Professional Concerns Committee Report of ACTR / ARTC

[Denis Salter]

              Report from the Professional Concerns Committee

                     by Denis Salter, Chair (1997-98)



Beginning with pleasant news is always so seductive.  I thank all
those who worked so diligently and energetically to make the
Professional Concerns Committee's contributions to the Memorial
University ACTR / ARTC conference so telling.  This, you will
recall, is the first time--and not the last, I hope--that the
Committee's activities have been integrated into the regular
academic program. So, thank you to Jennifer Harvie and her lively
participants from various parts of the globe for presenting the
session, "Graduating Professionals: the Efficacy of Current
Graduate Theatre and Drama Training"; thank you to Ann Wilson for
single-handedly taking on the session, "Strategies for Survival,"
from which emerged an abundance of issues of common concern
together with many proposed practical strategies for working
collectively and individually on those issues; and, finally,
thank
you to Len Doucette (representing ACTR / ARTC) and Noreen Golfman
(representing the Association of Canadian College and University
Teachers of English [ACCUTE]) and their many participants for co-
chairing the session, "Getting and Staying Published."  Thank
you,
as well, to Shelley Scott who kindly served as our Recording
Secretary during both the PCC's business meeting and indeed
throughout the sessions themselves; and, finally, thank you to
Denyse Lynde, Program Convener extraordinaire and her
hard-working
committee, for setting up and overseeing the running of a most
productive conference.

     The PCC is also grateful to Herbert Rosengarten who has
kindly
served over the last few years as the liaison between ACCUTE's
Professional Concerns Committee and our own, and who has offered
us
a good deal of timely advice, especially during the early phases
of
establishing our own committee.  Mervyn Nicholson of the
University
College of the Cariboo is now the new Chair of ACCUTE's
Professional Concerns Committee and has generously agreed to
continue serving in Herbert's liaison capacity and is interested
in
possible future initiatives between our two Associations.
Indeed,
we might find that we will want to sponsor professional concerns
sessions with a number of Associations over the next few years in
particular, for as there is a plethora of issues of common
concern,
the need for solidarity is greater than ever.

     The PCC is also grateful to Carrie Loffree (Universit‚
Laval)
who, with the help of many others in the Association (she cites
104
people so far and is still counting!), is putting together what
will no doubt be an invaluable list of Deans, unit Heads and
Chairs, and so on, in colleges and universities across the
country,
to whom we can send targeted mailings: for example,  in letting
them know about the ongoing work of the Association in promoting
the study of Canadian theatre, in perhaps advising them about
candidates who are searching for positions, in asking for their
assistance when we are sending out letters of concern to
politicians about issues that directly affect the state of
theatre
studies (and of arts education more generally) in Canada, and in
asking that they post job notices on CANDRAMA and perhaps on
H-Net
which is U.S.-centred but which is of course available on the
worldwide net.  The list will also prove useful as part of our
recruitment campaign to increase the number of members in the
Association, and the number of subscriptions to the journal, in
circulating information about scholarships and sources of
research
funding, in planning our annual conferences, in disseminating
information about major resolutions made by the Professional
Concerns Committee and other ACTR / ARTC committees, and in
helping
us to maintain and expand our network of theatre people.

     There was also a good deal of discussion during the Memorial
business meeting of the PCC about the job registry--available on
computer diskettes--which was created through the persistent and
resourceful work of Diane Bessai, when she was Chair of the PCC
several years ago, along with a working group that included Ed
Nyman (who created the software program) and Kym Byrd.  The job
registry resulted from a questionnaire that was sent out to
theatre
departments and programs across the country, asking them to
indicate which appointments they expected to make in the field
over
the next number of years.  Unfortunately, this survey was
undertaken just about the time that many of the initial financial
cutbacks were taking place.  So the information contained within
the diskettes seems to have become (mostly) out-of-date within a
very short period of time.  (I have the diskettes and would be
happy to send copies of them to anyone who asks.)   The committee
enthusiastically thanked Diane Bessai, Ed Nyman, Kym Byrd and all
those departments that responded so carefully to the
questionnaire,
but decided that, regrettably, as cutbacks continue, it would
perhaps be a waste of time, money, and effort to continue with a
regular update of this data bank.  It seemed to us more strategic
to use the list that Carrie Loffree and her working group are
compiling to keep in regular contact, through a targeted mailing,
with specific universities and colleges, urging them to sustain
and, if possible, expand their theatre programmes and departments
through badly needed new appointments once the process of cutting
back finally bottoms out, if and when it does.

     The PCC also happily endorsed Joel Beddoes' suggestion that
it
would be useful to set up a Francophone caucus within ACTR /
ATRC.
Those interested in joining Joel in this endeavour can reach him
at
joel.beddoes at utoronto.ca or you can write directly to him c/o the
Drama Centre where he is a PhD candidate.


     There have been some changes in the composition of ACTR's
Professional Concerns Committee.  The people listed in the Spring
1997 issue of the Newsletter, with the exception of Judy Harvie
and
Herbert Rosengarten, are still with us. Moreover, since the St.
John's meeting, the following new members have kindly agreed to
join us as part of the Core group: Maarten van Dijk (University
of
Waterloo), Helen Peters (Memorial University), Guillermo
Verdecchia
(who is, as well, a member of our ACTR Executive), Ira Levine
(Ryerson Polytechnic University), Chris Johnson (University of
Manitoba), Anne Nothof (Athabasca University), Jan Selman
(University of British Columbia), John Poulsen (University of
Lethbridge), and C‚leste Derksen (University of Victoria).  Their
expertise and advice will be most welcome.  Given the size of the
Professional Concerns Committee, we are well represented across
the
country, and by people from different, yet interrelated, kinds of
"constituencies";  and the system is flexible enough that as some
people drop away for various reasons, and as new ones are added,
there will be enough overlapping to ensure the continuous
treatment
of the issues we are working on. (The composition of the ACTR
executive has of course also changed [see their names listed
elsewhere in this Newsletter] and the PCC's email consultations
are
still regularly copied to them, again in a liaison function.)

     I summarise below the positions, reflections, questions, and
proposed strategies that the PCC currently has absorbed into its
agenda.  These include the issues that I outlined in my report to
you in the Fall 1996 issue of the Newsletter, those that emerged
during the Memorial sessions, discussions, and meetings, those
that
have emerged from discussion among members of the PCC over the
summer, and those that have been brought to our attention by
other
Associations, especially by ACCUTE.  As I pointed out in my Fall
1996 report, the PCC cannot, of course, treat all issues at once;
moreover, since the issues change rapidly in relationship to
institutional, political, and economic pressures in particular,
we
need to engage in a constant review of our agenda-priorities and
strategies as we spread these priorities over a projected three-,
four-, or perhaps even five-year cycle of activity.


     1) We must be eternally vigilant (both individually and
collectively) in observing and responding to  the policy
statements
and practices proposed and established by the organisations that
exist, in whole or in part, on our behalf, including the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Humanities and
Social
Sciences Federation of Canada, faculty associations, provincial
and
municipal legislatures, and the House of Commons and the Senate.
There was general sentiment in St John's that although the PCC
itself might respond to particular issues, it is equally
important
that every single one of us take the time to write letters, and
send faxes and emails about issues that affect the present and
future conditions of our discipline(s).

     2) We must be eternally vigilant in reading and perhaps
responding to the wording of advertisements for positions in
drama,
theatre, performance studies and cognate fields.  Perhaps we
should
insist that these advertisements should indicate whether or not
there is an incumbent candidate who is being considered. Perhaps
we
should note whether there seems to be a marked discrepancy
between
the position's responsibilities and the kinds of credentials and
training that candidates are expected to offer.  Perhaps we
should
also be eternally vigilant in observing what actually happens to
an
advertised appointment.  What are the implications for our
discipline/profession if an appointment is not made? if hiring
protocols seem to have been abused?  if the initial advertisement
and procedure seem an exercise to eliminate Canadian-trained
candidates so that an international search can then be
authorised?
and if gender and other forms of discrimination seem to have
taken
place?  Do we have an obligation to try to find out if such
things
have indeed occurred? Do we have a responsibility to act--and if
so, in which appropriate ways--if we satisfy ourselves that
inadequate practices have been engaged in? Collaterally, should
we
be monitoring situations in which new PhDs are perhaps being
exploited, year after year, by sessional appointments?

     3) As a follow-up to, in particular, the session on
"Graduating Professionals," we should continue to examine the
(perhaps changing) relationships between graduate training
programs
and job requirements. How much congruence is there?  How much
discrepancy?  Meanwhile, we should continue, at the national
level,
to have a conversation about the reconception of both our
discipline and the curriculum and how, for example, this
reconception (especially in response to interdisciplinarity)
might
influence graduate training programs.

     4) We should try to help senior administrators understand
that
theatre is a discipline unlike many others in our universities
and
colleges. For example, theatre faculty are often required to
publish refereed articles and books and to apply for prestigious
and well-funded research grants and meanwhile to direct
main-stage
productions (often without corresponding course-relief) and still
engage in so-called non-core activities, like journal editing,
manuscript vetting, thesis supervision and various forms of
professional service, both in and outside their home
institutions.
Yet it would seem that in a number of places protocols have not
been devised, and criteria agreed-upon, to understand and
properly
reward this perhaps unusual mixture of responsibilities during
tenure, promotion, and merit assessments. Should ACTR, perhaps in
consultation with the Council of Ontario University and College
Theatre Programs (COUCTP), help to set up assessment guidelines
that would be distributed to senior administrators in colleges
and
universities across the country?  Should we perhaps run a
workshop,
as early as the Ottawa Congress, for department Chairs, unit
Heads,
Deans, and faculty from other disciplines who might be serving as
the external members on a theatre position hiring committee, to
help them to understand the multifactorial, inherently multi- /
inter-disciplinary nature of our work?

     Along similar lines, has the field of theatre studies in
Canada reached the historical moment to form a body like
CACE--the
Canadian Association of Chairs of English--consisting of Chairs
of
departments and programmes in drama, theatre, and performance
across the country?  Such a body could, for example, become very
proactive when, as happened at Dalhousie University a few years
ago, departments and programs are threatened with closure or
subjected to bearing an unequal share of the burden of cutbacks.


     5) As a follow-up to the session on "Getting Published and
Staying Published," which was effective in providing some
essential
information about the state of academic publishing in Canada,
should we perhaps hold, again as early as the Ottawa Congress, a
workshop on how to convert theses into books, how to get
publishers
interested enough to referee them, and how to conceptualise,
write,
submit, respond to referees' and editors' assessments, and
rewrite
an article to get it into publication?

     6) Should we perhaps conduct a workshop on converting
academic
credentials in theatre studies into non-academic career-paths?
Is
planning for this kind of 'lateral transfer of skills' something
that could be integrated into, say, doctoral training programs,
and
could it be taken into consideration by a doctoral candidate from
the very beginning of her/his training?  Similarly, should actual
courses or workshops in strategies for survival, in career
conversion, in pedagogy, in the preparation of an eye-catching CV
and in writing job application letters, in learning the skills of
how-to-be-effectively interviewed, in acquiring the skills of
writing up convincing and impressive grant applications and in
securing conference travel funding while still being graduate
students, in figuring out how, where, and why to get published,
and
in developing strategies for presenting conference papers perhaps
become an integral part of doctoral training and the
professionalisation that goes along with it? Moreover, should
Teaching Assistantships--with clearly defined responsibilities,
including, in our discipline, both practical and academic
work--be
an essential part of graduate training, so that recruiting
departments will know whether a candidate is indeed ready for the
classroom?

     7) As a profession, we need to become better informed about
the kinds of appeal procedures and protocols that have been
established by bodies such as the Canadian Association of
University Teachers (CAUT) in dealing with matters such as hiring
procedures, tenure hearings, workload performance, evaluation
norms, appraisal protocols, and termination of employment
procedures. Again, should we run one or perhaps a series of
workshops on these issues?  As part of our own contribution,
should
we collect data and access existing data on the gender of the
pool
looking for work vs. the gender of those who get hired and
tenured?


     8) Should we set up, as early as the Ottawa Congress, a
panel
on the issue of how to deal with cutbacks to the arts in general
and to arts education / theatre studies in particular and to the
preparation and dissemination, through various modes, of Canadian
learning materials? As a related topic, should we discuss the way
in which these cutbacks have been replaced, as it were, by the
corporatist, consumerist agenda, in which disciplines such as
theatre studies might be treated as non-productive frills, and
therefore necessarily and easily dispensed with?  The object here
would be to analyse the situation, identify possible solutions,
and
then set up proactive strategies / workgroups that would approach
the problem through letter-writing campaigns, lobbying key
members
of Parliament, and explaining over and over again the manifold
contributions that the theory and practice of theatre, within an
academic environment, make to society, doing so,  however,
without
necessarily adopting the rhetoric of corporatist/capitalist
productivity.


     Please get in touch with me and/or any of the members of the
Professional Concerns Committee about these matters and others
that
you want us to work on your behalf.  In particular, please let us
know which particular kinds of workshops and theme-sessions that
you would like the PCC to propose to the organising committee for
our conference during the Ottawa Congress next May.


                               ************