The drama department at UNC Asheville, like many programs cut from the university, was underfunded, understaffed and lacked thorough marketing strategies to promote its individuality. Now the department is in its last year of being offered at the university.
“I’m not certain how UNCA can continue to call itself a liberal arts university without a drama, philosophy, or classic department, although my impression is that the current so-called leadership is not particularly interested in maintaining that designation,” said Emeritus Professor of UNC Asheville, Scott Walters.
UNCA’s board removed the drama, philosophy and classics departments along with the professors designated as adjunct faculty.
“They’re more interested in using the post-pandemic enrollment downturn to turn the university into a trade school, and for that, they should be deeply ashamed,” Walters said.
Walters said the number of majors is down because of the lack of staff. He said there were only three full-time tenure track professors, and the rest were adjunct faculty.
“The attack on majors in the Humanities is being driven by a careerist narrative based on the idea that higher education is only justifiable if it leads to job skills tied to today’s workforce,” Walters said. “It isn’t an accident that the departments that were targeted were all in the humanities, and encouraged critical thinking, empathy, historical perspective, and questioning.”
Walters said the department was one step away from becoming extraordinary before it was removed.
“I have a doctorate in theater history from The City University of New York. Prior to that, I was a freelance actor and director and also served as the Assistant to the Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Illinois State University before coming to UNCA in 1998,” Walters Said
Walters taught at UNC Asheville for 22 years before retiring in 2020. Walters said that many of the department’s productions were created referencing other departments like humanities and philosophy. The department did plays about prison reform, LGBTQ issues, grief, and other relevant issues.
“In many ways, the drama department became a place where students learned collaboration, leadership, self-discipline, cooperation, creativity and self-expression. Because auditions were open to the entire student body, they often included non-majors,” Walters said.
A student who worked with the department at UNC Asheville Bryce Long said they had to take out the floorboards and screw them down in other places so they wouldn’t warp.
“Carol Belk Theater has long been problematic, and the failure to provide more than the minimum in upkeep and equipment made it tough to compete with other universities when we were recruiting,” Walters said.
Walters said an outside group gave an evaluation of maintenance and upkeep needed for Belk Theater. The report was far outside of the university’s budget capabilities.
“Marketing in theater is such a specific thing, and we have so many different marketing classes here,” Long said. “We could be giving these positions to students to help their education and help the (drama) department.”
The drama department has an Instagram account with 805 followers. The account posts news of upcoming plays and productions. Students also promote upcoming plays by putting up posters around campus.
“UNCA is going to have to make a completely different shift in a lot of things to boost enrollment and cutting departments and cutting faculty is not the cure-all to that. They wish it was and it isn’t,” Long said.
In his first year at UNC Asheville, Bryce Long played Lord Alfred Douglas in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
“I actually have not taught this year due to the lack of adjunct contracts for the drama department. I will be returning for one final class next semester and then, in all likelihood, my time with the university will be over,” said Aaron Snook, adjunct professor of UNC Asheville.
UNCA’s board is allowing students declared as drama majors to finish their degrees before the department’s removal. Students who were not already declared as drama majors are not able to declare it as their major anymore.
“At the beginning of this year, I was informed that the department would no longer be able to hire Adjuncts; it was then that I began to see the writing on the wall, but the administration played it close to the chest throughout the semester,” Snook said. “It wasn’t until the end of the year that the official word began to come down and, even then, they didn’t announce the department closures until after the school year was over.”
Snook said he worked as an adjunct professor since 2019 and often had to teach more classes than an adjunct professor is supposed to.
“The true harm was done to the students. The theater department had the largest, most excited, and passionate group of freshmen I had seen in all my years there. It’s a real shame that they will not be able to experience the drama department as it once was,” Snook said.
Snook said when he heard the rumors of the drama department getting removed, he pivoted from relying on his job as an adjunct professor and began his own journey. The 2025 spring semester is the drama department’s last.
“In 2018, I began a 2-year phased retirement. When I was deciding whether to follow that path, I met several times with Provost Joe Urgo, who assured me that my position would stay with drama, and I’d be replaced. By the time I retired two years later, Dr. Urgo was gone, and the administration did not honor his assurances,” Walters said.
Snook said there was a tenured professor who retired, and he was offered that full-time position, but it never happened.
“This year has been an extremely difficult one for the drama department. In addition to the department elimination announcement, our region experienced a natural disaster, a major public utilities disaster and a highly contentious federal election,” said Lise Kloeppel, chair of the drama department of UNC Asheville.
