Hello Patti,

Thanks for your questions. We charge actor salaries and administration fees plus expenses. We do everything we can to keep costs down to stay affordable. We don't share scripts since there are many other elements that aren't on the scripted page: training actors, workshops structure, nuances of facilitation, etc. The scripts are written by myself through an in-depth interview process and gate-checking preview development involving the AWED team and faculty input. We avoid video since we have found the live theater interaction to be most impactful. In regards to your last question, we have found that interactive theater can sidestep the usual defense mechanisms by putting the onus of naming and learning on attendees and off of the presenters. For example, we typically shift the sketch casting at the end of a workshop and ask an audience if anything would have changed for them were "this" actor/actress in "that" role (e.g. "bully" character). Actors literally, physically change chairs and say a few lines. Attendees gain a better understanding of the ways that gender, race, etc, may have been modulating their experience and perceptions throughout the workshop and without setting us up for accusations or any unproductive tension. People name their own bias. I hope these brief thoughts help but please feel free to contact me for more discussion.

Best,

Jeffrey

Jeffreyallensteiger@gmail.com 

Hello Chelsea, 

I'd be happy to speak with you to learn more about your goals and walk you through our hiring committee scenario and session curriculum. In our theater sketch and workshop, THE PROCESS, professional actors portray an academic search in reverse - from the third-year review to the day the committee is formed - allowing attendees to experience, identify, and examine multiple levels of a search process and the ways that bias can impact evaluation.

Hi Suzanna,

What an exciting project!  It is so exciting to see the use of this intersectional research within practice for faculty professional development!  And exciting to have this work coming out of FIU - who is both an APLU member and one of Aspire's Institutional Change Network members (FIU was just selected last October to join the network - https://stemforall2020.videohall.com/presentations/1897). 

I wonder if there is an opportunity for us to consider a collaboration with AWED to (1) consider a virtual connection for our upcoming Aspire Summit, or (2) to consider the work that Aspire's National Change initiative does in providing professional development on inclusive Faculty practices?  

May 5, 2020 | 04:37 p.m.

Hi Travis: (I sent this a few days ago but did not do it correctly to post to you! Let's be in touch.) 

Yes, thanks for mentioning APLU and Aspire! We would be very happy to be involved in the Aspire Summit and to collaborate on spreading the word about inclusive faculty practices. Most of our programming focuses on faculty-to-faculty interactions but we have been experimenting also with faculty-student interactions. We did a lot of discovery to develop the scenarios, i.e. conducted interviews and focus groups to identify real-life situations, especially those with a gender x race intersection. We have a specific interest in working with international faculty, of which FIU has a large number. ADVANCE programs have not usually focused on how to influence the attitudes of international faculty that may have nationality-based gender and race biases or that may not value or fully understand U.S. concerns about inclusion and equity. 

Let's be in touch!

Suzanna

Hi Marjorie, thanks for your question.  Our Bystander training is aimed at faculty's treatment of faculty, and we are collecting both quantitative and qualitative data about the impact of the training over time.  Anecdotally, we are seeing that in departments with a significant number of faculty who have completed the training, people are anticipating problems and acting to reduce the risk of biased behavior in advance.  The preliminary analysis of our quant data also suggests that people are more likely to notice and intervene in moments of bias in their departments.

Thanks, Kirsten. It's interesting to look across the various projects focused on higher ed faculty and consider how sharing research approaches might be productive. 

(Also, are you the Kirsten Wood who is Karin's sister? Your photo looks just like her. If so, hi from Marjorie Bullitt way back when!)

Good grief, yes!  Small world.  Nice to "see" you.

Hi Jameela, and thanks for your questions.

Although AWED Theatre has its own life, we also incorporate it into our day-long bystander intervention workshop for faculty, one of our signature ADVANCE activities at FIU.  The professional theater portion takes place during the morning of our workshop.  Jeffrey Steiger facilitates a conversation that seeks to get participants to think about their own experiences as would-be interveners who have felt inhibited by a variety of factors from fear for their jobs/safety to confusion about what really happened and whether it was serious. 

We use a variety of other activities throughout the day to help faculty take others' perspectives and to practice their own interventions in case studies and sketches adapted from real experiences at our university.

One experience that has been formative for many of our participants is realizing that they have seen versions of what we depict in their own departments, that this is not just hypothetical or invented.  Sometimes that realization comes only after denying that any such nonsense happens in their own circles, and hearing their denials refuted by a roomful of colleagues, not just from the presenters at the front of the room.

Hello Nick:

Thanks for your note. We have not tried to compare the effectiveness of the theater to that of faculty role-plays. Both are part of our one-day Bystander workshop. The advantage of the theater component at the beginning of the workshop is that it is a great way to introduce faculty to the issues. It is then less intimidating for them to engage in role-play themselves. We also have used the theater program as a free-standing program over the past ten years to raise issues about gender and race bias/inclusion. Even those that attended many years ago still talk about the plays. Based on that, we think the theater is a highly effective way to open the conversation about these issues, especially under the authorship and direction of Jeffrey Steiger. 

Hello Nick,

Thanks for your question. As Suzanna wrote, we aren't currently exploring that exact question at FIU, but I do have a few anecdotal thoughts.

When I was artistic director of the CRLT Players, I'd present, annually, a "breaking bad news" play to the entire third-year medical student class at the University of Michigan. Following the interactive play, each actor would work with small clusters of students in breakout rooms on one-on-one scenarios so students could practice delivering difficult news to patients. Evaluation data suggested that the use of professional actors in the role-play exercises increased the realism of the depicted scenarios as compared to usual student-based role-playing. Because the actors were strangers to the group, their presence, as well as the unpredictability of their responses, pushed the students out of their own “comfort zones” in ways that more closely approximated actual clinical situations. Although this example involves role-play and not theater per se, I think it highlights the special tension that committed actors can create in learning spaces. I'm thinking about Piaget’s “cognitive disequilibrium,” Dewey’s “forked road situations,” and Mezirow’s “disquieting dilemmas”: when confronted by new and unfamiliar perspectives, identities, experiences, and ideas, one is forced to reflect on one’s own values, attitudes, and assumptions, thereby broadening one’s own worldview.

In regards to the specific use of theater: written and rehearsed scenarios allow us to move beyond one-on-one exchanges and depict a complex environment and climate. We are able to present an extended piece that highlights the implicit and explicit norms that make up a department - a sum of its parts instead of just small communications. Unlike role-play, the audience assumes that there is a deliberate core to the fictional department and they are more ready to disagree with one another's interpretations of the scenes. Some regard the climate in the hypothetical department as toxic and sexist, while others may assert that the female faculty member simply needs to be more aggressive

My thoughts are more anecdotal, but I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on your great question! I hope my musings are helpful.

Hello Brett, 

I'm glad you noticed that. Yes - in one of our pieces, "THE JOKE", a Greek Chorus battles it out in the head of a junior faculty character. I cellist accompanies the sketch, playing the musical motif of each dynamic. That particular scenario uses humor, music, and stylized theater to bring out the internal resistance to action we may experience when witnessing a problematic moment, comment, or situation.