Anxiety in the Clinical Setting examines the difficulties students face as they enter the clinic for the first time, and it raises questions of how instructors can help students learn and succeed in this complex environment.

Breaking Bad News is a one act play that adapts research on the experiences of patients and medical staff into a dynamic performance, exploring common tensions and challenges related to health professional and patient communication.  The story follows Joanne, a new patient at a local cancer center, as she struggles to understand differing levels of news regarding her diagnosis.  The presentation is designed to create practical and productive dialogue across a wide variety of health professional roles.

Critical Thinking: Finding the Root of the Problem portrays interactions between a faculty member and a student new to the dentistry clinic, and it explores effective strategies for fostering students’ problem solving skills in clinical settings.

First Days depicts an instructor and students on the first day of class struggling with the many issues, stereotypes, and dynamics surrounding visible and hidden disabilities.

Gender in the Classroom focuses on the chilly climate that women students may face in a science classroom. The sketch raises issues of classroom dynamics that are applicable to all teaching environments.

Graduate Student Mentoring uses theatrical vignettes, monologue, and music to explore common dynamics and possible dilemmas in the faculty-graduate student mentoring relationship.

Groups portrays the complexities that often accompany assigned group work in the classroom.  Topics include the importance of effective instructions, problematic group dynamics, and the instructor’s responsibilities regarding classroom climate.

The Reason asks questions about the ways people on a university campus engage – and don’t engage – with religion, spirituality and faith.

Student Conflict in the Classroom focuses on a classroom conversation that suddenly turns contentious, exploring questions surrounding students’ backgrounds and conflicting perspectives, instructor responsibility, and what does or does not constitute subject-appropriate discussion in the classroom.

Three’s a Crowd focuses on the difficulties faced by faculty in facilitating comfortable interactions between medical students and patients. The sketch explores this dilemma by presenting a chronological series of clinical interactions between medical staff engaged with the student’s learning.

Faculty Advising Faculty explores the junior faculty-senior faculty mentoring process and examines the many factors, both individual and institutional, that can hinder or foster effective mentoring.  This sketch was commissioned by the U-M ADVANCE Program. Resources>

The Faculty Meeting depicts a faculty discussion involving an important topic (a faculty search) and how gender dynamics and faculty rank influence the conversation and affect the participants.  The sketch was commissioned by the U-M ADVANCE Program, which is dedicated to improving the campus environment for faculty in the areas of recruitment, retention, climate, and leadership.

Tenure Sketch: The Fence focuses on a tenure meeting discussion at the executive committee level of a science department. The sketch poses questions regarding the fairness of some common issues and dynamics in tenure discussions and portrays the subtle ways that the gender can affect a committee’s interpretation of the candidate’s scholarship and productivity. This sketch was commissioned by the U-M ADVANCE Program.

The First Class: Teaching and Learning is a stylized, multi-media production that presents diverse student perspectives on a variety of classroom practices and concerns, such as academic integrity, student participation, and group work. In addition to dynamic performances, music, and dance, the production uses instructional technology theatrically to raise questions about the connections and disconnections between course content and student identity. Following the presentation, audience members participate in a facilitated dialogue to explore the issues and perspectives raised by the performance. Resources>

The Kiss portrays a faculty member, a student, and the tensions associated with professional boundaries, intimacy, and power. Claire, an undergraduate student in Ken's literature course, rediscovers her passion for writing and in doing so, a connection to her instructor. A mutually rewarding mentoring relationship between the student and the faculty member ensues, and the lines between the academic and the personal relationships become increasingly blurry. The play is followed by a dialogue on professional boundaries, appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and institutional culpability.

A University Department: The Musical uses unconventional music and staging to depict a day in the life of individuals who make up a department (e.g., faculty, academic administrators, staff) and are often unaware of each others’ work experiences. Stories are drawn from a variety of sources, including research from the Women of Color Academy Project, national ADVANCE studies, and student interviews. Following the show, a facilitated dialogue prompts audience members to share their reactions and perspectives and to suggest practical and positive ideas for changes that can improve departmental climate. The cast includes professional actors and singers from the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor community.

Productive faculty-staff interactions

Departmental climate and communication

Authority in the classroom

Office hours

Interactions between faculty and students in the clinic

Lab dynamics

Follow-up to existing CRLT Players sketches

Other topics of special concern to your unit