Arts programs to receive new space

Less than a month after a task force on the programs in dance, drama, and film and video reported that the University should consider creating an arts complex to house all three programs, it looks like the committee's suggestion may materialize.

Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said he is currently negotiating with the Liggett Group for a warehouse adjacent to the Center for Documentary Studies. If Duke acquires the site, an eight-acre plot just off Swift Avenue, it will likely be used for the arts complex complete with studio, office and performance space.

At the same time, Trask is also considering converting the steam plant off of East Campus into a similar facility.

"I'm trying to provide loft art space in an old warehouse-the type of space artists kill for," Trask said.

In its Jan. 6 report-made available only to senior administrators and contributors to the committee until it was obtained by The Chronicle in mid-January-the task force concluded that "the arts community at Duke is in sore need of leadership, financial support and new or renovated space."

The five-person committee praised each program's curriculum but acknowledged that without institutional support, the programs could not continue to excel academically.

"One of the University's key goals is to attract top undergraduates in relation to other universities like Stanford and Princeton," the report reads. "Frankly, compared to these universities and others in our class, the arts at Duke look shabby."

The creation of an arts complex was the task force's main focus.

"The [art complex's] disadvantage to drama is that it's not near the Bryan Center. It's not where the theaters are...," said Richard Riddell, chair of the program in drama. "[On the other hand,] the more the arts are located throughout the entire University, I think it helps to integrate them into the life of the University."

As mentioned in the task force report, drama's main goal is to achieve departmental status as the Department of Theater Studies-a change that would better represent the program's emphasis on the study and practice of theater.

William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, said that administrators "want to move toward departmental status for theater studies."

Becoming a department, Meyers said, would give the drama program more clout when dealing with University administrators.

As for the other programs, he said, more representation within the administration could go a long way toward helping it gain prestige.

"If you're a little program, that's the toughest thing to gain attention in the budgetary system and administrative system we have here," Meyers said. "The Duke way seems to be that things get done if there's a highly placed person in the administration in charge of it. There has never been anyone, to the best of my knowledge, at Duke who was charged with taking a leadership role in bringing forward the performing arts and some of the other arts into a place of prominence."

Although the committee was charged with investigating a possible merger between arts programs, the task force's report stopped short of suggesting one-and Karla Holloway, dean of the humanities and social sciences, agreed that administrative unity could force the programs to lose some of their identities.

"To suggest that all arts departments could be satisfied under one administrative rubric is something that would impose on the various departmental constructs at Duke," she said.

Riddell confirmed that the arts programs were not ready to merge.

"I think that [between] the dance faculty and the drama faculty... there's a good amount of crossover and collaboration. There's a very long-standing collaborative relationship," Riddell said. "Administratively, the reason to merge the two programs would be if faculty wanted to do that. At this point, that has not happened."

Along with recommending improved facilities and increased administrative representation, the task force suggested that the programs hire more faculty members. For dance, the task force supported the program's goal of obtaining three new professors of the practice over the next three to four years. Drama, the task force reported, requires one senior position, one junior position and the transfer of Professor of English John Clum to the theater studies department.

As for film and video, which is currently affiliated with the Program in Literature, the task force recommended the addition of one administrator for the technical side of the program's operations.

If the film and video program were thoroughly incorporated into the literature program, according to the report, "new hires at both the senior and junior level would have to be considered."

The task force pointed to the film and video program's high enrollment-between 80 to 100 students are enrolled in the certificate program each year-as well as its successful oversight of the Duke in Los Angeles program as justifications for new faculty.

"We have students, but not faculty...," said Jane Gaines, director of the film and video program. "I have no problem with [having] many places as long as we have many faculty."

However, Holloway said she did not foresee any significant increases in arts faculty in the near future.

"I am not committed at this point to the growth of the humanities faculty at Duke. I think we're at an optimal point [except for a few key areas]," she said. "I am not convinced at this point that other departments need to increase numbers of faculty."

For her part, Barbara Dickinson, director of the dance program, said Duke's arts programs are always underprioritized by administrators.

"I think [the arts task force was] right that we've got some very successful arts programs and they really need to be more of a priority," Dickinson said. "They need to have more attention and money poured into it. I think it's gotten enormously better in the last few years, but we're clearly not on top of the Duke agenda.... In many cases [our successes] have happened despite the support of the University, not because of it."