KORTNEY YOUNG
Special to The Leader
The Department of Theatre and Dance (TADA) is proud to announce that it has recently received accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST). Tom Loughlin, the chair of TADA, as well as other faculty members, have been pursuing this goal for numerous years.
Founded in 1965, NAST has been providing national standards for 187 theatrical institutions, mostly at the collegiate level. These higher standards provide institutions with the framework necessary for standardizing and conducting their department accordingly since “theatre is a unique discipline, that has special needs and interests,” as described by NAST.
“Students can be pretty well assured that if they come here they are going to get the education that we say they’re going to get,” said Loughlin.“A national organization that looks at theatre programs across the country has come in and looked at our programs and said, in national standards, in terms of what everyone else is doing from coast to coast, your department meets those standards.”
Around 2011, documentation regarding the competency of the department was gathered; thus the tedious process of bringing the department to the standards of NAST began.
The department had to conduct a self-study, which was a learning process in itself. It allowed for the department to pin-point its strengths and weaknesses.
“Self studies force you to look at what you’re doing and really say, ‘Well, is this what we want to do for the future,’” said Loughlin.
Once the management portfolio and self-study were created, an on-site review from NAST was then conducted to determine if the documentation held true. NAST representatives interviewed faculty and students and attended a show to determine the quality of the institution’s work. The representatives then wrote up a report based on their finds and notified both the board members of NAST, as well as the institution being reviewed.
“In almost all cases — and it did happen to us — they will find something that they would like the department or the administration to fix. That was true of us. We had a couple things we had to take some time to repair,” said Loughlin. “It took us about two years to fix all of the things that they wanted [us] to. After that two-year deferral, we re-applied again this past February. We sent in our report saying, here’s what we fixed over the last two years, and that’s what they approved,” said Loughlin.
The department had to create a new part-time position for the costume room, and the administration had to alter the definition of a credit hour to NAST’s standards, among other tweaks here and there.
“I think that the most important thing that this process has done for us is to look at ourselves, as we are, and look at where we might want to go in the next ten years. That long range planning process is going to be important in keeping the department strong, healthy and current,” said Loughlin.
Stefan Duga, a junior BFA lighting design major, experienced the growth of the establishment first-hand.
“I think that it’s an amazing — and a very wonderful — accomplishment that the Department of Theatre and Dance has received, once again, national accreditation. It goes to show that although we are a relatively small theatre department, we are still a strong one. We are also very fortunate to have the staff and faculty that we do here at Fredonia. Their knowledge and experience is invaluable, giving us the education we need to maintain our department accreditation. Staff, faculty and students alike in the Department of Theatre and Dance is where we all make ‘Success a Tradition,’” said Duga.
The department has been expanding for many years now in terms of faculty, numbers of students and most recently, the Rockefeller Arts Center’s building addition.
“We are very proud of the fact that our theatre programs have been nationally accredited since 1992. National standards are constantly changing, and this re-accreditation [by NAST] demonstrates that we meet the most current, most stringent expectations for college-level theatre training. I am very proud of the work of our students, staff and faculty,” said Ralph Blasting, the Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts.