2017 ATHE Presidential Address

When I joined the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) in summer 1999, eighteen years ago, and attended my first conference in Toronto, I knew very little about ATHE. It was one of several academic associations to which I had been directed by faculty. I returned to ATHE over the next few years, not because I had a clear sense of what the association does, but because I liked the people. ATHE members are passionate about theatre, devoted to pedagogy, and eager to share new skills and research with one another. ATHE friends helped me to appreciate the scope and mission of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. When smart, driven, charismatic educators like J. Ellen Gainor, Daniel Banks, David Kaye, and of course Patricia Ybarra (to name just a few) invite you to join them in serving the discipline of theatre, you leap at the opportunity.

I was reintroduced to our association through service. I learned about ATHE’s mission to advocate for theatre in higher education. I witnessed how ATHE’s twenty-three focus groups exist as wellsprings of support and mentorship for members. I watched the governing council and focus-group representatives devise guidelines on how to tenure artists and spotlight the challenges faced by contingent faculty. Part of me wants to encourage all new and continuing ATHE members to walk the path that I traveled: ease into service; discover for yourself, and at your own pace, how central an association like ATHE is to what we, as theatre educators and practitioners, do.

However, we need to race, not walk, toward initiatives that champion the arts and humanities on college and university campuses. The overall number of college theatre programs has been on the decline over the past decade. Every year, a handful of schools announces plans to suspend admission to their theatre major or outlines significant cuts that threaten the integrity of their performing arts units.

To put this in perspective: over the past twelve months, nine colleges and universities have made decisions that significantly compromise theatre education and training on their campuses. Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts, SUNY/Stony Brook in New York, Eastern Kentucky University, Faulker Christian University in Alabama, St. Catherine’s University in Minnesota, and Central Arizona College have announced plans to close their theatre programs (Barker; Burylo; Eider; Fisher; LaBella; Olson). Regents University in Virginia and the University of Missouri–Kansas City are facing budget cuts that many faculty believe will weaken their programs (Fossa; Spencer). Harvard, the wealthiest university in the world, has elected to suspend rather than invest in its graduate actor-training program (Gay).

The decision to defund, suspend, or close theatre programs is not made overnight. College administrators, borrowing a page from politicians, often solicit public comment. They hint at their intentions. They announce the formation of an exploratory committee to consider the viability of the arts on campus and then monitor the extent of opposition. The louder the outcry, the less likely the cuts will be implemented. Unfortunately, the outcry has not been consistently loud or forceful.

We need to do a better job speaking on behalf of theatre on college campuses. We cannot be outraged at the calls to shutter the National Endowment for the Humanities and be comparatively silent about the decision to cut funding or suspend admission at the university across town or in the neighboring state (Sopan). We need to be prepared to answer questions. Why should a college prioritize spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and often millions of dollars, every year to support theatre rather than investing in another initiative? If we do not speak up, our silence will be taken as consent to closure.

I offer a couple suggestions. These are things to say to administrators who shrug when you tell them that the arts are important, that great societies are remembered for their cultural innovations, and that studies suggest that exposure to the arts increases empathy.

Assertion 1

While it is true that many theatre majors will not be practicing artists decades after graduation, this does not mean that the study of theatre is not...