Students and staff lose a sense of stability and notice a significant difference in the university as the Department of Drama is cut from the list of programs at UNC Asheville.
“Our students are very angry, they feel betrayed by the university, and they feel like they’ve been left behind,” said Assistant Professor of Theater Casey Watkins. “I would say when I walked into class at the beginning of the semester they were angrier than I ever was.”
This isn’t just affecting the returning students either – There were around 15 incoming freshmen who toured for the theater department who are no longer allowed to declare their major or get their degree. According to Watkins, the number of drama majors and minors increase each year since COVID-19.
“They made this announcement in the middle of the summer after people had already declared and paid their money,” Watkins said.
Sophomore drama student Mikaela Futrell said they see a difference in the program as well.
“A lot of my friends are already talking about transferring or at least changing their majors, a lot of my professors seem a lot less into it now,” Futrell said.
Futrell joined a letter writing campaign spreading awareness of the recent program cuts in collaboration with the head of the department, Lise Kloeppel. Their goal was to keep the program because, according to Futrell, a lot of the theaters in the Asheville community use alumni from the drama department.
“There should have been a step in between what happened. They should have come to us and been like ‘listen we can no longer fund you in x, y and z ways, is there a new model,’ which we could make,” Kloeppel said.
During a span of three weeks students, staff, alumni and other members of the Asheville community sent 1,222 letters to both Chancellor Van Noort and President of the UNC system Peter Hans with no avail.
“I have been here eight years and in my tenure here, not once has a chancellor stepped foot in the building to watch a show. You have people making decisions and getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars who have never even seen or understood what we do,” Watkins said.
She said the numbers that university officials are counting in their surveys seemed to come out of nowhere. In addition to the majors and minors, there are approximately 40 other students that participate in the shows, as well as collaborations with other departments.
“We serve students beyond just our majors and minors, as well as the external community that comes, we do a lot of collaborations with different people and support other departments,” Watkins said.
According to Professor of Sociology Volker Frank, two people retired early in his department because they were unhappy with the institutional changes that followed the budget deficit, among other reasons.
“It has also had an effect about an uncertainty that certain faculty have about their status, whether they’re going to be kept or not kept,” Frank said. “If you’re admitting that I cannot put a price tag on education, why do our politicians and administrators constantly say education is too expensive? It doesn’t make sense.”
According to the N.C. Arts Education Coalition, there is a 61.1% decrease in access to required arts in Buncombe County schools between 2017-2022.
“Something’s going on in the outside world that produces students who may or may not have less interest in certain fields. We can’t always say ‘that’s not my fault’ or ‘that’s the fault of administrators’ or ‘that’s the fault of politicians’, that’s not entirely fair.” Frank said.
Students can see this trend continue in the UNC board of governors’ decision to repeal the diversity, equity and inclusion policy from May, just two months before the chancellor’s announcement to phase out the drama program.
“I think that’s not the kind of society I want to live in, if we live in a society where our younger people are not taught how to sing or dance or play. It is a question of values,” Frank said.
