Re-Imagining CR
State’s new mission distresses fans of music, drama and historic preservation
ON THE COVER KJELD LYTH, CR DRAMA INSTRUCTOR, PARTS BACKSTAGE CURTAINS TO REVEAL A WALL. PHOTO BY HEIDI WALTERS
K
jeld Lyth flicked on the main lights inside College of the Redwoods’ new multi-million dollar Performing Arts Theater and strode agitatedly in, pointing out annoyances: noisily flushing toilets in the bathrooms that might disrupt quieter theatrical moments; loud fans in the back of the theater, which could make hearing difficult from the rear rows; large pockets of darkness where the spotty audience lighting failed to penetrate. Lyth hit some switches and brilliant rows of colorful lights beamed down on the stage. There are 119 of the beauties and each one cost $261 — Broadway could do no better, Lyth said. He did not look pleased. He swept around and walked to the back of the stage, parting the black curtain in the middle to reveal, inches away, a stark, white wall. There should be a space there, not a wall, he said — space for dressing rooms, for building and storing sets, for moving set pieces around during a performance, for actors to hang out when they’re not on stage or to move unseen across the stage to reposition during a performance. To reach the dressing room — for there is a small one, behind the wall — performers would have to exit side stage and double back. “If ever there was a conflict between design and function, this is an example,” Lyth said. Then he pointed at the bulky, boxy lectern planted stage right. “All
By Heidi Walters they ever intended with the new space,” he accused, “was to have it be a multipurpose facility for special guest speakers and PowerPoint presentations.” With extravagant stage lights, he added. You might forgive Lyth, who’s the college’s only on-faculty drama instructor — although part-time, at that — for sounding frustrated. In early February, he and other faculty learned that their programs might suffer reductions. A month later it was official: In a March 15 news release, the college administration announced it was reducing some course offerings so it could add others. It cited financial challenges and a mandate from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office to focus on “three core missions — degree transfer, career technical education and basic skills programs in English and math.” Additions, beginning with the summer and fall semesters, would occur not just in math and Enghlish, but in such subjects as speech, biology, sociology, psychology and Native American studies. Among the trims would be sections or courses in foreign language (French, German and Japanese), construction technology — including within the popular and unique Historic Preservation and Restoration Technology program — and anthropology.
Also, the music program would be hit hard, losing half of its offerings — mostly performance classes, including concert band, jazz ensemble, wind ensemble, chorale and opera production. (Core music courses needed by music majors to transfer to a four-year university would not be cut.) And the entire drama program would be closed, at least for now. When the administration announced the cuts — calling them suspensions, implying some could be revitalized later — it noted that some of these classes might be offered instead as community education courses. Those courses can’t be taken for credit, and students’ fees pay the instructors’ wages. Lyth doubted his non-degree program would be brought back. “They’ve thrown me and the program under the bus — the whole thing,” he said, standing in the new theater on a recent late-March morning. Lyth is slender, and his simple, dark clothes and thin beard, sideburns and moustache lend him a dignified-swashbuckler air. He’s been with the drama program for 34 years, and is the principal instruc-
tor, although several non-faculty instructors have taught courses over the years as well. He and Ed Macan, chair of the music and drama programs, question the administration’s methods for choosing which courses and programs to reduce — methods that involved looking at course enrollment figures and financial viability, but also at whether courses and programs suited the new priorities of the California Community College Chancellor’s Office. Were drama and music performance not important? Because, they said, they certainly weren’t a financial burden. Macan, the lone full-time tenured music faculty member, had crunched some numbers and determined that from 2006 through 2012, with the exception of one year, enrollment in the music courses being cut was high enough to generate two times the amount of money that the college spent on them. That’s a 110 percent profit-to expense margin, he wrote in a document he gave the administration in defense of sustaining music and drama. “Drama, meanwhile, generated an incredible 202 percent profit/expense margin,”
THE LEARNING RESOURCE CENTER ON THE EUREKA CAMPUS OF COLLEGE OF THE REDWOODS. PHOTO BY BOB DORAN
10 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2013 • northcoastjournal.com