Agreement with Acceptd unveiled

Executive Director Julie Woffington briefed the EdTA Board of Directors during the board’s April telephone meeting on refinements to the organization’s strategic plan, and on a new agreement with an internet startup that will benefit the Thespian scholarship program.  

The internet company, called Acceptd, will provide a range of services designed to help match prospective undergraduates with college and university theatre programs. Still under construction at getacceptd.com, the Acceptd website will allow students who are considering undergraduate theatre programs to search and evaluate schools, post a personal profile, and build a portfolio of video audition materials that can be submitted through the site to participating colleges and universities. EdTA staff members have been consulting closely with the company as it builds the system and enrolls undergraduate programs as affiliates.

The Acceptd software will also be used as the audition management system for college and scholarship auditions at the Thespian Festival beginning in 2013, and will be made available for use at state Thespian chapter events.

The basic Acceptd membership is free to students, who will pay a small fee to submit an application through the system. Under the agreement between EdTA and the company, Woffington said, Acceptd has committed a portion of its submission fee income to Thespian scholarship programs.

“This is a win for everybody,” she said. “For Thespians, for our friends in college and university theatre programs around the country, and for our scholarship program.”

Acceptd and EdTA plan to formally introduce the program at this year’s Thespian Festival.

Woffington said she and the staff have been working to sharpen the focus of the most recent version of the EdTA strategic plan, which was developed in response to a survey of member needs conducted in 2011. The text of the mission statement is now expressed in a graphic of three concentric circles, with “honoring and enriching students” at the center, “developing and supporting teachers” in the second circle, and on the outside, “influencing public opinion that theatre education is essential.”

The organization’s key strategies have been consolidated to four items:

                • Raise EdTA’s stature to build widespread support for theatre education.

                • Broaden our reach by increasing diversity and access.

                • Increase involvement and leadership of current members.

                • Deliver evolving services and knowledge that leverage technology.

The strategic plan, Woffiington said, “is designed to help us focus our work over the next three to five years in the areas that will most enable us to meet member needs and keep up with the changing landscape of education and theatre’s role within it.”

In other business, the board voted to accept revisions to the agreement that outlines the relationship between EdTA and its state chapters and officially chartered a Committee on Governance and a task force to review the structure of the Nominating Committee.