Musical theater major senior Kaitlin Joyce (pictured above) advocates for the arts department on campus. She hopes to bring more awareness to the decreasing appreciation for the arts programs in the school, in order to help future students (courtesy of Kaitlin Joyce).
Musical theater major senior Kaitlin Joyce feels passionate regarding the school’s seemingly decreasing care for the arts. Especially in her area of study, Joyce feels distraught concerning the conditions in Brodie Hall, a setting she frequently finds herself in due to her class schedule. As an upcoming graduate, she plans to continue to spread awareness about the current status of the arts department and its programs and hopes that students start to advocate.
With the challenging situation surrounding Milne Library’s long-term shutdown, as well as other renovations around campus, Joyce vocalizes her devastation. She feels increasingly concerned about the increasing unavailability of rooms to reserve, which interferes with students who need space to perform.
“It’s very difficult to receive booking spaces … In terms of the practice spaces, clubs continuously fight over which clubs gets to have the spaces to perform in,” Joyce said.
She took her concerns to the campus-wide Open Forum on Feb. 13 but felt discouraged by the responses she received from administrators.
“They answered me by saying that they made significant changes to the building, which I didn’t feel answered my question,” Joyce said. “I understand why, in the moment they weren’t expecting it … I didn’t feel the students were aware about anything that they were doing and the transparency overall at Geneseo is really in the dark, especially in this instance.”
After the forum, Joyce was informed of the changes being done for the arts department, but she still advocates for greater transparency between students and the administration on campus.
As a strong-standing role model, Joyce recently organized her own student-based forum in the Brodie Commons, encouraging students to come to her with their concerns. She answered students’ questions for four hours that night.
The execution of her event caught the attention of the Student Association, ultimately leading to the approval of the Students for the Arts Coalition. This coalition will feature one representative from every department within the arts and every club in such programs on campus. The plan is to hold monthly meetings to bring about more attention to music and arts.
Joyce hopes that in the next few years her influence will be passed on to future students and she wants to inspire people who feel they are not being heard to believe in themselves and express their voices in a respectful and professional manner.