Maya Roth

Department of Performing Arts Chair, Associate Professor
Age: 48
Hometown: Born in Indianapolis, Ind., grew up there and in Brooklyn, N.Y., lived in San Francisco, Calif. after college
Education: B.A. Swarthmore College, English and Theater; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Dramatic Art
Areas of Research: Contemporary women playwrights’ works and the plays of British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker
Time at Georgetown: 11 years
Courses Taught: Directing a Play (immersive course), world theater history, play analysis, contemporary women playwrights, Ensemble Theater, new work development, previously taught modern drama

How does living in a dorm shape your teaching or student interactions?
I have grace days that they choose where to apply there. I’m very aware because I know you guys get smashed. In some ways, it’s horrendous if you’re smashed with all your midterms on the same day. I build in some junctures, let them shape, a little bit, deadlines because I do see that there are times when it’s just too much. Similarly, but I think I’m naturally inclined this way, I feel responsible as a chair, so I don’t backload things. Every faculty member is supposed to pace things across the semester, so I do that. A lot of colleagues that I really respect are just “That’s it, you don’t turn it in on time, I don’t accept it.” I’m not that faculty member. I have clear ways to grade down if you turn things in late, but if students are really slammed, I’m open to incompletes because what’s important to me is that students learn. 
Also, I guess it is also the combination of living in the dorm and doing the work that I do in theater. When you teach practice courses more than seminar courses, like acting, for example, or when I’m directing a play, people need to engage, not only from imaginations and intellect, but also, in a way, effectively. And that requires a real courage and vulnerability at times. I think living in the dorms, as well as seeing people in a whole person way, leads me to maybe value their overall growth in addition to in my course and trying to listen to where there excitements are, where their needs are and if I can be resources to them. 
I get windows on a wider range of students’ lives and that also happens with students with whom I’m in rehearsal 30 hours a week. Also, I may be more acutely aware of the rhythms between international students and transfer students. I didn’t really understand how hard and different their experiences are. I think I’m aware of a wider range of student experiences patterns of experiences and similarly. For transfer students I had no idea that transfer students really do have a harder time finding communities and continue to feel, often, less hooked into the campus community.

What’s it like raising a child on a college campus?
He opens up interactions with some students who I’m confident would never seek out communication with me. He is just a charming, energetic child, and so he’s a bit like a magnet for people and … it doesn’t feel like I’m here as an academic hawk, but you can have a human interaction with me. We also have conversations that we would never have at this age, like, “Drunken people get louder” — things come up.
Also, he doesn’t have a peer group in the immediate surroundings, so we need to consciously build in structure, which makes us more of a unit. It depends who your child is. I know that another FIR, his child is very social — they have like 12-16 different babysitters. [My son] isn’t like that. He will love to interact, but he needs sustained relationships, so I’m aware we have to structure in sustained interactions that wouldn’t just happen organically other than school and formal structures. But I love that he has contact with a diversity of people. His school was diverse, too and frequently that’s where kids have contact with diversity, but he’s having contact with diversity at different ages, and I think that’s somewhat unusual.
Similarly, I can integrate him a bit into life, which in my discipline, there’s no way that I could be as engaged a parent and as engaged as a faculty if he didn’t live on campus. It’s not only that it’s a positive for him, but also I have been very surprised by how meaningful and profound that seems to be for many of my students, who get to see me parent and having contact with someone young and growing up in context of this world. … It has its rewards, and there are things that are challenging. We have to protect.

What drew you to Georgetown?
I needed a city, and it was very important to me to be at a campus that had diversity. The international diversity is important to my research, is important to me as a person, to my identity, to my sense of the world and the kind of world I want to engage. And of course, the academic rigor and its liberal arts basis. It’s really important. It’s really hard to navigate, but for me, liberal arts, like teaching, is really important. Still, sometimes, I’m like, “Wow, how can I stay at Georgetown” because it’s not the best environment for research, but it’s so rewarding. It has an unusually high percentage of good people — people who care — so the emphasis on public engagement or social justice for me was a draw. Also, the chance to shape a program and help cultivate a value is a gift in its way. But, it is also very demanding to try to create space where there really hasn’t.

Do you think your department gets enough support from the university?
Some key people in the university — the president, provost, dean — do understand that we contribute in profound, substantive ways. It is an incredible success story that we’re doing what we’re doing 10 years after our founding. [Roth developed the major and department.] In terms of financial support, music needs a building that’s designated for it, the salary line needs to be higher. … I’m doing too much with too few staff members. I think there’s an awareness and love for what we’re doing without a sufficient awareness of the toll or at what expense. I think they think we’re small, but we’re huge. Yes, we don’t have a large number of majors (only two disciplines with majors), and they each have about 10 majors each year, but we have 1500 students who take our years each year. We have patrons that come to our shows. … It is staggering how much we contribute to the university as a whole, and we do, next to English, deliver the next most humanities in writing class.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in academia?
I was choosing between an acupuncturist and this. In graduate school, it was one or the other — I had someone who wanted to be my master or mentor. And I would be very happy and it would be deeply rewarding. Alternatively, I could be working with a company. Those are less theater companies in America. If I were in Europe, I’d be in a theater company. In America, I don’t know that I’d stay, because I don’t like to do just any theater. I really care about the work that I really care about and the work that I really want to be doing.
In another life, there are lots of things I could be doing. I could work for a grassroots development organization and find meaningful, but teaching is kind of in my family. I’m like the 4th generation in my family of teachers. It is really important and rewarding, and so I think no matter where I was, that’d be a part of what I was doing and making, in some way, art and community though art, whether dance or theater, that would be a part of my life — not necessarily the money-making thing, but at least a hobby.

Interview by Penny Hung