Full steam ahead

The South Carolina team (above) with Congressman Clyburn. Below is Winthrop individuals with Willie Lyles III, a Winthrop graduate and the Legislative Assistant to Congressman Clyburn. The two students are Amanda Stafford and Allison West Bates; also pictured is Christine Fisher, the director of the Arts in Basic Curriculum Project at Winthrop, and Stephanie Milling. Photos provided by Stephanie MillingBy Jonathan McFadden
mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

Keeping arts alive

A drama class helped Mary Shockley finish high school. 

Allison Zobel auditioned for her first play at the age of five.

Mary Elizabeth Greene has dabbled in multiple art forms, from chorus to writing.

Taylor Cox has spent most of her formative educational years with an instrument in hand.

Now all four students have banded together to form WUSAA (Winthrop University Student Advocates for the Arts), an organization aiming to give common-minded students the chance to soak in their artistic passions while learning how to lobby lawmakers to keep the arts alive.

The idea was conceived by junior theatre education major Shockley, who last semester said participating in a drama class in high school helped her cope through a difficult time in her life.

When Shockley heard about Gov. Nikki Haley’s plan to cut funding from the South Carolina Arts Commission, she jumped into action.

Finding common ground with a professor who now acts as the group’s advisor, Shockley and other group members are currently working on receiving their charter from the Council of Student Leaders.

Charter or no charter, club members aren’t dissuaded in the least.

“We’re full steam ahead,” said Cox, who acts as the club’s vice president.

For this group, keeping the arts alive is as important as it is personal.

In fact, Shockley said she finds the word “extracurricular” offensive and feels that the arts are as essential to academia as basic math skills.

Still, in today’s public school system, when a program in a school needs to go, arts education is usually the first lamb on the altar, so to speak, Shockley said. 

“For some of us, we need it as much as we need food or water,” she said.

Zobel would agree. Infused with the desire to bring theatre education to other people, Zobel said she’s never heard of anyone suffering from exposure to the arts, inclusive of both visual and performing arts.

The what and how

Operating as a nonpartisan organization, welcoming both liberal and conservative members alike, WUSAA seeks to raise awareness of the importance of the arts and arts education in schools and the community. 

Core objectives in the works include reaching out to Rock Hill District 3-area elementary, middle and high schools with arts programming and helping them in any way, while also performing community service.

Already the club has hosted their first interest meeting, which members say was attended by a mix of biology majors and conservatives. But, the group—open to all majors—still wants more. 

“We need more education, people; we need more people all across the board,” Cox said. 

As much as it is artistic, the organization is also political in practice but nonpartisan, Cox said. 

If possible, organization members will write letters to legislators and learn what advocating for the arts to higher-ups is all about, members say.

Last semester, Shockley visited Northside Elementary School, a school in Rock Hill that mends the arts with the curriculum.

There, Shockley found that the students were eager to learn.

“The kids are happy and they’re more excited about learning and they’re kind of starry eyed,” Shockley said.

As a volunteer at another elementary school, Shockley said she witnessed students who were disengaged and bored. 

In Shockley’s eyes, the arts make the resonating difference. 

Club advisor Stephanie Milling sees through similar lenses.

More than painting

Milling, assistant professor of theatre and dance, said the arts are interdisciplinary, and encourages students to think through concepts and theories in new ways.

More than that, the arts provide a looking-glass into history.

“A painting or a dance work or a piece of literature—it wasn’t created in a vacuum,” Milling said. “It’s always very infused with the dominant or maybe non-dominant values of a specific time period and culture.”

“They reflect the views of gender, about gender, age, ethnicity, ability—any of those identifications that we use to identify others,” she said.

Yet, more recently, the arts seem to be an easy target for legislators looking for something to cut.

Once making her living off dancing as a professional performance artist, Milling recalled the fundraisers and functions she and other dancers would have to attend in order to rub elbows and hob-knob with the patrons and benefactors who helped keep the ballet floors waxed.

During that time, the National Endowment for the Arts was fairly strong and money poured in. 

“It wasn’t something I was necessarily concerned about when I was a full-time performing artist myself,” Milling said.

Now, it’s a tad different.

The National Endowment for the Arts was one of many federal agencies to see a loss of philanthropic support during the economic downturn of 2008.

As a result, its subsidiaries—like the South Carolina Arts Commission, which the National Endowment for the Arts funds—suffered some backlash.  

Flash forward three years and, lo and behold, Gov. Nikki Haley proposed to cut $1.9 million from the South Carolina Arts Commission in January.

But there’s more at stake than just arts-based classes and programs being cut, Milling said.

Gov. Haley’s proposed cuts would not only affect those programs, but more than anything, affect arts-based grants that give students many opportunities, Milling said.

One such grant is the AIE Arts in Basic Curriculum Advancement Grant, funded by the South Carolina Arts Commission, which helps schools and districts integrate arts education into the basic curriculum. 

Further South Carolina legislation shows the state’s stake in fighting for and against the arts; an act approved by former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is a prime example.

Under the Education and Economic Development Act, passed in 2005, students in elementary, middle and high schools can identify their interests and hone those interests into possible careers.

By the time they hit high school, students have almost adopted a major and begin taking a cluster of classes that bolster their career options.

If the arts were cut, students interested in pursuing arts education in their cluster wouldn’t even have the chance, Milling said.  

“…You’re taking away a possibility,” Milling said.

Legislators initially passed the act to help South Carolina students become more competitive in the global marketplace, Milling said.

By cutting arts out of the picture, South Carolina hinders students with the ability to think creatively and connect the dots between ideas in different disciplines, making them even less competitive than before, Milling said. 

The House shot down Haley’s proposal on Mar. 15. 

For Milling, Shockley’s interest in advocacy comes as no surprise.

With an economy leaving many teachers, especially those in arts education, on the mend, students are mobilizing to stand up for the arts—something Milling and theatre education professor Stephen Gundersheim teach their students in the classroom.

“I think it’s a sign of the times, and if we’re not willing to support what it is we want to do and what it is we think is important, then it’s not going to happen,” Milling said

Advocacy in action 

Before allying herself with Milling, Shockley found inspiration from Gundersheim, who’s witnessed unwavering advocacy.

It was just after the production of Seussical the Musical when students in one of Gundersheim’s classes at a high school in Massachusetts rallied together to protest the disbanding of the school’s theatre program. 

Unaware of his students’ intent, Gundersheim sat in a school committee meeting as discussion of cutting a program he taught in began. 

Then, the students and their parents came in with signs and shouted “We Are Here, We Are Here, We Are Here” a chant bellowed by the Whos in Seussical. 

“It was kind of cool to be there, as well as a little bit humiliating as an arts educator that your position could be cut regardless of whether you have tenure or whether you’re highly qualified,” Gundersheim said. “If a cut is made, a cut is made.”

Because he’s a state employee, Gundersheim is unable to be too political in the classroom but he feels confident in his students’ voices. 

“It’s nice to see people want to take action about ‘something that’s bigger than me [them],’” he said. 

Meetings for WUSAA are 5 p.m. Tuesdays in Kinard 215.