On this episode of the Front Row, Noel Zahler, Dean of the J.T. and Margaret Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts, talks about his time working in Lubbock.
How has your time in Lubbock been so far?
It’s gone by in a flash. It’s been very busy and as you might imagine the college is growing both literally and in terms of its enrollment and the number of students who are interested in us. Also in the number of things that we do in the community and throughout all the disciplines that we serve.
The college is made up of several parts, what are those?
There are basically three schools in the college. There’s art, the school of music and the school of theater and dance. Together they combine to a total enrollment of majors of about 1,200 students. However, we serve 21 percent of the total campus, which is now 37 thousand students. We serve almost 8,000 students each year, so we’re educating students who have an intent to go on, either in education or as performers, or as artists and graphic artists. But we also give the background in all those areas to students for their general education.
Do you see the graduate programs as something you want to expand, or do you want to focus on undergraduate? What is your philosophy here at Texas Tech?
I think that in college it’s equally invested in undergraduate and graduate education. I think we are unique among many colleges of the arts in this country in that we give degrees from sort of the vanilla bachelor parts through the B.F.A. or the Bachelor’s of music all the way through to the Ph.D. with everything in between.
Listen to the full interview at the top of the article.
