Lately, new drama has surrounded the Department of Theater Studies.
The small department's future now seems more secure than ever, but last week rumors circulated that the department might be reorganized as a program.
Programs are interdisciplinary collaborations among members of several departments, whereas independent departments can make their own tenure-track faculty appointments.
George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, allayed professors' concerns at last Thursday's meeting of the Arts and Sciences Council.
"It was gossip," said Lee Baker, chair of the Arts and Sciences Council and associate professor of cultural anthropology.
He said that after hearing the rumors, he asked McLendon about them and was pleased with the directness of the dean's response.
McLendon has since said the question of theater studies' departmental status is not really "an active dialogue." He emphasized the subject's interdisciplinary nature and said theater studies' best interest would determine its future organization.
The rumors were thought to have come from the Office of the President or that of the Provost. Provost Peter Lange had no comment on the rumors but noted that, "theater studies is an important component of the arts at Duke."
Administrators were concerned by the debate that the rumors engendered, but John Clum, chair of the theater studies department, said he saw a positive side.
"It made it clear in a very touching way how much faculty support we have for who we are and what we're doing," Clum said.
Theater studies has only been a department since Spring 2001.
"There had been an interest in the program of drama becoming a department for a long time," said Richard Riddell, professor of the practice of theatre studies, who was chair of the program when it sought to become a department.
Departmental status was necessary, he explained, to hire tenure-track faculty in theory and history.
Clum said that being a department gives theater studies, at least symbolically, more clout and respect in the University community.
But theater studies is inherently interdisciplinary, and the department's number of faculty has diminished slightly in the past four years-potential reasons behind the idea of reformulating the department as a program.
"The smaller you are, the more vulnerable you get," Clum said.
He noted, however, that the number of undergraduates taking classes and majoring in the subject has remained stable. "Our courses are full. We have over 300 students a term," he added.
Clum said the department wishes to seek more interdisciplinarity in the future within the departmental framework, perhaps through more secondary appointments. He also spoke of a potential graduate certificate but said the department is unlikely to admit its own graduate students because it might take attention away from the undergraduate program.
Clum said theater studies provides familiarity with professional theater production, which he described as a vital contribution to arts at the University. He said guest performing artists brought in by Duke Performances, while important, are not unique to the university setting.
"I would like to see that the Strategic Plan privilege the creation of art over the consumption of art," Clum said.
Discussion about the University's arts programs, as well as the vitality of faculty governance, came to the forefront as a result of the debate about theater studies' status. Officials said Arts and Sciences faculty now know they will have a say about such decisions in the future.
"The final say? Maybe not. A say? Definitely," Baker said.
Tiffany Webber and Saidi Chen contributed to this story.
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