Student Blog: Why Your Program Needs Student Representatives

Depending on your theatre program, you may often work closely with your faculty on productions. For instance, your show’s director may also be your class professor. Perhaps you’re collaborating frequently with your faculty, since in order to learn theatre, you must do it. Although you’re a student in an educational theatre, your role in a production may require you to act as if you’re working in a professional theatre, which for the best learning experience, most of the time it should. All this being said, how can the balance between being a student and emerging professional be maintained in your program? How can students efficiently communicate with their faculty as both students and theatre practitioners? I happily introduce you to the concept of Student Representatives.

You may be asking, what is a Student Representative? A Student Representative is a leadership position where a theatre student is elected by the students of their program to serve as their voice in faculty department meetings and play (or season) selection meetings. A Student Representative is also available to take student concerns which may involve anything related to a student’s experience as a theatre student and/or practitioner and the Student Representative is responsible for communicating these concerns to the faculty. A Student Representative ensures that the student-faculty relationships are healthy, considering theatre students may work long hours alongside their faculty for productions (...tech week). 

Now that I’ve defined a Student Representative, let me explain why your program should really consider opening these positions. Theatre faculty are responsible for making decisions for the department, this is a given. When you have a trustworthy student in the room who knows the program’s students best, the faculty are able to better understand how their decisions will affect their students because they have a voice in the room. Furthermore, a Student Representative serves to make communication more efficient so when there is a concern, students automatically have someone (a peer) they trust to share their concern with. 

As someone who had the honor of serving as a Student Representative in my own program, I can honestly say this experience allowed me to grow as a leader and become a better advocate for my peers. This position also gives an opportunity for students to understand how faculty come to certain decisions and strengthens a program’s student-faculty relationship. My program has two Student Representative positions: one student (a sophomore) who represents the underclassmen and the other (a junior or senior) who represents the upperclassmen. I highly encourage any theatre program to consider opening these Student Representative positions because students are constantly working alongside faculty (in the classroom and productions), and it is important that communication is always efficient on both ends. A program that offers Student Representative positions is a program that strives to serve their students.

Thanks for reading!