Happy September!

Course proposal mechanisms for ATHE 2017 will be in place shortly.  Watch for emails from ATHE.  It should be live soon.

In the TLA meetings in Chicago this August, the following ideas were collected.  Some speak to ongoing projects and creative endeavors.  Some speak to questions some of us are encountering - and questions for which some of us may have been developing useful strategies.  As you consider sessions you'd like to form or join, these notes might suggest some pathways.

Questions:

• How to survive teaching that new or unfamiliar course?
• How do I teach an integrated Theatre Arts course?( Hist/theory/acting/etc.)
• What topics are being explored in First Year Seminars with Theatre Arts Programs?
• How do we, "theatre arts," move from the margins to the mainstream?

Current Plans / Needs:  (I want to / I plan to...)

• Talk about Capstone Experiences
• Honors sections of courses (General Education) (note said Gen EA)
• Advocacy without siloed thinking
• Theatre and Dance Programs - dealing with deivide between students, promoting integration
• Curriculum Roundtable -- Make it Spectacular but NOT a performance
• Aestethics of "Less is More" - perhaps joint session with Design
• Creative Solutions to "less is More"
• Marketing ourselves with integrity

Issues currently facing / tackling:

• Declining enrollment - facing challenges/ strategies for increase
• Season planning
• Student centric season planning
• Advocating for arts / Marketing to parents
• Advocating employment v. employability for students
• other side - advocating to administration
• 2 part panel?
• Mapping outcomes
• The Specialist, the  Generalist, The Creative Catalyst - note written in the room says "what does that mean?" 
• (Re)branding courses - a responsibility or necessity?
• Show and Substance
• This phrase popped up again:  in time of declining enrollment, moving from margins to mainstream - with an eye to the campus as a whole.

These were the notes from the second meeting.  Will attempt to use multiple modes of communication - blog, forum, email - hoping to generate both ideas and connections.  Apologies for the repetition, if you are among those who see the information in all modes.

Kindly,

Janice Pohl

TLA Conference planner