Dancers in cap and gown: some leading California professors discuss what the present and the future hold for dance students

Dance Magazine, May, 1994 by Muriel Topaz

Schlaich: Diversification is shot. You have to let part-time people go and [even] specialists in some areas. Then you simply can't offer certain courses.

Scalin: One of the things we are doing is connecting to courses in other departments. The fundamentals-of-music teacher now teaches our first semester music, and we have courses that help us in the philosophy, theater and film departments. Another problem is that the parents have been hit and are more nervous about repaying loans after students graduate - big loans. I feel we have a certain ethical responsibility to make sure that a student has been addressing what he or she is going to do after leaving.

Lawson: That's the big problem for us. Because the school is so expensive, a number of students leave owing $15,000 and $20,000. Particularly for dance students, it might take the rest of their lives to pay it back.

Topaz: I wonder what we are teaching our young people by sending them to start out in the world with a $20,000 or $40,000 deficit.

Lawson: That they shouldn't have gone to school in the first place.

Topaz: Either that, or the only way to live is in debt.

Lawson: That's right, and I don't like saying that at all. I think in some ways it's probably true for the majority of people in America, but I don't want to teach that kind of truth.

Schlaich: It's pretty sad. At a time when the parents' incomes are reduced, the tuition is rising. It is the end of the California dream of education for everyone.

Penrod: The fact that taxpayers do not want to take on any of the taxes to support the infrastructure of the state frightens me, and I can see why a lot of people are choosing to leave this state. It's not a very optimistic picture.

Lawson: People assumed that they could borrow money on their houses. That does not exist any longer because the equity on property has gone down. Frankly, there is something truly absurd if someone has to sell his house in order to send a child to school.

Schlaich: Students are paying more tuition and getting less; when the layoffs occur, the students get less for more money.

Lawson: We are always told to take all these students knocking on the door, but I can't do that. In the rest of the school the numbers have gone up tremendously, and that really has lowered the quality of education. The faculty doesn't have any quality time to spend together, and the students are not getting as much as they used to.

Topaz: I've never figured out the economics of increased numbers. Since tuition doesn't cover the education, theoretically the more students you have the more money you lose.

All: [laughter]

Topaz: I think there are a lot of things the university does that maybe it shouldn't be doing. I do worry about the fact that often the education of the student is not the primary thing on everybody's mind. And I think it ought to be.

Lawson: Definitely it's not. I couldn't agree with you more. When they say, "Get more people," what does that do? You can't teach the students. The faculty becomes frustrated; they have no time to spend with the students - they can no longer mentor all of them.