1. Mission Drama/Cinema

2000-2003 Executive Summary

Program Planning and Assessment Report

Drama and Cinema Program

1. Program Mission/Purpose

The Program’s focus is twofold: to provide students with a strong analytical foundation in both theater and film history and their practice, as well as to promote aesthetic experiences that give students opportunities to construct relevant meanings, and find enjoyment through the arts. This is done by providing courses in all aspects of theater and cinema to prepare students for transfer to 4-year institutions; teaching experiential courses in acting, writing, directing and producing for the stage and camera to enable students to find and keep jobs; and offering faculty-directed stage and film productions that showcase student achievement, making the vital connection between training and performance that is central to the discipline.

2. Students/Clients Served by Program:

The Drama/Cinema program serves over 40 academic transfer Drama/Cinema majors, 32 professional/technical students, 40 ESL students, 10 Running Start students, and over 170 general students. Our clients also include the audiences who attend plays, musicals and student film/video festivals. We estimate audiences for stage productions to number over 2500 a year. Audience members for regional and national screenings of SCC videos and films will number in the thousands.

3. Criteria for Measuring Program Effectiveness and Contributions to the College

Criteria include: the growth of student enrollment; the steady expansion of course offerings; the level of retention; the number of students who successfully transfer to 4-year institutions; the number of students who receive internships or get jobs in the fields of drama/film/video; the number of annual stage, video and film productions; the verbal and written reviews of our productions; evaluations completed each quarter by students.

4. Enrollment/Staffing Trends

The enrollment in the Drama/Cinema department has increased significantly. From 1997-98 to 2000-2001, the annual FTE rose from 171.18 to 246.14. The Cinema courses are consistently overloaded, and there is an unmet demand for additional courses. There has been a significant decline in the full-time-faculty to student ratio. In 2000-01, 44% of the courses in Drama/Cinema were taught by full-time faculty. The new Technical Theater Director has wide experience and training, his energy and high standards are matched by a commitment to teaching that has enlivened our technical theater department. He is on a 10-month contract, and if he were full-time he could maintain and upgrade the theater, facilitate summer rentals and more fully develop technical theater curriculum.

5. Significant Anticipated Changes:

The cost of equipment is going down, but the pace of changes and the expectations of students are going up. We are extensively reworking curriculum. New courses will include a 200 level series of acting courses, as well as classes in editing and screenwriting. Three one-year certificates have been developed toward a Professional Certificate Program, but implementing these will put more pressure on an inadequate number of full-time faculty, and a facility that is ill-equipped to handle even the students currently enrolled. The digital revolution in video/film will require continual upgrading of equipment and software to keep students tooled for the marketplace. Meeting these demands will require innovative partnerships with business and other schools and tapping non-traditional funding sources.

6. Program Self-Assessment:

The program offers a broad range of courses in all aspects of theater and film and has a faculty committed to student-centered learning that imparts high standards. The human capital of the department is its greatest strength and the source of its increased reputation and enrollment. However, the department has insufficient full-time faculty. This results in excessive course loads and fewer opportunities to seek non-traditional funding, and deprives the students of the instructors’ ability to stay contemporary with their disciplines. The expansion in students served and courses offered has been done, in part, with the help and unusually strong commitment of our associate faculty. However, such a reliance does not make for a stable future for the department.

Our equipment and facilities are inadequate. Students in all the video production courses have access to one digital camera and one editing station. That our enrollment has grown as much as it has given these limitations is remarkable--and cannot last. In fact, we are analyzing whether a viable training program in video production can be offered if no additional equipment is obtained. The increased enrollment has already stressed available equipment, staff and space. Also, the lack of current technology on which the students can work brings into question the credibility of the program as a professional/technical training ground. Finding the resources to respond to these problems must happen.

7. Diversity/Multiculturalism:

Plays and video productions on multicultural and diversity issues are a focus of the department: The Skin of Our Teeth (war, class, racial bias), Rain (religious tolerance and persons with disabilities), and a video project with the King County Prosecutor’s office (gender, privilege, race, class, sexual orientation). Additionally, our work in acting, writing, and directing for the stage and camera demands students examine their own and their community’s assumptions and biases about those who are different from themselves. About 20% or more of the Cinema 201 classes are regularly international students.

8.Achievement of 1999-2000 Program Goals/Objectives:

The program achieved a number of important goals: increased links with UW School of Drama; enrollment of women in the video technology courses has almost doubled; there is an increase in the number of minority and international students throughout the department; one-year certificates have been designed and now need state approval; and student enrollment has increased significantly.

9. 2001-2003 Program goals/objectives

replace a full-time, tenure track position in Drama/Cinema for 2001--02 start date
seek grants and other non-traditional funding to purchase 5 digital cameras with light kits and sound equipment, and 5 non-linear editing stations;
hire the stage manager/technical theater director for 12 months;
set/staff non-linear editing lab available to trained students for class projects days and evenings, 7 days a week;
develop two-year certificates in theater/video/film production proficiency;
develop courses in stage management and technical theater;
update the theater facilities and equipment;
develop a new courses in acting, video/film editing and production;
maintain and build student enrollment, diversity, and success.