Liberal, Fine, and Performing Arts

[Denis Salter]

                          4965, avenue Connaught
                            Notre Dame De Grƒce
                             Montr‚al, Qu‚bec
                              (514) 487 7309
                           cyws at musica.mcgill.ca
_________________________________________________________________

26 January 2000

Christine Tausig Ford
Editor
University Affairs
c/o AUCC
350 Albert Street
Suite 600
OTTAWA, ON
K1R 1B1


Dear Christine Tausig Ford,

I am distressed by the quoted remarks of Dr Owram, Vice-President
of the University of Alberta, in the current issue of UA in an
article by Tema Frank, "Competition for faculty heats up" (pp 8-
12).  Since Dr Owram is one of our finer (social) historians,
since, as a 'boomer,' he could not but witness our artistic
efflorescence in the 1960s and 1970s, and since he is Vice-
President of one of our heavyweight (research) universities, I
would have expected him to know much more about the practical
workaday problems in teaching the "arts."  In explaining how
important it is to maintain an exciting atmosphere so that you
don't "lose your highest fliers" he proposes a model, as if it were
an innovation, that has been in existence for decades: "'If we can
bring in two or three people in the same field, it brings in a
network, with adequate lab support and graduate students.'" What
are departments, what are well-funded research teams, what are
internally-created inter- and multi-disciplinary research groups if
they don't form "'a network?'"

It is, however, the following summary of his interview-remarks that
I find not merely reductive but distressing coming from a V-P who
is working diligently and enthusiastically to foster the renewal of
our universities. "He also notes that in areas like the arts [sic],
where lab space is not an issue [underlining mine], benefits such
as more money for travel and conferences can help keep morale high"
(p 11). If Dr Owram just means the 'liberal arts' it is worth
keeping in mind that since approximately half of student enrolment
across the country is in the humanities and social sciences,
funding for these students, and not just their Professors, needs--
and has needed for a very long time--to be increased to bring it in
line with funding for other disciplines.

If Dr Owram is also referring, as I fear that he is, to the fine
and performing arts, and the unique pedagogical and cultural role
that they play in universities, colleges, and the communities they
serve, I can only conclude that he hasn't had an opportunity to
visit U of A's theatre department for a very long time.

Theatre departments need rehearsal rooms, storage spaces, large
places in which to build sets, other places to design, cut, and
make costumes, and, perhaps most important of all, an auditorium /
performance hall where the people for whom all this creative work
has been done--the audience--can sit and watch and hear the
production.  U of A's theatre department is one of the strongest in
the country at both the undergraduate and graduate level.  I think
the word "'lab space,'" borrowed in this case, or so it seems, from
scientific studies, is not only inadequate but grossly so; a kind
of worst academic understatement of the year.

Very often a theatre department's need for facilities cannot be
understood when a majority of, say,  a budget committee's
membership does not come from the arts, the fine arts, or the
performing arts. I have found, alas, that the only technique that
seems effective is to refer to the need to increase the number and
size of the theatre department's TLS. Since we live in the Age of
the Acronym, some committee members are too embarrassed to ask what
TLS means. At a strategic moment in the committee's deliberations,
I have been known to say: "You know: there is no limit, in fact, on
the TLSs we need to maintain and indeed increase our global
reputation for excellence."  Then some brave committee member will
finally ask: "Ahem, ah, what exactly is a TLS?" I look astonished,
a tinge condescending, and then say: "You know, Theatre Laboratory
Space."  If you can immediately end the meeting and take the
committee on a guided tour of the woefully inadequate TLSs, many of
them will say, happily and supportively, "Ah, now we know what you
mean. We've [sic] got a problem here.  What are we [sic] going to
do about it?"  You now have them on-side.

I have only described the TLS's requirements for theatre; just
consider what dance, film, fine art, and music need if they, too,
are going to compete, as we are all being urged to do, in the
academic marketplace of the global village?

The Association for Canadian Theatre Research (ACTR) will be
meeting at the University of Alberta in the spring as part of the
annual Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities.  The theatre
department's faculty are working hard not only at their usual
responsibilities of teaching, administration, and research; they
are also organising ACTR's agenda. Professors of Theatre from
universities and colleges across the country will be in attendance
to give papers, participate in panel discussions and workshops, and
exchange creative ideas and practices.

I, for one, would be delighted if Dr Owram and some of his
colleagues attend some of ACTR's sessions and, if schedules permit,
stay to examine in detail those "'areas like the arts, where lab
space is not an issue. . . . (p 11).


Denis Salter
McGill University
853 Sherbrooke Street West
Montr‚al [Qc]
H3A 2T6
<cyws at musica.mcgill.ca>

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