Quote:
Originally Posted by alum
I was at CMU in the 80s and from what I recall, there was a lot of anti-Greek animosity in the College of Fine Arts. The Drama Department only chose about 36 dramats (our term for the Theatre majors) for a freshman class and cut it down at the end of each semester so by the end of sophomore year, it would be whittled down to 18. Some students who got cut from acting would go into a different focus within the department, ie directing, others would leave Carnegie Mellon completely. In any case, the first two years in the Drama Department meant extremely long days, ie building sets, sewing costumes so they would learn all facets of the business. Being a dramat was considered more difficult than being an ECE major.
We all had engineers in our memberships and each of the sororities had at least one voice major, but when I was there, female MT majors were not joining Greek Life.
A few girls from the other departments in CFA had joined but unlike the rest of us from the other colleges within the university who wore letters to class and around campus, they NEVER wore any afffiliation item to classes as the professors had the reputation of being biased.
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I was there from 1986 to 1990. Most of the Science and Engineering students that I knew just assumed that the Drama Profs were either sadistic, insane or *both*. I don't know too many departments at any college that would brag about students who had started in the department, dropped out of the University because they assumed that the Industry had to be easier than staying in the department and made it big.
Sometimes I think that the Drama Department had an element of Boot Camp to it in that the professors felt they had the responsibility of getting the students to the point where when their alumni went out into the business that just about any director they dealt with would be easy compared to the professors.
Hmm. I wonder whether any of the Fraternities that got kicked out of Carnegie-Mellon over the years tried the argument that they were abusing their pledges less than the Drama Profs abused their students...
OTOH, I still wish that the Beaux Arts ball had survived.
