My child is trying to decide between the BFA musical theatre programs at Millikin and Roosevelt. Can anyone shed some light on the pros and cons of each program? Thanks!
The programs are too close to say which is “better”; it all depends on your personality and what you want out of your training. At Millikin, there’s more freedom to shape your own experience, but there’s more internship opportunities at Roosevelt. You’ll get the best vocal training out there at Millikin. Dance is MU’s lowest priority in the triple-threat trifecta. They’re not bad at dance, it’s just that there’s not really anything nearby if you want to take extra class. One thing to check is who teaches vocal lessons. At Millikin, it’s professors in the music department. I know at other schools it’s vocal students or TAs. I don’t know if it’s like that at Roosevelt or not. Both schools are solid at acting. Roosevelt has the advantage of being in Chicago, but that comes with drawbacks as well. They have more commuter students and the cost of living off-campus is higher. Millikin also has the new musicals program, which is the super-cool chance to work with creators to do the first stagings of new shows. MU also has a shiny new theatre building in the works. Millikin is built around building versatile actors, so you’ll be expected to do a lot of practicum and be on tech/run crews for shows. If you’re super focused on stage skills only, Millikin is not the place for you. If you’re someone who takes initiative, you can get a lot out of what MU has to offer. If you have a project you want to do, no one is going to tell you no. It’s common to have student written works performed and there’s an entirely student-run theatre.
Millikin is like a lovely farm girl: beautiful, friendly, smart and full of heart. The problem is she lives so far out in the country, no one ever notices her.
This is such a great analogy @biscuithead . We too are struggling with the decision. My biggest hesitation is the difficulty in getting there. I’ve heard it’s not always easy to get to the airport to get a flight out of St Louis. If a ride along with a student isn’t available I’ve heard the Greyhound experience can be unnerving. I’ve also seen comments that The Woods Apts are loud and uncomfortable, and security deposits are never returned. Also campus security… as a mom what I’ve heard makes me nervous. @GloriaVaughn you seem to know your Millikin stuff. Can you speak to any of my concerns? I really want this to be the perfect place for my D for four years of a BFA MT program.
Yes @MTmomLynn. Imagine trying to get one of those flights out of Decatur on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Haha exaaaactly. I’m figuring that it’ll be a 2.5 hr drive to St Louis for that escape flight.
Transportation options first: depending on where you’re trying to go and if you’re ok with a layover, there are closer airports than Lambert (STL). The Decatur airport is pretty dinky in terms of flight offerings, not worth bothering with in general. However, Springfield, an hour west, and Bloomington, an hour north, both have bigger airports. There’s also Willard over east by U of I. Out of those, I only know CIRA (Bloomington) and they have multiple daily flights to major airports like O’Hare. At least when I was there, there were a lot of kids from the Springfield area and it’s not hard to catch a ride with a friend. Many of the Chicagoans pick up I55 in Bloomington, so it also wouldn’t be hard to get there. If you don’t know anyone from those places, there is a private online bulletin board where people post for rides/carpooling. Again, depending on where you’re trying to go, Amtrak has a bunch of stations in nearby towns. In a pinch, you can take the Amtrak to Chicago and grab the airport shuttle from there. As long as you don’t wait to the last minute to make travel plans, you’re fine. I knew people from Hawaii to New Jersey, and no one ever got stranded as far as I know.
Woods time: I’ll be straight about it, the Woods bites. The apartments themselves are actually kind of nice - double sinks, washer/dryer in every apartment, wood laminate floors, leather couches etc. The problem is the landlord. They don’t like to enforce their own rules. Weekends are loud and drunk. If you can get a quiet building, it’s not so bad. My advice is to make friends with Woods security. I did, and my calls got a real response beyond, “break it up - go home.” You * can * get your deposit back, it’s just going to take some extra work. Document everything when you move in, document the move-out cleaning process, and don’t hesitate to fight damages that weren’t yours. I got most of my deposit back, but they “lost” my receipt proving the carpet was cleaned. Always get a receipt for your rent check.
Campus safety: Campus itself is as safe as any other campus, off-campus in certain areas not so much. The area between main campus and the Woods is pretty safe. You can walk to CVS alone and not worry (as long as the cemetery doesn’t scare you lol), but I’d only go to Kroger alone in the middle of the day. If you want to go to McDonalds, you’re fine while it’s light, but I didn’t go alone. I interned at our lab school and walked there alone. The only time I got “harassed” walking there was by a professor laughing at me for hauling a bunch of materials. There were a few cars broken into and one person got mugged. Safety and Security offers a thing called Saferides, which is like a free lyft/uber using University vehicles. If you walk alone at night, it’s because you chose to. Most of the security staff are pretty nice, with the exception of one perpetually grumpy woman. They’re not “wacky hut” either. Most of them are former state or county police and some of them are armed. There’s an agreement with the city that they consider any residence of a student annexed to campus and therefore campus security can respond and they can issue arrests. They are a visible presence. On the rare occasion that they’re needed, we get speedy response time from city police. All of the buildings on campus are card-access, so no random people get in unless people are stupid and leave doors open. The Woods is RFID chipped to enter the complex and everyone goes through the main building.
@GloriaVaughn you are so helpful. THANK YOU so much. I’m disappointed to hear this about The Woods. It’s unfortunate since this seems to be pretty common knowledge hanging out here in the wind in the interwebs, that the university hasn’t picked up on it and taken steps towards fixing it. Since this is the only living arrangement for upperclassmen it seems to be discouraging when narrowing down schools. It’s some pretty bad PR.
The “grumpy security woman” gave me a giggle. I think every school has one.
So I have another question. Do you know how many hours a week the BFA MT’s have dance class? I’ve heard it’s not a really “dancey” school. But I assume they get a decent dance education?
THANKS again!
They’re well aware of the Woods situation. It’s complicated because the school owns the land, but the landlord owns the buildings. The agreement has been described to me as one that, “even OJ’s lawyer couldn’t get out of,” and the former president who set it up is never mentioned. What I’ve heard is that eventually the school will be allowed to buy the buildings and then it’ll all be fine.
I’m not sure offhand how many hours of dance they have weekly. I know at least two, but above that you’d have to consult the 8-semester plan available on the website. I know that there’s at least three levels of ballet, tap, and modern/jazz offered, as well as ballroom and choreography classes. There’s always at least one extra-curricular hip-hop group on campus. You get what you need, it’s just that there isn’t anything if you want to take extra class locally or specialty areas like Irish or African dance. There are occasional opportunities to do some specialty dance, but not through the department. I got pulled in to doing bharata natyam and bollywood dance through the international student organization. Someone in the club knew I had dance experience and grabbed me to audition for the annual Diwali performance. I wasn’t even an MT major. The goal is to teach you to learn dance more than to teach you dance, which is kind of a good idea since you never know what might be in an audition.
Thank you so much @GloriaVaughn 
They do get jobs after graduating. Check out their facebook page which shows who is working where and a lot of them graduated in the last 4 years. Millikin University - School of Theatre and Dance.