THEATRE ARTS SELF STUDY
December, 2002

Sections

San Jose State University policy mandates that all programs are evaluated every five years and all nationally accredited programs are evaluated every ten years. The Drama programs, graduate (MA) and undergraduate (BA), received National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST)  accreditation in 1986. Hence, both University program evaluation of Drama programs and NAST reviews were conducted concurrently in 1996, with enthusiastic reaccredidation by NAST at that time.

The Drama programs, now all renamed Theatre Arts are all part of the Department of Television, Radio, Film and Theatre (TRFT), College of Humanities and Arts. In addition to the Theatre Arts BA and MA, the department grants a minor Theatre Arts, and a BA and minor in Radio, Television, Film (RTVF). Placing the various degree programs into perspective within the department, in the fall semester 2002, there were 291 RTVF majors, 50 Theatre Arts majors, 32 Theatre minors, 25 RTVF minors, and 26 in the Theatre Arts MA program.

This Self-Study begins with an executive summary with detailed Sections A-H to follow as per Program Planning Guidelines. Appendices include curricular materials, catalog copy, advising materials, and previous Program review related documents including 1996 NAST Self-Study, 1997 NAST Report, Dean's Response, 1999 RTVF Program Review, 2001 Curricular Priorities Review, etc.

The strongest incentive for effective planning is the necessity of running a complex organization that incorporates several curricular programs and ambitious production activities in theatre, radio, video and film. While faculty and staff cooperation in planning efforts is generally good, the demands on faculty time required for effective planning within so many areas make it difficult to schedule meetings that are long enough or frequent enough. Within those constraints however we’ve learned how to move agendas efficiently through greater integration of curriculum and production, by a cooperative communicative management structure, and by strong administrative support for department objectives.

The highly collaborative and increasingly integrated nature of our curricula ensures that faculty are continually evaluating program effectiveness, the relationship between course offerings, and the demonstration of student achievement through a variety of performance-based assessment devices. Many aspects of program history, definition and planning are already well-covered in previous self-study documents (see especially, "1996 NAST Accreditation Self-Study," and the "BA/MA Theatre Arts Curricular Priorities Report" Adams memo 11/26/01). The following document will summarize rather than reiterate previously established discussion, emphasizing changes and new initiatives that reflect the current state of the Theatre Arts degrees offered through TRFT.

The most significant change since the positive NAST accreditation in 1997 is the overall department name change from Theatre Arts to Television, Radio, Film and Theatre (TRFT), designed to clarify for our students and the larger University community the multi-media nature of the department's degree offerings and its unique identity as an "integrated" academic and production-oriented program. This formalization of department identity reflects the historical development of RTFV and TA programs under the umbrella of a single department, but it also represents the culmination of significant planning of, and commitment to, the conflation of academic disciplines usually separated into distinct and often competing departmental units. Recognizing the increasing crossover between theatre, television, radio and film practices, our department is an interdisciplinary leader in not only planning but also enacting integrated curricular and production practices. This has created a "velvet revolution" in our department, detailed in the Program History section below, with a shift from viewing RTVF as an outsized subset of Theatre Arts. The name change and the much more significant curricular and resource adjustments have created a truly integrated identity for the department, even while maintaining the separate degree programs.

For this reason, it is now impossible to discuss one degree program in TRFT without consideration of the others. In fact, one recommendation of this Self-Study is to suggest coordination of the Program Review process so that all of the degree programs in TRFT can conduct reviews on the same schedule.

The following study is also a mid-course report of the NAST accreditation process. We are well embarked on the previously approved process of integration with the renaming the department to TRFT and the concomitant unifying of production, use of facilities, faculty and student involvement, and curricula. We are also responding to the shorter-term effects of annual budget considerations, enrollment expectations, faculty availability, library construction, and the thousand natural shocks that a small program such as ours is heir to. We've maintained enrollment in the undergraduate TA major, increased enrollment in the TA Minor, in GE Service courses, and in the MA program. More importantly, these programs have maintained their high profiles as "show windows" of the University, through active community involvement, public demonstration of accomplishment, a wide recognition as a solid academically rooted program that has produced successful, and sometimes loyal, alumni.

Curriculum is guided by a liberal arts definition of theatre studies animated by our multimedia and multicultural perspective. We expect our majors to be widely knowledgeable about the theatre's historical legacy, its cultural and practical diversity, and its purposes. We require them to engage critically with the materials of the theatre, and to organize their thoughts in written, verbal and other expressive forms exploring theatre as a cultural practice and as an art. We expect them to gain knowledge about theatre as a technical craft including performance, writing, design, production technology, and directing. And we put that curricula into practice through an active production program.

Our showcases for learning take place many times throughout the semester when staged productions are presented to the university and regional community. On a daily basis, in our performance, design, writing and directing classes, students display their work for assessment by their peers and by faculty.

Our theatre pedagogy accounts for responses to multicultural and multimedia sensibilities. Faculty research and production connects to our communities and our high tech environment. Integration means conflating the grammar of stage and screen across our curriculum, from script analysis to script writing to acting to design. Knowledge of the performing arts industry extends well beyond traditional theatre into the arenas of film, television, radio, the internet and beyond.

We are mindful that many of our students will pursue professional training and other entrées to the entertainment industry where, indeed, our graduates have found success. However, we are mostly concerned with producing humanists, thoughtful media consumers, citizens who understand the value of collaboration, creativity, organization and goal orientation.

We approach academic theatre as a strong foundation discipline rooted in a long history and great diversity. We are strongly committed to the many values of a theatre education that teaches collaboration between people and between disciplines, that offers opportunities to put ideas into practice, and that helps prepare students for productive participation in their communities and their world.

A current graduate survey is showing that many of our alumni are moving into the kinds of leadership areas we envision for our graduates. Many of them are teachers. This renews a departmental commitment to articulate the value of the arts, especially in education. Theatre faculty are all involved (some quite heavily) in educational theatre service beyond the university and particularly in the K-12 setting. Recent graduate work has focused on this area where publication opportunities are ripe. And state wide, the recently enacted High School "G Requirement" for admission to CSU and UC campuses virtually mandates renewed focus on performing arts in education.

The Department is already a state leader in arts education policy and development, through its deep involvement and institutional leadership in California Educational Theatre Association (CETA), American College Theatre Festival (ACTF), Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), US Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT), The Black Theatre Network (BTN), The California Arts Project (TCAP) and the California Arts Council, among others.

The Department strongly supports the State and National Arts Education programs through the above named organizations as well as individual membership in the ATHE, USITT, and BTN. We will continue to promote research into Theatre in Education in the Graduate Program to articulate the importance of performing arts in education, and to play a leadership role in the development of curricular standards and assessment of competencies.

Faculty members publish, present papers, and lead workshops and seminars, consult, direct, and design in a highly competitive field of academic and professional endeavor. Faculty and staff are active professionals working in the field to advance their own creative achievements but also creating learning and possible career opportunities for our students.

The Theatre Arts MA program is now frequently acknowledged as one of the TRFT strengths. The program has provided important intellectual leadership by adopting a wider definition of performance studies than those traditionally found in either Theatre or RTVF departments. By establishing a multimedia perspective, the Theatre Arts MA has attracted more diverse students and in greater numbers (in 2002, the program admitted 15 new students; 12 students in 2001; 7 in 2000; 6 in 1999).

TRFT Chair Mike Adams waxes enthusiastically about these being the best of times for our program, this as a result of our success in exceeding both our short-term criteria for productivity and our long-term objectives of forging a distinctive identity for multimedia and multicultural perspectives. "I have been in the department since 1988, and it has only been in the past few years that the entire department has come together for a common curricular purpose, one based on our unique combination of production, performance, scholarship and technical. These strengths will continue to benefit you now as a major, later as a professional" ("Letter to TRFT Majors," 11/02).

The positive benefits of integration have produced some negative consequences for the TA undergraduate major viewed independently. The program has fewer resources that must be stretched thinner to maintain curriculum and production expectations. We have lost some majors to the more flexible Creative Arts BA or to the RTVF BA, with its new production-oriented identity. Although we'd like to see a higher number of TA majors, we are still able to attract a lot of students to our classes, our auditions and other production-related theatre offerings. It may be that one of the evolving developments of our program is increasing participation by non-majors.

Without additional faculty, staff, facilities, and budget the Department cannot increase any aspect of its ambitious production program. More production students and higher enrollment in technical theatre classes are required.

Midcourse corrections are needed to mitigate critical shortage among the ranks of theatre and media scholarship, with the loss of Jenkins, Baran, Toepfer over the last few years. This loss of senior faculty has a particular impact on the growing graduate program and in the performance area. An approved RTVF scholar position will provide some relief, if it materializes. There remains a chronic shortage of support for production, especially the Director of Production position, the Publicist and a full-time sound and lighting technician.

A nagging need for the Department is resources to help faculty members in the area of faculty development, especially monies to assist them in attending major professional conferences. It is very difficult for many members to travel across country to deliver papers and make presentations when expenses depend on lottery grants or out-of-pocket funds.

Facilities are the looming issue with particular, even literal, impact of the new library project a daily reminder. The status of Hugh Gillis Hall remains uncertain. The value of a well-equipped theatre and media production facility was affirmed by the flirtation with replacing HGH with a library incorporating a production facility equal to our current one. This process made everyone realize the attributes of the current building. The metaphor of HGH as a classic car that needed refurbishment took hold with positive benefits. With the library completion in sight, it is possible for the University Theatre and related teaching and production facilities of Hugh Gillis Hall to emerge as part of a new vital campus corridor. This will require short term commitment of resources to the building exterior and entryway from San Fernando, including prominent relocation of the University Theatre Marquee. We must, however, deal with the fact that HGH is an aging, overburdened building and look ahead to the 21^st century solutions to the housing of our program.

We look to the future with continuing excitement about the integration of our programs in TRFT and about the challenges of functioning in an increasingly diverse and technological environment. As a department, we believe that we have prepared ourselves and our programs to meet the challenges and enjoy the opportunities that will present themselves over the next several years. We are also mindful of the fluidity and unpredictability of the post-modern academic theatre world. We understand the need to remain flexible and attentive to changes around us.

We have asked various curricular priorities evaluation committees to view us as a total department experience beyond the constraints of degree category. The department of TV-Radio-Film-Theatre is most successful in this configuration.

Between 1996 and 1998, the Theatre Arts and RTVF faculty collaborated on curricular ways for the two degrees to work together in a related area: the production of film and television. The RTVF BA was not journalism-based, and so it was reasoned that both degrees would benefit by this unique-to-the-region collaboration between film and television production and acting and performance for the creation of entertainment media. The Dance program, formerly part of Theatre Arts, chose to relocate to Music. Integration meant that several of the permanent Theatre faculty would have to re-design their classes to add film and television to traditional stage. Curricular integration has benefited RTVF students in writing, directing, acting and technical support for narrative film and television. For the Theatre Arts students, the benefits involve greater knowledge of, and access to, the mechanisms of the electronic entertainment industry, and thus an increased range of post-graduation opportunities.

SECTION A. MISSION

Degrees in Theatre Arts support the dual mission of programs in Humanities and the Arts: 1) to offer academic preparation to future writers, artists, performers, scholars and teachers, and 2) to prepare students in our majors and throughout the university for informed and enriched lives as members of a humanistic society. It is this balance of professional preparation and liberal arts education that guides the degree programs in Theatre Arts.

Study in Theatre enriches students’ lives by articulating the power of the arts in general and performing arts in particular. By studying the long history and cultural variety of theatrical performance students learn analysis of texts, aesthetics, history, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration. Theatre offers students an excellent academic site for the development of skills necessary for success as thinking, creative, persuasive, productive members of society.

The TA degree programs advocate a specifically multicultural and multidisciplinary approach to theatre that accommodates the diversity of our student population, the many cultural manifestations of performance, and various technologies for communicating performance values. The unity of degree programs in Theatre with those of RTVF under the Department of TRFT reinforces the department's integrated view of performance.

Studying dramatic performance in different media and in diverse cultural contexts prepares students to participate in a highly complex society where their acquired skills in critical thinking, creativity, communication, group processes and cultural studies will serve their career objectives whether in the broadly defined field of theatre or in other capacities. Simply stated, our program teaches students to be analytical, imaginative, collegial problem-solvers able to accommodate difference and work together to achieve common goals.

The program also provides a thorough preparation for students specifically seeking careers in theatre and the many related fields of entertainment and communications, a leading industries in California. We train performers, directors, writers, producers, designers, technicians and managers who apply their academic knowledge and practical training to a variety of professional opportunities.

In the production arena, the Theatre performance program attracts students from throughout the university as both audience members and participants. We produce a variety of stage, radio, TV, film and musical theatre in association with RTVF, Music and Dance. Students involved with these productions earn academic credit for their work and use these important opportunities to apply classroom training to production practice.

The theatre production program is an extended classroom not only for the performers but also for the audience, many of whom see the shows as part of class assignments from other departments and our own. The range of our productions over the last few years includes several well received world-premiere plays by faculty and students, and range of both contemporary and classic plays that offer provocative cultural criticism concerning media violence, race and gender identity, the internet, capitalist economics, political torture and terrorism. Recent departmental productions include music videos, short and feature films, and documentaries. These theatrical productions involve collaboration between diverse students and departments and explore subject matter that powerfully contributes to the discourse belonging in a metropolitan university.

Another aspect of our mission is to link the academic and professional arenas involving performance. Students benefit from the department's active affiliation with the professional community. These activities demonstrate to various sectors of the profession the value of our students’ education while providing a segue between undergraduate and post-graduate experiences.

The specific relationship between the Theatre program and the Silicon Valley region can be seen in the seminal and ongoing role the university has played in the development of a South Bay performing arts community. SJSU students, faculty and staff have produced significant achievements in the region as teachers, performers, community activists, entrepreneurs, and arts administrators. The emergence of a downtown "renaissance" is partly attributable to the fertile, ongoing relationship between the University theatre program and the arts community. The Theatre production program itself is an important contributor to the South Bay arts scene.

As new performance technologies have emerged (and especially the computer-based technologies so important in the Silicon Valley), the Theatre program has responded with education and training that keep our students and our program on the cutting edge, applying dramatic performance skills to TV, radio, film, and computer-based media.

Within the academic curriculum, Theatre General Education (GE). courses currently draw over 300 students per semester, most of them non-Theatre majors. Our Oral Interpretation, Storytelling and Children’s Theatre courses attract an additional 120 students per semester and are integral courses within Creative Arts, Social Science, and Liberal Studies major programs. Major-oriented courses in playwriting and in theatre history are cross-listed with English and always attract a number of students from that department. Technical theatre and design courses appeal to students from Art, Music, and Engineering. Theatre Management courses attract students from Public Relations, Business, Journalism, and Graphic Arts. The 21-unit Theatre minor is a popular required minor for students majoring in RTVF.

Theatre's integration with RTVF in both curriculum and production is the most important manifestation of our multidisciplinary objectives. RTVF students who minor in Theatre learn the foundations of theatre theory, history and performance practice. Interaction with Theatre gives these students the contexts of dramatic storytelling, acting, directing and design which they can apply to media production in radio, TV and film. "Integrated" courses in Acting for the Camera, Lighting for Film and Television, Advanced Scriptwriting, and Multimedia Production are popular choices for both RTVF and Theatre students who recognize the creative and competitive advantages of applying performance skills across media. Integrated productions in radio, film, TV, stage, and computer-based drama allow students, faculty and staff to collaborate on innovative multidisciplinary performance projects. The increasing integration of the Theatre and RTVF areas is a direct result of our mission to provide students a cross-media, multicultural theatre education.

The diversity of our program, with its emphasis on many media, many cultures, service to two majors, three minors, a graduate program and general education offerings, support for active and professionally-oriented production programs in theatre, film, television, radio and multimedia puts tremendous demands on our resources. The centrality of a frequently affirmed mission helps us navigate through often conflicting demands, making our diversity our strength.

Theatre Arts (TA), is a 45-unit (+ 12 GE units in support of major) major leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree. In addition, the Television, Radio, Film and Theatre Department offers a 30-unit Master of Arts degree, a 21-unit Theatre Arts Minor, and a 21 unit Musical Theatre Minor.

The Theatre curriculum is strongly rooted in a liberal arts emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration. It is designed to offer a generalist degree in the major comprised of a core of common introductory and advanced classes, required classes in the areas of performance, technical production, and history/literature as well as upper division "track" electives that allow students to create specialization according to their interests. Students may also obtain a theatre teaching credential through the Single Subject Waiver Program in English-Drama. One faculty member serves as credential adviser and has special training and professional experience for this assignment.

The "Tracking" option within the Theatre Major allows students to choose an area of emphasis and follow a more clearly defined sequence of upper division courses within that area, courses that reward excellence by providing selected students with advanced courses and production assignments in their areas of expertise.

Students are also encouraged to take electives in Radio, Television, and Film which expand their training in the emphasized subject such as RTVF 175 for the dramatic literature\playwriting student or RTVF 170A for the acting student, RTVF 163 for lighting students and so on.

The Department also offers an Honors Program, TA 199, with up to 6 units of credits. Students enrolled in the course must present a final Honors Project for the faculty.

(see See "Musical Theatre Minor Form" Appendix A and online: http://tvradiofilmtheatre.com/TAminor.html)

(See TA MA curriculum in Appendix A and online: http://www.tvradiofilmtheatre.org/MA/Pages/curriculum.html)

Over the past ten years students in the program have won the university Outstanding Thesis award and College Outstanding Thesis nominations, including:

• Long, Laura: The meaning of the body in performance: cross cultural casting and racial identity (2000);
• Taylor, Kelly S: Shakespeare's verbal and visual relationship : from silent film to Kenneth Branagh (1999);
• Lee, Gordon A: Perceiving Ingmar Bergman's The Silence through I Ching (1995);
• Tillis, Steve: Towards an aesthetics of the puppet (1990 (both College and University);
• Panitchpakdi, Pip: Dusit Thanee: the city of fourth paradise: a political theatre of King Rama VI of Thailand (1992) (College only)

We may have traded some "degree productivity" in the BA Theatre Arts for the attractiveness of the Theatre Arts Minor and its usefulness to RTVF majors. As BA Theatre Arts graduates have declined in numbers, the degree’s faculty and staff are serving many more students. In fall, 2002 there are 50 BA Theatre Arts majors, but there were 32 Theatre Arts minors, each taking half the number of units of a major while graduating in another program.

Student demand directly related to the BA Theatre Arts has shifted from majors only in 1990 to a combination of GE, general service and theatre arts as a minor or an elective, with increasing demand from Creative Arts, Teacher Education, and Liberal Studies. While the numbers of actual BA Theatre Arts majors remains low, many classes under the TA prefix have become elective choices for a wide variety of programs in other departments: Theatre 5 at 39 FTES, Theatre 10 at 17 FTES, Theatre 131 at 12 FTES.

We may have to accept that degree productivity in the BA Theatre Arts may remain low in spite of our best efforts to promote it. The high cost of living in the region, balanced against the uncertain employment picture in traditional theatre, could mean that we have to view this nationally accredited degree like those in departments where the value of its GE and service component and FTES outweighs the need to produce degrees. The department of Television, Radio, Film and Theatre is in good enrollment shape and is taking full advantage of all its faculty and staff, serving both theatre and RTVF.

While the collaboration between the department’s two BA degrees remains strong and department FTES is rising, there is a renewed effort to increase the BA Theatre Arts enrollment and graduation rates. During the past year a complete overhaul of the degree was passed by the College committee and appears in the Fall 2002 printed catalogue. The new degree adds emphasis areas so that a major can select acting, directing, design and technology, writing and research, or theatre education as an elective emphasis area. The new major is five units less than the current one and is designed to fit in with the new 120 unit baccalaureate degree passed by the Academic Senate.

Recruiting is aided by the department’s long tradition of excellence and its significant community profile--achieved through its production program and through the activities of its faculty, staff and alumni. Individual faculty have "adopted" local high schools and community colleges in an effort to attract students from those institutions. The activities of our schools touring program (STEP) has also helped in the recruitment process. Increasingly, faculty are expected to market their own classes through the production of informational flyers. We have begun a campus-wide promotional campaign urging students in sciences, engineering and business to select theatre as a minor, with the goal of attracting a few of those majors and other undecided students to the BA Theatre Arts major. We have done targeted mailings to community college transfer centers, planned high school awareness days, and we continue to heavily promote our Internet presence to others, a site that logs several thousand page views per month.

The relatively small MA Theatre Arts has had an impressive increase in both the numbers in the degree and the graduation rates. The scholarship of the program is obvious. What is less obvious is the value of graduate having a graduate program within the department. Our MA students are leaders in production in the department, act as teaching assistants, and in general contribute beyond their numbers to the educational mission and the status of the department.

The numbers of students in the MA increased dramatically in fall, 2001. IPAR numbers also show an increase in the MA graduation rate. Since fall, 1996, 62 students have been admitted to the TA graduate program. Nineteen have achieved the MA degree, eight have lapsed , and 37 are actively pursuing the degree, either enrolled in course work or completing TA 299 (Thesis).

This fall's incoming class of 14 is our largest to date.