College Theatre Programs Must Be Held Accountable for Their Promises of Change

Last year, faculty and administrators at Otterbein University in Ohio released a statement pledging a commitment to building diversity within its well-known theatre program.

The statement read as follows:

“We commit to continuing to develop recruiting strategies to make Otterbein more available to all students and to broaden our pool of BIPOC candidates.

We will continue to speak with prospective students of color that choose to go elsewhere to determine what factors would have led them to choose Otterbein, and will build this into a more formal, actionable process.

We will explore audition and interview options including, but not limited to, online options which remove the financial barriers to application for all students.

We will work with the Office of Social Justice & Activism to seek untapped recruitment locations and strategies to increase our availability to prospective students of color.”

This fall, Otterbein’s theatre program welcomed a first-year class that is practically all-white.

Within minutes of posting pictures of the new class on its Facebook page, Otterbein alumni started asking questions about how this could have happened when the college promised to do better when recruiting BIPOC students.

One alum stated:

“I am disappointed with the lack of diversity in your new upcoming class.

I remember visiting Otterbein and having these concerns in 2013. I remember thinking “wow no one here looks like me”. It wasn't until I went into an acting class and saw (only) two people of color and was able to slightly release my feeling of “otherness” at this institution.

How after one year, after the height of the Black Lives Matters movement in June 2020, after all that our nation has been through - you have circled back to the very issue that we are trying to heal from. I understand that we don't get to see everything when making these decisions, but the lack of diversity in this class is unacceptable.”

Chair of the department, T.J. Gerckens, responded to the comments with a statement that included the following:

“To those who have expressed concerns about diversity, we see you, recognize you, support you. Last fall our work began almost immediately. We made great strides and accomplished much throughout the year; but fully realizing the vision we all want is a sustained commitment that will require time, resources, patience, and building trust. I am committed to this. The department is committed to this. Otterbein is committed to this.”

Last year, when all these colleges were making the same pledges to improve diversity within their ranks, we had our doubts. Those doubts were only increased when schools, that didn’t have the infrastructure to implement such changes(like Otterbein), were making these pledges. Schools like these don’t have diversity within their faculty, their previous classes are predominantly white, they recruit from the same events where the overwhelming majority of those auditioning are white, so how much change can they expect when they’re not changing the ways they’re bringing in students?

But where Gerckens loses us with his statement is when he says their commitment to change “will require time, resources, patience, and building trust.”

While that’s not necessarily incorrect to say, Gerckens and Otterbein have taken a major step backward. Yes, changing how a college recruits students does take time and resources, but asking students for patience and trust, when officials have done nothing to earn it, is frustrating to read. Gerckens and Otterbein have already betrayed that trust by seemingly breaking their promise to do better.

Yes, there have been colleges that fulfilled their promises of change over the past year. There have been programs that followed through on bringing a diverse first class to their campuses. There have been programs that hired BIPOC faculty and administrators.

But we fear there are plenty more that pledged such changes and failed.

So, this is where you come in. You, the students within these college communities, alumni, etc., need to hold these programs accountable by asking questions and demanding answers. If a college program broke its promise of improvement, YOU deserve to know why. And with the exception of confidentiality policies such as FERPA(Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), there should be no reason why a college program can’t explain its failures.

If a program promised to improve inclusion and failed, you deserve to know why.

If a program promised to produce material written by BIPOC writers and failed, you deserve to know why.

If a program promised to hire BIPOC faculty and staff and failed, you deserve to know why.

Having a college make no changes to improve is one thing, but promising to do better and then doing the complete opposite is something else entirely. When that happens, questions need to be raised and answers must be given.