Artistic Minors Debut at College

Harvard has raised the curtain on new secondary field programs for budding actors, dancers, and musicians seeking formal recognition for their work.

Minors in music and in dramatic arts, which includes theater and dance, recently became available to undergraduates.

Students of drama in particular have long pushed for more academic acknowledgment, either through the creation of a department or concentration.

“There’s been a long and difficult process getting credit for theater,” said Robert Scanlan, who chairs the Committee on Dramatic Arts, the group of faculty and artistic leaders that proposed the secondary field.

Development in the area, which formally began with the creation of the committee in 1978, has been slower than at many other universities, Scanlan said. Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, and Stanford, for instance, offer programs in drama.

“I think it’s a great step forward,” said Daniel R. Pecci ’09, who has been involved with 16 college productions and has written a play that will open in Berlin in December.

“I know many people who would really want a concentration,” Pecci added.

The dramatic arts minor will consist of six half-courses. At least two must be in practice-based courses, such as workshops on acting and directing, and another two must be in the study of dramatic works with courses taken through the Literature or English and American Literature and Language departments.

English professors praised the secondary field’s fluidity in allowing students to find their own interests within the area of dramatic arts.

The new secondary field is a “nice place for students to go and at least get acknowledged in some way for spending a great deal of time in the dramatic arts” said Scanlan, who is also a professor of the practice of theatre.

The new secondary fields come as administrators focus new attention on the arts. University President Drew G. Faust has pledged to reexamine the place of the arts at Harvard.

According to Humanities Center Director Homi K. Bhabha, overtures have been made to two leading professors of drama to teach at Harvard, though he declined to name them.

Former Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean William C. Kirby said he is pleased about the growing presence of dramatic arts on campus.

“I think it’s going in a very, very positive direction,” he said at Wednesday’s opening of the New College Theatre.

—Staff writer Alexander B. Cohn can be reached at abcohn@fas.harvard.edu.