Why do undergrad programs focus on design?

Professor Huntington has retired, IIRC.
 
Compare and contrast this topic with Architecture schools. All too often they fall back on "Well, there are structural engineers to figure out how to actually build it."
 
Retired people can still have opinions, no?
I didn't say they could not. Contacting Prof Huntington via his school email will probably fail, though.
 
Interesting to hear everybody's experience on this topic. My opinion for whatever its worth, is OF COURSE the universities are going to teach design, not technical know how. Theater technicians aren't very much different than car mechanics. All of my technical know how could be taught in a 2 year vo-tech program, there's no need for a 4 year bachelors degree. That being said, I have a BFA, with a concentration in technical direction. I went to a conservatory so the course load was 80/20 major/gen-ed. I had classes in a lot of very niche things. They were very much interested in getting their students to know how to turn a wrench. (to the point where some people dropped out because they were paying $1000/credit to learn how to use tools. Maybe they were the smartest of us all) Yes, I took the intro design class in each department; sound, lighting, costume, scenery. But only the design majors progressed to the higher level classes. The TD guys took classes like "electricity for the stage", "advanced scenic carpentry", "health and safety in live performance".

In hindsight, the one thing that was never offered in this program was "how to be a manager". Technical Directors manage people, so do Production Managers and Stage Managers. this school offered a 'concentration' in each of these fields but I don't recall one class about how to resolve conflicts, or how to handle it when the guy working for you is lazy and on his phone all day, but you don't have firing power. Or how to motivate a team. Or how to read people and get the best out of them.
 
Contacting Prof Huntington via his school email will probably fail, though.
I really don't mean to be argumentative, and apologize to all for dragging this thread off-topic, but don't most schools maintain a professor's email address for a period of time after retirement? I think I recall my lighting professor saying although he retired ten years ago, his university email address is valid for life. Title of "Professor Emeritus" may have something to do with that, though.

In any case, I have a fastmail.com account for John, and I suspect he'll be along shortly.
 
So here's my thought and experience. I went to school to get a BS in Theatre Tech with a focus on lighting. Prior to college I had taken 2 years of theatre tech at high school and helped with a few shows at the local theatre.

College was almost all design work and a little bit of stage work. I had a class on color theory, lighting design, etc. All great for those who don't really have much knowledge, but all things I covered in basic high school classes and community theatre. Everyone was designated a show for the semester, whether you were a ME, AME, LD, ALD. Any of those four positions were always "above" everyone else. You did the design work, whether it be lighting design or executing the hang and cabling. In those positions, you did no physical work. All of the other lighting students were then the "grunt" workers and were often times talked down to as if we didn't sit through the same courses.

During my first summer, I returned to work a couple shows at the local theatre. Upon my return for my second year, I quickly realized I was learning more valuable knowledge during summer/at my local theatre, than I was at college. This is when I made the decision to cut out early, shift my focus, and graduate with an AA. I then returned home, worked in my father's warehouse, and went back to volunteering for the local community theatre. Within 6 months, I was offered a paid, contracted tech position from the theatre company for their year of shows. Quickly after that, the theatre themselves offered me a part-time stage hand position (load-ins/load-outs for big touring gigs, running spots, flyman, etc.). A year later, staff within the theatre were transitioning and I was approached to apply for the role of Assistant Technical Director. I then in turn received the job, and I've been here ever sense.

I am the house LD, ME, ATD, etc. I never look back and regret my decision of leaving college. I simply wasn't learning what I went there to learn. I was learning how to analyze plays, how to look at a color wheel, and how to boss people around. I barely learned any technical aspects in my two years, and hardly got any applicable "design" knowledge. All of my skills were learned via community theatre volunteering and part-time stage labor, pushing cases around. I have since flourished and have, on a few occasions, tried to be poached via touring crews to go on the road with them. The only credit I give towards my college experience was the piece of paper that allowed me this job.
 
In hindsight, the one thing that was never offered in this program was "how to be a manager". Technical Directors manage people, so do Production Managers and Stage Managers. this school offered a 'concentration' in each of these fields but I don't recall one class about how to resolve conflicts, or how to handle it when the guy working for you is lazy and on his phone all day, but you don't have firing power. Or how to motivate a team. Or how to read people and get the best out of them.
Fully agree. Also, how to read contracts and do 1099 based taxes. People management is what makes or breaks people in this business.
 
I really don't mean to be argumentative, and apologize to all for dragging this thread off-topic, but don't most schools maintain a professor's email address for a period of time after retirement? I think I recall my lighting professor saying although he retired ten years ago, his university email address is valid for life. Title of "Professor Emeritus" may have something to do with that, though.

In any case, I have a fastmail.com account for John, and I suspect he'll be along shortly.

I think the CUNY schools (NYC Tech was CUNY) allow a retiree to maintain a retirees special e-mail account. Mail is only forwarded for 90 days then that ceases.
 
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. All of the other lighting students were then the "grunt" workers and were often times talked down to as if we didn't sit through the same courses.

My question is where the student grunt workers assigned to be the grunts ?, as part of a class assignment ?, in other words, who wrangled up the student crew and under what circumstances where they required to be available as grunt, I.E. The installation crew ?. This had been the problem where I was working, is the department had no class structure that provided for technical students to be assigned or otherwise available for a lighting install. The scenic department, for whatever reason, seemed to have more students available to get a set installed, but as there were few, of any actual technical classes, even those students were often no more than bodies able to lift, with no otherwise skills to put a set together, enable rigging, etc.... I recall being officially asked to assist on a lighting install in the black box, I replied that I would be happy to assist and to supervise any over-hire and/or students. I discovered there were no overhires and only one "student". I recall taking the time to demonstrate to one student how to swap barrels on an S4, only to later discover that the "student" I was attempting to teach, was not a student, but instead a volunteer office employee from the Theater Dept. office, a person who was never coming back. Sigh.
 
Glad to see Kerryphen chime in on this as we were both involved in the same facility/program. I understand that since I have retired the Theater program has made strides (as he mentions) in addressing the issues of lack of technical students to support the program, partly by deciding to put some of the students in the MFA program onto paid adjunct positions, in short by paying them. The assorted TD and lighting supervisors as well as PM have recognized the problems for years, but got little support (until recently) to enact changes. It still puzzles me that the program still seems to be a design oriented program, theres no MFA r BFA in technical production as example, not going to be as well as I today that the college needs to enact a $6.5 million cutback, out of a $125 million budget with a university wide hiring freeze. Not sure if those adjuncts will still be there in 6 mos. and they won't be hiring any technical production faculty for a while. And so it goes.
 
Fully agree. Also, how to read contracts and do 1099 based taxes. People management is what makes or breaks people in this business.
In my travels, I would say that many professors don't teach these things because they aren't sufficiently comfortable in these subjects themselves. They didn't have formal training, especially when it comes to independent contractor classifications, contract law and negotiations, and such. I suspect they had many instances where they've been misclassified as an IC but didn't know it, and have a foggy understanding of the definitive truth and best practices. Money especially is something that only in recent years and younger generations has become more transparent. When these professors were getting into the biz, it was every person for themselves, they accepted they were going to be living paycheck to paycheck and working long hours for their craft, and they lack the foundational knowledge and confidence to affect that change in their curriculum.

Similar thing as to the trend in theater for using push-around man-lifts with the outriggers loosely screwed down and people being moved around at height. It's bad practice but for many years was common practice and still is depending on the region and venue. I was talking with someone at a local university yesterday as we are adding a lift to their equipment package. They have ceased moving people at height in their push-around lifts on campus and have seen it fizzle away in their region. They're also acutely aware of someone local who tipped over because of this so that may be a reason they stopped. But I know when I was getting into the industry every venue did it with complete comfort and every TD had their own rationalizations for why it was acceptable. When I was in high school as an overhire at a local roadhouse, it was just expected you would not only be moved around at height but that you be willing to stand on that railings to reach whatever you needed to get the job done quickly.

By the way, I want to give a shoutout to Jason Romney at the UNCSA. He has published many videos from his lectures on YouTube and lowered the bar to entry for some students who may not get this mentorship elsewhere. At my university, the professors would share their Powerpoints but then get into a tizzy about recording lectures with OneNote or other tools. They were either uncomfortable with their lectures being cast into stone or with the idea their intellectual property would be distributed elsewhere. We are a stronger industry when knowledge is not treated as something proprietary as closely guarded secrets and nuggets of wisdom.
 
Ehhhh, that last one is a tough rub, MNicolai; a lot of universities have been known to assume classroom presentations are their intellectual property and not the professor's.
 
Ehhhh, that last one is a tough rub, MNicolai; a lot of universities have been known to assume classroom presentations are their intellectual property and not the professor's.
I can just say that in my experiences, no one was restricted on behalf of the University and was solely concerned about their own personal interests.

My other issue with that is -- public dissemination of lectures aside, emphasis was put on a "be in the classroom or regret it" mentality. Which in the days of work from home, virtual learning, and having to be present at unforgiving times of day for production schedules, is relentless. If you as a faculty member are expecting students to acclimate to working until 11pm or 2am on a regular basis, you owe it to your students to provide a learning format that is more accommodating to that life rhythm of the profession. Hiding behind the veil of intellectual property so you can shame students for burning the candle at both ends as is required by our industry is just a power move. Some classes like stage makeup are absolutely critical you are there in person for the activities and discussion, but others like theater history and period décor that are almost entirely lectures are just silly to penalize students for 1) not always being in the classroom and/or 2) not being physically awake enough to internalize the lectures during instructional time.

Anyway, that's kind of peripheral to the main purpose of this thread, but suffice it say, I have some objections to how knowledge in our industry is shared, closely guarded, or altogether withheld.
 
I can't speak for the US higher education system but here in the great white north there's this thing called "accreditation" that influences the curriculum. Program accreditation distinguishes between a university degree and a college diploma. Both are accredited but they have differing requirements. It's similar to the distinction between an engineer and technologist. For a university, it's easier to meet some of the accreditation requirements with courses that involve a lot of reading and regurgitation instead of hands-on practicum.
 
My question is where the student grunt workers assigned to be the grunts ?, as part of a class assignment ?, in other words, who wrangled up the student crew and under what circumstances where they required to be available as grunt, I.E. The installation crew ?.
All design/tech students were encouraged to work in the shop during their off times when they didn't have class. Nobody was ever specifically designated, and it wasn't always lighting students helping with lighting, set students helping with set, etc. There was also no real teaching. It was just someone saying, hang this light there. At one point, a student was asked to do something they didn't know how to, and instead of teaching them, they simply asked someone else. It wasn't practical at all and the only "teaching" that happened was in the classroom about theories and design.

My first time running the board was my first semester. I was programming for the student LD and they asked me to do something specific, which I didn't know how. Instead of teaching me, they went silent and then just took over from their remote keyboard, without giving me the knowledge of what they were doing. There was always a very weird atmosphere there, specifically in the lighting department.
 
I always forget how many other Wisconsin folks are on here. I went to UW - Green Bay and it sounds like I had a better experience than most. There were 4 main stage shows, a dance program and a student show every year. The bulk of the design work was done by professors and there was no graduate program. Light hangs were Saturdays, focus Sunday, scenic load in Mondays. I think double practicum hours were given for the weekend work but mostly it was techs showing up to support other techs. Because next semester you might be the ME and you wanted a bunch of folks to show up to your hang. The basics of how to hang a light were taught in intro to stage lighting before the first light hang.

When I started college I wanted to be a moving light programmer. When I told the TD/LD Prof this he explained that is not something the program was set up for but one student had gone on to be a programmer. I was given crew assignments or projects that would give me some practice with programing or lighting network setup. Being honest programing for a designer not used to having a programmer was not helpful. However spending two summers at summer stock working with a 'working LD' really helped me learn things and feel more comfortable behind the desk. I had great ME's to learn from and brought those tricks back to campus with me in the fall. All this to say the class room component of my education was only resulted in about a 1/3 of the knowledge I gained while attending college. I figure another 1/3 from practicum and hands on work at college and another 1/3 from internships (two summers of summer stock and a summer at PRG Vegas). I do wish there was a class or two about project management even if it was taught by another department.

Like a lot of folks in this thread I did face some some friction about not wanting to focus on design and working in spaces outside theatre. Oddly enough it was the directing professor who was supportive and encouraging of me getting a gig working on the autoshows right after graduation. The directing professor said when he was starting out in NYC running teleprompter for cooperates kept a roof over his head more than theatre ever did. We got flack for missing class to do load ins/outs, and had limited assistance with networking or finding work after graduation.

I do think each student is responsible for steering the course of their education. Not every program will offer the same experience to everyone and the students need to take charge in learning things on their own. Steve Shelley's Practical Guide to Stage Lighting was not a required textbook for any of my stage lighting classes but buying it on my own was a great investment.
 

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