Tours will be held throughout the day on April 5. Graphic by Allie McKibben.
ERIKA KOVACH | STAFF REPORTER | ekovach@butler.edu
The “First Fridays!” series will hold its final event on April 5, focusing on the Arts Administration Department. Open to anyone, the event will have student-led tours and information about classes, events and projects happening within the program.
This is the first year the series has taken place. The ongoing events began in the fall of this academic year and serve as a way to feature each of the five departments within the Jordan College of the Arts (JCA) — the Department of Dance, the School of Music, Butler Theatre, the Art Department and Arts Administration Department.
The series kicked off with an event featuring the Department of Dance in November, right before Butler Ballet’s annual performance of the Nutcracker. Throughout the day, there were ballet classes and Nutcracker rehearsals open to observe, as well as guided tours that visited the dance studios, costume shop, conditioning room and costume storage.
Dean of JCA Lisa Brooks is responsible for coordinating each of the events, alongside each of the department chairs.
“In one of the weekly meetings, [the department heads were] strategizing about how to show non-arts folks what we do,” Brooks said. “The idea of a monthly behind-the-scenes glimpse was what we agreed upon.”
Though each of the events has showcased different departments, Brooks said the goal was to allow time to wander in and observe classes throughout the day and offer guided tours at specific times.
Brenda Johnston is the department chair of Arts Administration, the final program to hold a “First Fridays!” event this year.
“Our students will give tours of the spaces we work in as arts administrators and share details about what arts administration is, all the types of work that go into it, what our classes entail and the kind of internships and jobs our students and alumni get,” Johnston said in an email to The Butler Collegian.
Through diversifying their community engagement, JCA hopes to attract a larger crowd to the arts. Emma Richards, a sophomore choral music education major, said she has found JCA to be an incredibly supportive environment, despite what can often be a heavy course load between private lessons, ensembles and the combination of education and music classes. With all of these engagements, Richards said that some performances that JCA students work on for months tend to mostly be attended by students who need academic credit.
“I think people would enjoy going to performances more than they think they would,” Richards said. “One of the hard things about having a connection between JCA and other schools is the BCR credit because I feel like people are like, ‘Oh, I have to go get my BCRs,’ [almost] like they’re forcing you. But as students, we really do appreciate any time people [show up]. It’s just like a sporting event, it’s not going to be as fun or energetic if there’s not people there.”
Brooks said that JCA plans to look into adjusting some of the events and implementing similar ideas to encourage further engagement in the future.
“We know that an arts college is truly unique on a college campus, and what we do can feel mysterious to folks on the outside,” Brooks said. “Our goal is to share how complex and time-intensive our programs are – and sometimes seeing is believing.”
