DeKALB – Staff and students called for the university to lift the freeze on recruitment for the Master in Fine Arts in Acting program.

At approximately 8:30 a.m. Monday, a group of around 70 faculty and students formed in front of Founders Memorial Library and marched to Altgeld Hall to deliver a petition to NIU President Lisa Freeman asking for a freeze on recruiting students for the MFA in Acting program to be lifted. 

Rally members called for transparency, shared governance and for the right of the MFA in Acting program to continue existing. The group consisted of faculty, staff and students. The rally was in protest of a freeze placed on the MFA in Acting program in August. 

The MFA in Acting program operates with a three year cohort, which means the MFA program only recruits students for the program every three years. The current class of MFA in Acting students will graduate at the end of the spring 2025 semester, and with the freeze on the recruitment of students, there will not be a new cohort beginning in the fall 2025 semester.

The rally was led by the Northern Illinois United Faculty Alliance. A petition was created by the alliance members with over 280 signatures from staff and students throughout campus. The Northern Illinois United Faculty Alliance is an organization of members, primarily faculty, that aims to examine NIU through the perspective of the faculty. 

According to English Professor and President of the Northern Illinois United Faculty Alliance Mark Van Wienen, every June, the NIU United Faculty Alliance has a planning session with all of the members in order to set objectives and plans for the coming academic school year. One of the plans created this year was aimed to support the School of Theatre and Dance and the ban on the recruitment of MFA actors. 

Van Wienen spoke on the importance of the MFA in Acting program. 

“The program is, in many ways, the apex of the School of Theatre and Dance. Overall, these are highly skilled, dynamic, aspiring, developing actors who are recruited by the NIU School of Theatre and Dance precisely to take leadership as actors within their broader programs,” Van Wienen said. 

Van Wienen expressed frustration about the recruitment halt in relation to shared governance expectations.

“The abrupt unilateral decision of the upper administration to order a halt in recruitment is the opposite of that shared governance expectations of transparency and collaboration,” Van Wienen said.  

The United Faculty Alliance believes the work of the faculty is being threatened with this freeze in place, and this ban creates a negative image for NIU.

“We are concerned that instructor positions will be threatened. We are concerned that faculty who have spent their professional lives and careers over a number of decades will no longer have the opportunity to work with students at the very highest level of their program,” Van Wienen said. “We are further concerned that the message that this sends is that NIU, which aspires to be a comprehensive public serving institution of higher learning outreach to students across the broader spectrum of academic and professional interest, is going to be short changed.” 

In a statement provided to the Northern Star from Paul Kassel, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, he explained that master’s programs through the School of Theatre and Dance and NIU generally are undergoing review to ensure they all align with university values and goals.

“The NIU School of Theatre and Dance has paused the recruitment of the next cohort of the Master of Fine Arts in Acting (MFA) program while the school engages in its regularly scheduled re-accreditation process with the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST), and while the university is reviewing all graduate programs in an effort to ensure alignment of programs with the mission, vision, values and goals of the university,” the statement said.

The petition called for the administration to let the review of the program go through normally and asked the university to work with faculty transparently within shared governance. Of the signatures, 230 were from faculty on the tenure track. The signatures came from across campus, with involvement from at least 36 departments and schools. 

Van Wienen said some concern exists surrounding what this recruitment freeze could mean for subsequent action from the university.

“One of the reasons that this petition appeal was responded to by so many faculty across our panel, is that we are concerned that this marks an initial incident in a process that we might call quiet cutting,” Van Wienen said. 

Quiet cutting is where employers reassign employees to different roles rather than laying them off.

With the petition delivered, the rally concluded at 8:50 a.m.

Joshua Cody Hunt and Audrey Yang, both students in the MFA in Acting program who signed the petition and attended the rally, expressed the importance of the MFA in Acting program and how the ban negatively affects them and the school. 

“I think it’s unjust, because there wasn’t a conversation. There wasn’t any kind of ability for us to express the need for this program,” Yang said. 

“If it’s taken away, that’s just another spot on the map that is continuing to shrink down on culture, because arts really are the voices of culture. Our individual and our collective culture is all carried in the voice of artists,” Hunt said. We believe that art is possibly some of the most important things for human life and human expression and an enjoyment of life.”

The statement reveals that the status of recruitment of the rest of the programs in the School of Theatre and Dance will still remain.

“The MFA in Acting program is one of ten programs in the School of Theatre and Dance. Recruitment remains ongoing for all of the other programs,” the statement said.