Monday, October 17,1988
The Battalion
Pages
Speech department boasts larger- than-expected growth
n
no’ll
By John C. Curry
Reporter
Listen closely. You just might hear the roar of
| one of the fastest growing speech communica
tion departments in the nation right here at Texas
A&M. Chances are, even the roar will sound
| professional and crystal clear.
From the first 50 students who enrolled in Fall
1985, the speech communication program of the
[Department of Speech Communication and
Theatre Arts has witnessed an explosion of
[growth beyond its planners’ wildest dreams.
Bill Owen, assistant professor of speech com-
Imunication and one of the five original architects
[of the program, said he did not expect the over-
Iwhelming success that the department has expe-
[rienced.
“We predicted that at the end of four years
Ithere would be about 200 majors in the depart-
|ment,”Owen said.
Owen, however, underestimated the numbers.
The program now has 546 majors. It has the
fifth-largest enrollment in the College of Liberal
Arts.
Susan J. Vernon, coordinator of advising in
the department, said the department has experi
enced massive growth because of its flexibility
and the current popularity of liberal arts majors
in the business world.
“The department has a wide appeal because
our students have a variety of options for ca
reers,” Vernon said.
She said speech communication students typ
ically end up in one of four business areas: tradi
tional business, supportive business, teaching or
professional careers.
Traditional business careers are those that start
in sales, advance to marketing and eventually
graduate to management, she said. Supportive
business careers are those such as public rela
tions, advertising and labor relations.
The only drawback to a liberal arts degree in a
business world is that the liberal arts major ini
tially may have to be more assertive than busi
ness majors in seeking a job with certain compa
nies, Vernon said.
“The department has a wide
appeal because our students
have a variety of options for
careers.”
Susan J. Vernon
“Once they get their foot in the door, they are
at least as successful as business majors,” she
said.
Denise Wilfon, senior speech communication
major and social coordinator of the Speech Com
munication Association, said she plans to make a
mark on the business world.
“I have a marketing minor and plan on going
into sales first, then move up the corporate lad
der and become CEO (chief executive officer),”
Wilfon said.
On the other hand, Michele DeHoyos, presi
dent of SC A, plans to make a career of interna
tional relations.
“Speech communication is a well-rounded de
gree,” deHoyos said. “I would lijce to use my
management and organizational-communication
skills with my fluent Spanish and work in inter
national relations.”
Vernon said the teaching and professional
avenues are further examples of the flexibility of
a speech communication degree.
Owen agreed. “I’m extremely pleased with
the number of speech communication majors at
tending law school,” he said.
Vernon said the flexibility of the degree is the
product of the department’s curriculum.
“We require five basic courses that offer a
blend of the different aspects of speech commu
nication,” she said. “Students also take five elec
tives and can use these with their minor to focus
themselves toward a career.”
The department’s curriculum includes instruc
tion in all divisions of speech communication.
including public speaking, group communica
tion, persuasion, technical speaking, argument
and debate, and interpersonal communication.
The department also offers a special topics
class featuring classes such as “Rhetoric of the
Cold War” and “Cross Cultural Communica
tions.”
She said the curriculum is geared toward cre
ating a balance of analytical and speech commu
nication skills, which will help to maximize
thought and production, she said.
In addition to pursuing law and master’s de
grees, Vernon said recent graduates have found
positions with Continental Airlines, Embassy
Suites Hotels, Capitol Records, First City Na
tional Bank, Neiman-Marcus and many other
large corporations.
Wilfon attributes the success of the depart
ment to its originality.
“The broad spectrum of classes is appealing,”
she said. “Your whole outlook on life is so dif
ferent and you see things differently than busi
ness majors, who are too focused.”
‘Mikki Maus’ has debut
in Soviet Union festival
MOSCOW (AP) — Here he’s
called “Mikki Maus,” and the 60-
year-old American has surprisingly
good rapport with Soviet youngsters
for an international film star making
his first live appearance in the Soviet
Union.
Sunday evening at Moscow’s
2,500-seat Rossiya Theater, with a
police cordon worthy of a minor head
of state outside, the first Soviet festi
val of Walt Disney animated classics
opened with a showing of “Fantasia”
and a visit by Mickey Mouse himself.
Standing about 5 feet 6 inches in
his clunky black patent leather shoes,
Mickey, played by Gabriella Spieth
from Walt Disney’s West German of
fice, strolled waving down the theater
aisle to the strains of “Heigh Ho,
Heigh Ho, It’s Off to Work We Go.”
In a juvenile version of the Mos
cow superpower summit, Mickey
was given a big hug and a keg of
honey by Misha the Bear, mascot of
the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
The lights dimmed and the Ros-
siya’s screen filled with the image of
Donald Duck in the 1941 short sub
ject “Donald’s Crime,” in which he
purloins the contents of a piggy bank
to finance a nightclub outing with
Daisy, then suffers pangs of con
science.
In a Russian-language voiceover,
minus the squawking tones in which
Donald usually speaks in English,
French and other Western languages,
the duck concluded: “Crime does not
pay.”
There was delighted laughter and
applause from the audience, which
included Foreign Ministry spokesman
Gennady I. Gerasimov and many
other Soviet VIPs and their families.
As well as “Fantasia,” which was
first released in 1940, the Disney an
imated films “Snow White and the
Seven Drawfs,” “Bambi” and “101
Dalmatians” will be shown to chil
dren and their parents in Moscow,
Leningrad and Tallinn.
Mickey is accompanied by a con
tingent of executives from The Walt
Disney Co. here to investigate the
business possibilities created by Pres
ident Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s eco
nomic and social reforms, which
have also loosened controls on the
media and the movies.
Roy E. Disney, vice chairman of
the Disney company and nephew of
its founder, pioneer animator Walt
Disney, said to the audience,“‘Fanta
sia’ is almost 50 years overdue in
coming to the Soviet Union.
“Through the universal language
of animation ... I feel we are taking
one more step toward bringing our
countries together.”
Disney and other company exec
utives played down the business end
of their trip.
But the Tass news agency said they
were talking with the Soviets about
cooperation in making and distribut
ing films.
Tass said also there was talk about
jointly building a “Wonderland,” a
Disneyland-style theme park already
planned for Moscow.
According to Sovietskaya Rossiya,
a Communist party organ, the first
Disney cartoons were shown in the
Soviet Union at the first Moscow film
festival in 1935. The cartoons, which
included “The Three Little Pigs”
won an award.
Sovietskaya Rossiya, which com
monly devotes its news columns to
weighty matters like the national
grain harvest, said, “Disney is a re
markable master and a genius second
to none.”
A&M speaker: Racism
threatens U.S. theater
By Richard Tijerina
Staff Writer
Racism can only be solved if people
confront each other instead of trying to
solve problems separately, Woody King,
a New York director, said.
King spoke of the differences between
white and black theater and stressed the
need for both to work together to find an
swers about racism in theater in a speech
at Rudder Theater Friday.
“What is needed is a coming toge
ther,” King said. “We need a confronting
of each other and to solve our problems
through confrontation, instead of trying
to solve them separately.”
King said there were many examples
of racism in American theater, especially
in New York, where he is currently di
recting a Broadway play called “Check
mates,” starring Denzel Washington,
Paul Winfield and Ruby Dee.
He said the media has much to do with
the racism evident in theater. He crit
icized newspaper critics who do not give
black plays a chance at success.
“These people at the newspapers have
no knowledge what black writers or
black audiences are feeling when they
come into this line of work,” King said.
“It doesn’t matter if they get standing
ovations every night. It doesn’t matter
that 60 percent of the audience is black
and everyone is laughing. This is just the
beginning. That negative impacts on fu
ture generations.”
King explained two types of racism
existing in theater today: institutiona
lized racism and economic racism. Insti
tutionalized racism deals with hardships
the black actor or playwright may deal
with while trying to receive recognition.
Economic racism occurs when large
production companies force the director
or playwright to waive his or her hold on
the play in exchange for the funding nec
essary to put the play on.
King said institutionalized racism is a
major threat in American theater right
now that should be addressed immedi
ately.
“I see a certain type of institutiona
lized racism hovering above (American
theater),” he said. “If you don’t change
it, it’s going to strike you down late at
night and you’ll wonder why. Only ideas
can change anything. Only ideas can
make you respected among a group of
millionaires. Ideas are respected because
ideas can change things.”
A&M distinguished lecturer Charles
Gordone, who hosted the lecture, said
the best hope for change in American
theater is coming from young actors and
playwrights who are still in college.
“I really believe the answers are com
ing from the university systems where
actors are coming out better trained,”
Gordone said. “The question we must
ask ourselves is, ‘Where do we go from
here?’ We can do nontraditional casting
until kingdom come, but it all comes
down to who the writers are.
“The writers, whether they are black,
white, blue, green, orange or whatever,
have to start writing about who and what
we are. We come out of an educational
system that pulls us together in four
years, and after that four years we have a
common denominator. What we do with
that common denominator determines
the future of America.”
King agreed with Gordone’s statement
and said changes in American theater
will not only work to erase institutiona
lized racism, but will help improve the
overall quality of theater as well.
“In the end, good literature is good lit
erature,” he said. “Bad literature is bad
literature. Good acting is good acting.
Bad acting is bad acting. Once you get
beyond that, you start to answer the basic
questions. ‘Am I learning something
from this? Is this meaningful to me?’ It’s
then that you start to learn something
from good theater.”
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