REBECCA HALE
Reverb Co-Editor
The Rockefeller Arts Center (RAC) project promises big changes for students at Fredonia but also some difficulties as the Department of Theatre and Dance adjusts to its new space.
The RAC project, upon its completion, will allow the Department of Theatre and Dance to add more productions per year and thus, give more students opportunities onstage.
The problem is that the department doesn’t have the staff to oversee more productions. Last year, the Department of Theatre and Dance requested funding for two new faculty positions and a staff position to be added within the Department.
Since last Spring, the department has been interviewing for two of the three requested positions. One new faculty member will be hired to be the head of the B.A. program in theater arts and to expand community outreach; the other is a faculty position within the dance major.
The new professor in dance is Paula Peters. The other position is not officially determined yet, but the university is currently choosing between two candidates. The third position, which was requested to be a staff member who oversee technical operations in the new performing spaces, was not funded.
“That request [for another personnel] is hitting right up against the university’s current financial difficulties,” Department Chair Tom Loughlin explained.
He notes that though the department feels very fortunate to have received funding for the other two positions, “on the other hand, it doesn’t diminish the need to continue to request this.”
Ralph Blasting, Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, said that the reason for the two faculty being hired over the staff position wasn’t a deliberate or discriminatory decision but rather a difference in priority.
“We have decided with the Provost [that] faculty are the priority, because they’re teaching students in the classes; we want to try to maintain our enrollments and increase our enrollments,” Blasting said. “Staff are the second priority, and we’re gonna have to put those aside for now.”
Blasting said that the staff position has not really been discussed, although he knows it is an important factor in the continuing growth of the department.
“We really do need a staff member to oversee lighting and sound in the Theatre and Dance Department, not just for that space, but for all of things we do,” he agreed. “That new space just makes it even more critical.”
Still, when the deans advocate their concerns with the Provost, the faculty requests remain separate from the staff requests, of which there are many campus-wide. Alternately, in the case of a retirement or termination, funding from a different staff position could be re-directed to a new position.
“It’s very important to me and to the Department of Theatre and Dance,” Blasting continued, “but one of the things that I have to recognize as a dean is that everybody has needs that they consider very important. We’ll keep working on it.”
But for the department, this lack of technical oversight means more missed opportunities for productions.
“The biggest issue as far as the new space is concerned, is that at the moment, it’s my feeling that, [with] the current faculty and staff, their workloads are as high as they can go,” Loughlin said. “There is no room in their current workloads, and teaching assignments, and staff assignments to take on the additional responsibility for another performance space. The current staffing is just barely sufficient to handle the three performance spaces that we have.”
Consequently, even though the addition will be complete, there will be no additional dance concerts or performances scheduled for the 2016-17 Walter Gloor Mainstage Series. This may come as another disappointment to already-frustrated students, especially those who are dance majors.
Blasting believes that the space will be used for student productions and other things, at the very least.
“My opinion is that we’re gonna have the space, open it, use it, and as we decide what goes in it, we will have to hire the technical assistants that we need on a case-by-case-basis until we get that next [staff] line,” he said.
So where does the solution lie? No one is sure yet, but the process, like anything in a university budget, is bound to be slow-going. There is always the possibility of alumni donors and money coming into the College Foundation through the naming of the new spaces, but the future and expansion of the Department of Theatre and Dance is currently unclear.
Nonetheless, Loughlin swears that Fredonia is the best SUNY school for theater and all that goes with it.
“There isn’t another four-year SUNY school anywhere where all of the areas in which you need to produce theater of all kinds is strong,” he said, citing programs in acting, musical theatre, dance, music, costume and set design and facilities.
A grand opening will take place in Rockefeller Arts Center on Friday, Oct. 21 at 11 a.m. President Horvath will cut a ribbon, there will be an opening ceremony in Marvel Theatre, and tours of the building will ensue.