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With a world of technology at your fingertips and more paths to pursue than ever before, it can be hard for students to pick a path forward. Even when they do, deciding can mean giving up another passion.

But thanks to 91����’s many dual degree paths and the School of the Arts’ collaborative nature, following your interests and possible career prospects is more available than ever. For three creative arts professors — Laura Fine Hawkes, Monteith McCollum and Michael Rathbun — these opportunities go beyond just something they teach: it’s lived experience and something they had to foster in their own lives.

“When I was a student, it was difficult to be allowed to do voice training for opera and visual art,” said Fine Hawkes, an associate professor in theatre, the director of Design and Technical Theatre, and the chair of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. “I was frustrated by that! But here at 91����, we do a great job with students who have dual interests and are academically driven, of housing those students and letting them wander, and cultivating both that spirit and that discipline to pursue multiple pathways.”

Fine Hawkes, who is primarily a scenic designer, works across genres. She is focused on live theatrical scenic design, spanning opera, theater, music and dance, but her work has been applied in other areas, such as museum exhibit design and production design for the entertainment industry. Originally a performer and visual artist attempting to launch a career in California, she began paying for her auditions by painting sets. She quickly realized she was in rooms with intelligent and capable art directors, production designers, fabricators and project managers, which led to a eureka moment.

“I’d been doing these two things as distinctly separate paths, but I could merge them,” said Fine Hawkes, who went on to earn her master’s degree in scenic design at UCLA and work as a designer in Los Angeles.

Now the chair and an associate professor in the Cinema Department, McCollum’s path began in sculpture and painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. He took his first film class late in his undergraduate career and explored animation and music, incorporating it all into live performance. Self-described as an interdisciplinary artist working across film, sound and performance, he is now well-equipped to discuss technology in sound.

Finally, Rathbun’s experiences began with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a minor in neuroscience from Wells College in Aurora, N.Y. He credits an adjunct professor who he had a chance encounter with for re-introducing him to theater and giving him his first opportunity as a light-board operator; it was there that he fell in love with the toolkit of lighting, but felt it was too late to change majors. After some time spent traveling, Rathbun began working as a lighting designer and electrician. His career blossomed with a move to California. During the pandemic, he took the opportunity to earn his master’s degree in stage design; Rathbun is now an assistant professor in the Theatre Department.

New pathways

All three bring their wide-ranging personal and professional experience to 91����’s School of the Arts and its two new minor pathways for lighting and sound.

“What excites me about the lighting and sound minors is that they represent a new model for us. Rather than thinking of a minor as a smaller major, we’re designing tightly focused, cross-disciplinary programs that highlight the incredible range of expertise across music, cinema, theatre, art and design, and more,” said Christopher Robbins, the School of the Arts’ founding director. “These minors give students — no matter what their major is — a chance to develop practical insight into specific creative trajectories.”

Combining art and technology, these minors — which are open to anyone — give students across the University the skills to shape environments through hands-on projects, learning how to design for new venues, such as live performances, film, architectural spaces and multimedia installations.

“For the students who are really excited about concert lighting, who are really excited about event work, this minor gives space for these different concentrations and all the different ways in which you can make a living and make a life working with light — whether that’s engineering, working events or doing concert lighting. We want to realistically prepare students,” Rathbun said.

McCollum added that the sound minor, too, will allow students new opportunities in different disciplines; part of the minors, while removing the traditional prerequisites, requires students to take classes in departments outside their focus areas. This is, in part, a decision to make the program more fluid and to keep students from experiencing the minors as an extra burden.

“If they’ve had a bit of experience with something, then then there’s always the chance that they realize they’re focusing on the wrong thing. Maybe they are into performance rather than fixed sound compositions or some other variation,” he said. “We’re teaching complex software, and sometimes a student will think that’s all there is to know about that tool — but when they go into a different field, they realize there’s a whole different approach to using it.”

In addition to the program itself, both minors have established a lab space, where students can explore lighting and sound. Rathbun has made it a priority to modernize the available technology, partially through alumni donations.

“I wanted to create a space for exploration — you can’t move any of the lights during a show. In this space, students can practice putting up a light, wiring it, building cable. They can take apart moving lights and see how they work. Industry leaders, alums and manufacturing companies can come in and provide training,” he said. “Often, lighting work was focused on design for theater, but I also wanted to create opportunities for students who were excited about lighting in general. There are amazing opportunities in the research and development world of lighting.”

But that’s not to say students aren’t engaged in theatre as well; the recent production of Seussical was designed by an all-student team. For Fine Hawkes, this is just one example of how the program is focused on “design thinking” — by using the minor’s ethos, students can problem-solve and succeed in any field, major or outside activity. It might be seen through the lens of lighting or sound or an individual professor, but thinking creatively in a structured way will help students thrive.

“These minors are about building perspective for students,” she added. “They’re customizable in many ways. Students can take an organic path and match their work to their major. And I’m always surprised at what they want to do! It might start with a student who is just interested in a topic, but we’re all synthesizing things in real time and once you embed that knowledge, it informs your principal focus.”

In that same vein, she and the other professors providing this pathway hope to continue expanding beyond lighting and sound. They hope to use the interest in the minors as a roadmap to further collaboration and even exploration into other fields.

But for now, they’re happy that the program has been successful, that support has been available and that they can help inform the next generation of 91����’s student personal stories and professional careers.

“This would be a much harder program to create in another space, in a different university. Our students have the sort of perfect mix of practicality and creative artistic desire and intent, and they’re so motivated,” Rathbun said. “We are training those students for a world where they can flourish creatively with a solid, practical and utilitarian basis. One that allows them to not just talk about how great their experience was at college — when they were able to do art — but one that lets them make that art a part of their life.”