The College of Arts and Sciences is poised to cut the graduate dance program due to low enrollment, according to Department of Performing Arts Chair Gail Humphries- Mardirosian. Fourteen students are enrolled, including at least nine full-time students.
The program has not yet been cut, but CAS Dean Kay Mussell said that early this semester she recommended it be terminated.
The cut could allow more development of undergraduate dancers and choreographers, according to Mussell. "It seems from the activity on campus there's more interest [in dance] at the undergraduate level than the graduate level," she said.
The current status of the program, Mussell said, is that it is not admitting new students, but "the program exists while [current students] complete [it]."
To terminate a program, the impacts of the cut must be determined through a survey of the department's professors. The results are given to AU's College Educational Policy Center for evaluation. Provost Neil Kerwin makes the final decision.
Humphries-Mardirosian said she e-mailed dance graduate students Jan. 19 to notify them of the potential cut. At the end of January, she met with students to assure them the courses they needed to graduate would remain and that resources needed for thesis and portfolio work would still be available. Students will be able to complete their degrees through next year.
To enhance the undergraduate dance program, dance assistant professor Rob Esposito said the University should focus on recruiting more high-level instructors and adjuncts. AU offers a minor in dance, but Esposito said the offering could grow into a major and the masters program could return.
"Down the line," he said, "the B.A. could turn into a B.F.A, and in turn develop into a grad program."
The Greenberg Theatre and nearly completed Katzen Arts Center would offer more opportunities for performance for undergrads, Esposito said. The Katzen Center houses one dance studio and six smaller teaching studios. Classes in the undergraduate dance program would be taught in the Katzen Center , according to Esposito, who will be in charge of developing the program.
Sandra Atkinson, a second-year graduate student in the program, said it would be difficult to save the graduate dance program at this point.
"If they try to rekindle the dance program it will take a lot of work because they let it go," Atkinson said. "Ann Smith is [a] good [dance program director]," Atkinson said.
When the director of dance retired in 2001 after developing the graduate program, the nature of the program changed along with the changing faculty, Esposito said.
Last year, dance program director Sherrie Barr and students worked together to create targeted recruitment methods for future classes in order to attract quality students. Recruitment included hours on the telephone with perspective students, sending many e-mail messages and giving campus tours on their own.
A group of graduate and undergraduate students put together a seven-page document of observations and suggestions for the administration to save the program after they were notified of the decision in January. The goals outlined in the document were not out of reach, Atkinson said. The students went through the steps they were told they needed to follow, approaching the program director, the department chair and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, but after three weeks of these meetings, they were not able to see the provost.
University President Benjamin Ladner's 15-Point Plan, a strategic plan for AU's development, calls for fewer, better masters and doctoral programs.
