Proposal to Create a Minor in Theater

NOTE: Full formal proposal visible at bottom of post. 

Overview 

 The Dance Department is proposing to create a much-needed minor in Theater Studies to fill the deep need for dramatic arts on campus. Mills has a strong Fine Arts Division but one that is incomplete without a theater component, which it had until 2004.

We developed this proposal in order to:

1. Fully represent the true scope of Performing Arts on campus by returning Drama to the Mills curriculum. 
2. Broaden the options for Mills undergraduate students to experience the arts and provide a wider range of elective courses from which to choose. 
3. Fill a void that has been felt by current and past community members at Mills since the extinction of the Drama Department in 2004 (see Fall 2012 Mills Quarterly p. 2: “Ask Alecia: Will you please reinstate the theater arts department?”). 
4.  Deepen and expand the undergraduate MA, and MFA programs in performance by adding theater to the curriculum, which is vital for any liberally educated person to experience and understand. 
5.  Increase our interdisciplinary collaborations with departments in the other Fine Arts but also potentially in English, Education, and Anthropology. 

Our plan is to invite a full time Artist in Residence to begin teaching the theater courses in 2013-2014. Rationale Adding a theater minor is the logical next step for our department and for the College. When we offered the College 60 course “From the Page to the Stage” in 2008, non-dance majors flocked to the class because it involved transforming stories to staged dance and theater productions. These students expressed a great longing for drama, and we realized that many more students shared their yearning for dramatic arts which was not being adequately met. At the same time, we came to realize that our dance students have to be able to create dance that involves theatrical approaches to movement arts. Because we lack the capacity to dedicate courses to the study of theater, however, dance students have no means of getting a full understanding of what theater in dance entails.

We became pro-active last year when we added drama courses to our curriculum. All of our efforts to bring theater into our curriculum over the last several years have brought positive results for students from various departments but without appropriate faculty resources, we are not equipped to take Theater where it needs to go and build on our momentum. We lack the necessary faculty in Dance currently and the infrastructure to develop Theater as it needs to be. Thus, we are seeking to create a theater minor to meet these demands. This move would allow us to take theater courses out of DNC 180 Special Topics and provide stability, continuity, and needed growth in the Performing Arts curriculum.

The new minor in Theater Studies would also benefit the College by:

• Attracting prospective students and retaining those who now leave because of the College’s lack of a theater program; 
• Providing a wider choice of elective courses to Mills students; 
• with the future change of credits into semester hours, our students will appreciate the number of elective courses in dance and theater offered for 1, 2, 3, and 4 semester hours; 
• Fostering critical thinking skills in our students; Enhancing reading/writing skills; 
• Promoting a new vocabulary for artistic collaboration; Helping our students gain self-confidence through dramatic reading; 
• Helping our students become better speakers; 
• Creating a community that will share the love of theater; 
• Giving the students more opportunities to perform; 
• Making the College even more vibrant by offering theater performances; 
• Gaining the support of our Alumni who have been asking to reinstate drama at Mills. 

The Market

Most colleges and universities have a Theater program often attached to their dance department, for example: Saint-Mary’s College, UC Berkeley, Santa Clara University College of Arts and Sciences, San Francisco State University, California State University, Smith College, etc… What makes our program unique is the fact that students, through their choice of electives, can design their minor with an emphasis on drama or physical theater. As you all know, Mills College used to offer a major in drama and had a Theater department until 2004. From 1996 to 2003, drama the average number of undergraduate students majoring in drama was 10.

Program 

We propose that Dance Department becomes the Dance and Theater Studies Department without changing the registration identification for our dance courses. Only the theater courses would become THS in order to keep the clarity of the tracks for the students as well as making it easier for the Registrar.

As previously mentioned, the minor in Theater Studies would have a total of 6 Mills credits, with some requirements being offered every year and some every other year. The minor will draw heavily from the Dance curriculum, which has a list of courses pertinent to the minor: Acting Fundamentals, Improvisation, Dance Production (which is being retitled Stage Production), Jazz, Laban Movement Analysis, and Costume Design. In turn, most of the Theater courses will fulfill requirements or electives for our undergraduate Dance majors. We not only have collaboration designed into these courses but we plan to extend it into the performance classes (having some of the Dance Faculty choreographing, which would directly feed an emphasis on “physical theater”).

Impact on the Graduate Programs 

In the Fine Arts, there is a strong connection between the undergraduate and graduate programs. Both communities will often work together in the same classroom and the success of one program will directly influence the success of the other. Adding theater courses will set up the stage for even more collaborations within the Fine Arts.

Our Theater Studies minor would also support the graduate community by offering selected courses with graduate credits. These courses would not replace or cover requirements but could be counted as electives. For example the interdisciplinary course, Documentary Theater/Playwriting, would attract graduate students from across campus: creative writing, music, journalism, art, dance etc. The course is ethnographic in nature, based on gathering data from the community on an issue that is currently in the news, then transforming those stories by stages until, in the second semester, they present a play based on the work. This course reflects the College mission of social justice and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Another course that we are offering for the graduates is “Directing”. It is a course that builds leadership and, speaking for our dance graduates, it would directly benefit them by building an understanding of space in myriads way and learning to shape it with care, which would enhance their thesis concert work, the capstone of the program.

Financial Impact

The theater minor will build on the existing resources of the dance department to offer an additional educational option for students and increase collaboration among the departments in the Fine Arts. During its last seven years, Mills previous major in drama averaged 10 students per year. We believe that in its first year, the new Theater Studies minor would attract at least as many students with the goal of having approximately 15 to 20 students by the third year, and each year after. We base this number from:

1. The enrollment from our “Acting Fundamentals” course. 
2. From a short survey we conducted during this year’s “Reg Fest”: 99% of undergraduate students who answered were interested in taking courses in Theater and 70% were interested in a minor.

In terms of financial impact, the drama minor and renewed theater activity on campus will contribute to attracting and retaining students. If the drama minor contributes to retaining 5 students who might otherwise leave to pursue this interest somewhere else (which we know happened this year), then the minor will be bringing in almost $100,000 per year. This figure is based on $19,600 net tuition revenue that the College receives per student.

After a five years’ period, looking at the pro and con, the Dance and Theater Studies department is hoping to develop a major as well. To be able to do so, we would need better facilities since Lisser Theater is not adequate, even for the current dance program.

The Fine Arts Division has written a report in 2011-12 and mentioned the necessity for a new building with a black box theater, in order to create a multi purpose space. By 2027, this new building could be the home of the Dance and Theater Department Studies as well as accommodate, Intermedia arts, Music and Arts.