Our Vision as a School is to become the Performing Arts Institution of choice in the West African sub-Region, showcasing all that is best in African and world performance and scholarship.
Our Mission as a School is:
1) To be a centre of excellence in the teaching and learning of all the aspects of the Performing Arts through innovative research and performance practice;
2) To engender creativity and critical analytical skills in our students;
3) To produce high calibre graduates to meet the nation’s human resource needs in the growing cultural industry; and
4) To provide the University community, surrounding communities and the country at large with world class artistic cultural products
AN ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT CHALLENGES
The key challenges facing the School can be summarised in the points below:
• Faculty without requisite motivation and/or capabilities, thus morale is generally low.
• Large numbers of students with no real interest in the core disciplines of the Performing Arts.
• Need for cooperation between all Departments within the School.
• The impression that the School lacks a positive image within the University as a whole.
• Space is a major problem for the School. Office and specialised spaces for our particular line of teaching is a big issue. We need studio spaces for our acting technique classes, sound proof music studios and editing facilities, dance halls for practical dance classes and areas for teaching traditional musical instruments.
The current situation points to a lack of planning and the unavailability of adequate funding over the years. The situation is likely to deteriorate in 5-10 years unless some decisive measures are taken to address the problems raised above. Happily, in recent times, things have begun to look up in the area of funding and we are hopeful this trend will continue. We have been assured of funds this year to complete our Performing Arts complex which has been on hold for the past two years due to funding constraints.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR PLAN PERIOD
BROAD GOALS:
A) To be the best School of the Performing Arts (with full faculty status) in West Africa, with the best quality, highly motivated and engaged faculty and students.
B) To produce regular good quality Dance, Music and Theatre performances which can tour within and outside the country, as well as high quality scholarly articles in reputable journals in the field.
SPECIFIC GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
a) To challenge and inspire faculty to seek ways to improve their teaching and research skills, resulting in timely promotions and competent graduates in the performing arts.
b) To set up an international review/visitation panel for the School to help assess our current situation and propose ways we may improve what we do.
c) To improve our physical environment to engender greater creativity and to create more spaces for the practical components of our teaching.
d) To admit more students who are truly interested in the Performing Arts and to engender interest in our current student population in the core disciplines of our field.
e) To improve the image of the School within the general University community by producing high quality innovative outputs.
STRATEGIES
I. Training workshops for Faculty and students (grantsmanship/writing skills /creative skills etc.).
II. Encourage participation in relevant local and international conferences and festivals.
III. Get the University to approve a proposal (which has already been written) for a visitation panel to the School.
IV. Start a fundraising drive to seek additional funding for physical development of the School which will actively involve alumni of the School.
V. Use our 50th anniversary celebrations in 2012 as a major platform to educate the general public, particularly second cycle school students, on the core values of the School.
VI. Encourage an interdepartmental School seminar series to encourage faculty to present work in progress and to provide mutual peer review for papers towards publication.
VII. Strengthen the School’s journal by ensuring good quality articles are published in it regularly, with at least 50% of articles coming from Faculty within the School.
VIII. Encourage each department within the School to draw up a productions plan indicating a number of productions by faculty and students per year, and to earmark at least one per department which can be taken on tour or featured in a festival.
IX. Encourage the active participation of Abibigromma in School productions and in producing high quality productions which can represent the School at the highest levels.
X. Develop strategic partnerships with relevant bodies in the cultural industry, i.e. National Theatre, National commission on culture, GES etc to facilitate tours and festivals.
ACTIVITIES
I. Get Departments to review current programmes to better meet industry needs and students’ interests at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
II. Complete proposal for a Media Arts Department.
III. Organise a Workshop once a year on Writing for Scholarly Publishing.
IV. Organise a workshop once a year on Practice/Performance as research.
V. Work together with experts to develop ways to package performances/practical outputs for easy assessment for promotion purposes.
VI. Hold regular School meetings at which strategies are discussed and evaluated.
VII. Provide adequate financial support for planned School productions.
VIII. Call a meeting with Alumni of the School before August 2011 to get them to commit to the anniversary celebrations.
IX. Rally international Alumni.
X. Actively recruit adjunct or other Professors, Senior Lecturers to engage in the School.
XI. Get the School involved in International performance festivals. There is one coming up in 2012 which we want to immediately get involved with.
XII. Restructure the process of admitting BFA Students.
XIII. Publicise and encourage the use of online databases available in the University, by both Faculty and students.
XIV. Put together a proposal to host 2017 International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) annual conference in Ghana/The School.
PLAN FINANCE
a. Hope to raise money from the fund raising drive for the School.
b. Propose comprehensive budgets annually to cover various items in the plan.
c. Internally generated funds from productions, hiring of Drama studio and students’ practical fees.
IMPLEMENTATION ARRANGEMENTS
Small inter-departmental committees will be constituted at a School meeting to spearhead each goal. They will report to the Acting Director.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
a. The committees will meet twice a semester with the Acting Director to evaluate progress made.
b. The committees will report progress made once semester at a School meeting and members will have opportunity to evaluate progress of work.