This dance isn't happy
Budget cuts narrow options for dance students, keep faculty at low numbers
Nicole Smith
Issue date: 1/22/09 Section: News
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Several lecturers in the department were let go and numerous dance classes canceled for this semester due to the budget cuts Winthrop has recently been facing.
Andrew Vorder Bruegge, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, said all lecturers at Winthrop are hired on a semester-by-semester basis.
"When we hire them in our department, we make sure they understand the nature of the 'contract,'" he said. "If the Theatre and Dance Department did not rehire a lecturer for the spring 2009 semester, it was due to the budget cuts we had to make."
He said a comparison of class listings from last semester to this one shows a "drastic reduction in the number of courses offered" and "the disappearance of the names of several lecturers."
"If you talked to other department chairs, they would say that all the above would be true about class scheduling and the hiring of lecturers in their departments," Vorder Bruegge added.
One of the lecturers let go was much-loved by the students, said Amanda Stafford, a junior dance performance major.
"I cried when he was let go," she said. "He was not supposed to tell us at all, but he thought he owed it to us… He did not have all the degrees and awards that many professors have, but he danced in numerous companies."
Stafford said she knows the department is trying to offer Jazz again, but "it wouldn't be the same" and there are no for-sure answers yet.
Stafford added that the lecturer emphasized his departure was the direct result of Winthrop's economic situation.
The lecturer taught several classes: Jazz I, hip-hop, dance training and conditioning, musical theater dance and a Horton technique class, some of which are required for dance majors to graduate.
While dance training and conditioning is still being offered and taught by another professor, Jazz I and its follow-up Jazz II are not. Vorder Bruegge said dance majors must complete one of these to finish the program.
"In normal times prior to this semester," he said, "we have offered one or both of these courses, and sometimes multiple sections every semester."
He said the jazz courses have been popular ones with the general student population, but the single section the department planned to offer this semester was canceled.
But Vorder Bruegge assured that the courses will be offered as often as possible in future semesters, depending on the financial situation, so that dance majors can graduate.
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