Ithaca College

Theatre Arts faculty are helping students on a leave of absence stay engaged.

Theatre Arts in Dillingham is a thriving learning community, that depends on daily connections with each other. This fall, Professor Kathleen Mulligan created a Sakai site called “Keep Learning!” to support opportunities for BFA performance majors and other theatre arts majors on a leave of absence to engage with faculty, and to feel connected while they take time away. “While we are all doing our best to maintain those connections over Zoom, many of our students currently taking a leave of absence expressed to me how isolated they felt, and how much they missed being in their studio courses. It seemed like a natural extension of the faculty's "Keep Teaching" Sakai site,” Mulligan explains, “and I invited these students and all our performance faculty to join. We've posted videos of voice & movement warm-ups, articles, and recordings of Zoom sessions with the exciting guest artists we have had this fall (including alumna C.C.H. Pounder, actor and director Michelle Shay, and audio book narrator Robin Miles).”  Once a week, there is an "open hour," led by a different performance faculty member, in a variety of disciplines. These sessions are a way for performance students who are taking a break from their training to get "back in the studio,” continue working on their craft, and maintain connections with their faculty and each other.