Kwame Dawes departs USC after Arts Institute shuttered
USC distinguished poet-in-residence and Emmy Award winner Kwame Dawes will leave the university at the end of this academic year.
His decision to leave USC comes four months after the university shuttered the Arts Institute which Dawes led. The Ghana-born poet will take an endowed chair position at the University of Nebraska and edit the Prairie Schooner, the literary magazine there.
“I would say that once the Arts Institute closed down, it was very difficult to get a clear sense how the university felt it would want to use the talents and gifts for the university,” Dawes said. “With the Arts Institute [still in place], I would still be at USC. That would be categorically true.”
Dawes said the establishment of the institute in 2005, which funded or promoted more than 200 projects and performances during its five-year tenure, was a remarkable step by the university to support the arts. The institute trained students in the arts and made the community more aware of USC’s arts accomplishments.
“Leaders can turn the tide with certain acts,” Dawes said. “But just as easily, we can go many steps backwards.”
USC Provost Michael Amiridis praised Dawes as a great ambassador for the university and an outstanding poet.
“Nobody’s irreplaceable, but some people are more difficult to replace than others,” Amiridis said. “Kwame definitely falls into that category.”
But Amiridis defended the university’s decision to close the institute. In difficult times, tough decisions have to be made, Amiridis said.
“We had to make some important cuts, and to me, the most important aspect was to preserve the available funding for students and faculty to perform the art instead of having the administrative staff to support the promotion of the arts. We have to fund production before promotion.”
Amiridis said students and faculty in the performing arts now receive more direct funding without the institute. Dawes previously told The Daily Gamecock that arts are diminished without appropriate promotion to outside audiences.
Dawes ends his time at USC with a lengthy list of laurels. He won an Emmy Award in 2009 for Livehopelove.com, where he documented AIDS in Jamaica. His work to chronicle the disaster of the Haiti earthquake was supported by the Pulitzer Center and praised nationally. He’s judged national competitions, and his works have appeared on National Public Radio. He’s written and edited multiple books and poetry collections.
He said his greatest successes at the University of South Carolina include the establishment of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, which he currently leads. He also pointed to a significant uptick in minority faculty members in the English department. He praised his wonderful students over the years and encouraged the university to continue funding the poetry initiative.
“We will absolutely continue the poetry initiative,” Amiridis said. “Although Kwame was the leader, it was an institutional initiative and we will continue supporting it.”
English department chair Bill Rivers said he recently placed a request to hire a senior-level faculty member in creative writing to replace Dawes.
Dawes said he encouraged the university to consider initiatives to ensure faculty happiness and retention. He will teach his final course, Love African American Style, during the Maymester session next month.
“It’s a matter of understanding their gifts, understanding their talents and making use for the benefit of the university and individual,” Dawes said. “That is often underestimated. I’m not sure we were able to do that in my case, and I think that’s something that should be looked at more carefully.”