2021 – ongoing

Over the course of the spring and following academic year, Platt House and the PAC Shop implemented the following actions:

  1. Addressed a student group directly through the Group Advising program (July 18, 2021)
    • Reviewed current structures for shared oversight of show content within the group
    • Planned for ongoing support and training of group DEIA Chair position
  1. Brought this concern as a topic for discussion among the new PAC-Exec committee (September 7, 2021)
    • Planned for upcoming conversations among group DEIA chairs to share knowledge and support growth
  1. Extended this conversation to the PAC and wider student performing arts communities, primarily through the following program mandatory for groups working in the comedy genre:
    • How to Not be Problematic in Comedy Workshop (February-March 2022)

This was supplemented by additional spaces for conversation in the following programs throughout the 2021-22 academic year and ongoing:

    • DEI in Auditions Workshop (August 2021, recurring annually)
    • Student-led DEI Thinktank Meetings (November 2021, recurring)
    • Anti-Racism Training for Student Performing Arts (January – February 2022, revised from April 2021)
Public Launch: Anonymous Feedback Form for Students Of Color

The Anonymous Feedback Form for Students of Color is intended to provide an anonymous space for students of color to name issues, express concerns, and offer suggestions to help Platt House, the PAC Shop, and the student performing arts at Penn community become more equitable and racially just entities and spaces. – April 2021