July 21, 2005
To:
Dr. Linda Beath
Fm:
Liahna Armstrong
Dean, College of Arts and Humanities
Re:
Theater Arts Department: Program Review Commendations and
Recommendations
Commendations:

The Theater Arts program is vibrant and substantive... Its mix of
professionalized theater production experience (Central Theater
Ensemble) and academic coursework is a creative melding that produces
top-notch graduates in drama. Currently, there are 95 majors and
minors in the undergraduate program (where students can choose majors
in General Studies, Performance, Design and Technical Theater, Theater
Education, Youth Theater, and Theater Management) and 43 Masters’
candidates in Theater Production. In addition, approximately 20
returning teachers enroll each summer in the Drama Teachers’ Summer
Institute. The program is healthy and growing.

Theater Arts faculty are passionate and dedicated. Their commitment to
the program and their students is exemplary. Individual faculty members
are extraordinarily creative and bring to the program a wealth of
inventiveness and rich theatrical experience and know-how. For the
most part, they work together effectively as a team, undergirding their
activities with a cohesive approach that results in exceptional production
seasons. Student assessment of the Department faculty is consistently
high.

Despite some ups and downs over time, leadership in the Department
has been very strong. Former Chair Van Tassel was instrumental in
transforming the program toward greater artistry and sophistication, and
integrated professional production experience into the curriculum.
Former Chair Brenda Hubbard brought an excellent organizational and
fiscal aptitude to the management of the program. Former Chair George
Bellah built on the strengths of his predecessors and helped steady the
Department through difficult personnel issues ably. Current Chair Scott
Robinson already demonstrates that he has the managerial and budgetary
skills to oversee the Department, along with a creative approach to
problem solving and deft diplomacy.

Notwithstanding its heavy demands on the faculty, the graduate program
and Summer Institute for teachers represent unique and outstanding
educational offerings. The outside evaluator aptly called the program
“the golden ball and chain,” because it provides abundant opportunities
and gratifications, even while it entails both programmatic and personal
costs. The virtues of this program, however, clearly outweigh the
drawbacks. Since the Summer Institute was established, over 500
teachers from around the region and the country have participated.
Theater Arts faculty are superior teachers and mentors of their graduate
students. Thesis oversight and supervision is particularly outstanding.

Special kudos must go to Leslee Caul, Director of Sales and Marketing.
The quality of the Department’s marketing and publicity materials is
peerless. The set of brochures, annual production calendars, posters,
postcards, and other visual materials publicizing the program and
individual programs is well-written and visually arresting. They are a
source of pride for our institution, and have marked us as the program to
be reckoned with among our regional peers. Ms. Caul’s participation in
grant writing, program planning, the Children’s Tour, and in advancing
the program is invaluable.

In the technical and design areas (stagecraft, costume, lighting) Theater
Arts excels. Faculty, staff, and students produce top flight production
designs consistently, and do so with limited resources and busy
schedules.

The Department’s active involvement in the Kennedy Center American
College Theater Festival, regionally and nationally, is commendable and
has strengthened the program’s quality and visibility.

The Children’s Tour is one of the Department’s “gems” and is the only
one of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. This year, grant support from
Sterling Savings Bank, helped enrich and disseminate the Tour to rural
areas. The Department is to be congratulated on taking the initiative and
obtaining the grant.

The Department is forward thinking, looking to strengthen and diversify
its programs, incorporate dance and musical theater, offer a BFA degree,
and seek NASTE accreditation. With its strong leadership and the
dedicated energy of the faculty, these goals are reachable.
Recommendations:

The Department needs to take a hard, direct look at its curriculum. This
means a holistic review of the program and six major emphases, and a
course-by-course assessment of individual course offerings. While I
have a sense that as individual students move through the program, their
personal curriculum assumes cohesion and the advice they receive from
faculty also helps shape their program coherently, nonetheless the
catalogue impression of the curriculum lacks a defining core. As the
outside evaluator noted, there are way too many “artistic niche” courses,
causing several problems.
 First, the curriculum needs more of a sense of center, a cohesive,
integrated programmatic focus rather than, as it seems, a set of
disparate offerings.
 Course offerings are too numerous, content from course to course
seems sometimes duplicative, and it is difficult to see how certain
courses differ from others (for example, how are T. A. 261, 361, and
461 different? The catalogue descriptions are not sufficiently discrete
to clarify the differences, so the courses appear repetitive.)
 It would be useful to do some paring down of listed courses,
thoughtfully combining and streamlining where appropriate. Courses
that are rarely offered should be deleted; in cases where courses are
holdovers from prior faculty, those should be discontinued.
 The core courses must be the starting point for coverage, which
means faculty must come to agreement what the core is and
implement it. This necessitates a collective effort to identify
priorities, sharpen the overall curricular objectives of the program,
and make some hard choices.

Teaching load issues persist. The faculty work very hard—in addition to
teaching courses, advising and mentoring, faculty are regularly involved
in the labor-intensive efforts of five center-state productions and several
supplementary productions a year along with the demanding summer
program. As a result, they work very hard and labor under some stress
during the academic year. Nevertheless, solutions need to be found to:
 Prevent the situation, through careful planning and staggering of
reassigned time, in which several faculty want to use their
accumulated thesis credits at the same during a given academic year,
resulting in the diminution of available undergraduate courses.
Because the University’s policy and budget practices don’t provide
supplemental funds for adjuncts to teach sections that full-time
faculty vacate when they use accumulated thesis credits, the academic
year program sometimes takes a hit.
 Enable faculty to leave Ellensburg in the summer to pursue theatrical
opportunities elsewhere. As the outside evaluator noted, the
scholarly/creative work of the Theater faculty is too tied to oncampus productions. While historically that work has sufficed for
tenure and promotion considerations, realistically it is not consistent
with professional expectations nationally or in other disciplines at
CWU. A rotation system needs to be designed to free up some of the
tenured and tenure –track faculty and a funding mechanism devised
to support their efforts in other venues. This might take the form of a
faculty development fund that helps cover costs during creative leaves
so that faculty do not feel compelled to earn summer income through
the Summer Institute.
 It would be useful to provide a formal “budget clinic” for Theater Arts
faculty so that some misunderstandings and misimpressions about
how the Summer Program is supported fiscally, how salaries are
computed in the context of University policies and practices, and what
“self support” means could be cleared up. Some perceptions
identified by the outside evaluator regarding summer profit are clearly
erroneous, and though the Dean’s office has worked with a
succession of Chairs to facilitate an understanding of summer
finances, misunderstandings by the faculty persist.
Certain equipment needs continue to affect the program. I was
heartened to see that in spring round of equipment grant applications,
Theater Arts fared well as a result of a set of excellent proposals
submitted by the T. A. faculty. However, there are still space and
equipment needs that should be addressed through University resources.
Re-stocking thee lighting inventory is a major priority; the Milo Smith
Tower Theater seats need to be replaced.
Office space for faculty is at a premium and will become a problem when
and if the Department adds staff; classroom space is also at a premium.
The University should consider identifying space in either Hertz Hall or
the evacuated SUB for additional classroom and rehearsal space for
Theater Arts.
The future role of Dance in the program needs to be clarified. After early
promise, the plan to integrate Dance into Theater Arts hit some road
blocks owing to reservations expressed by the P. E. Department and
uncertain support from CEPS for the move. It will be incumbent upon the
new Dean of CAH to work with the Dean of CEPS and the appropriate
department and program chairs to make a final determination about
Dance’s role and implement it.
Overall, the Theater Arts Department is strong, resilient, and creative,
and I concur with the outside evaluator that it seems to be entering a
“golden age” and with the proper support and internal decision-making,
that time is near.