Student fees to support productions

[Ric Knowles]

Hi Gail,

I find the prospect of drawing on student council activity funds
dangerous: it relegates academic Drama programs to the level of
extracurricular activities--drama clubs--, which is where many
administrators and others see us anyway. I think it's important to fight
this. (I think the argument about "supporting the arts" is dangerous too:
use that one for asking the Student Councils to support visiting
productions, but not for supporting academic programs--do they give money
to "supporting the sciences"?). I suggest that you get the support of such
places as COUCTP (the Council of Ontario University and College Theatre
Programs) and the Professional Concerns Committee of the Association for
Canadian Theatre Research for help in arguing with your admistration
about this one. The former is chaired by Stephen Johnson at UofT (Erindale
and Drama Centre), the latter by Denis Salter (McGill). Both organizations
exist in part to support people in positions such as yours, and can give
information about how things are done elsewhere. It's important to all of
us that we resist setting the precedent of caving in to administrative
failures or refusals to understand that theatres and theatrical
productions are the laboratories of drama/theatre programs, as essential
to teaching and research in our field as scientific labs are to those on
"the other side of the campus."

I hope this helps, and best of luck in the meantime.

Cheers,

Ric


On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Gail Campbell wrote:

> Dear Folks - Input needed!
> I teach at a small liberal arts university in B.C. The department has 2
> full-time and up to 3 sessionals at any given time and a season of 2 or
> 3 mainstage productions per year. The adminstration believes that since
> a revenue is generated from productions, no university money need be
> allocated to the production program. We're looking for other sources of
> income. The students here pay a student council/activity fee which is
> used for a number of activities on campus such as a student newspaper
> and the weight room at the gym; none of this money comes to the
> university theatre to help offset ticket prices for students. It seems
> reasonable to me that supporting the arts would be a good use of the
> money, so these are my questions:
> 1. Do any of your theatre departments receive money from student
> activity fees or student council?
> 2. If so, is it a set amount, a variable amount dependent on enrollment
> or is it re-negotiated each year? How much does it affect your ticket
> costs?
> 3. Do you give discounted student tickets, and if so is that loss of
> income offset by any other income?
>
> I'm hoping we can establish a precedent for student council to follow;
> many thanks for your help.
>
> Gail Campbell
> gailc at twu.ca
>