The following is a summary of remarks I made at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference 2023 in Austin, TX. The panel discussion was sponsored by the Voice & Speech Trainers Association focus group and also included Irene Alby, Aimee Blesing, Amy Chaffee, Kristi Dana, and Colton Weiss.
Panelists were asked to position themselves in relation to the topic of certifications by disclosing their certifications and affiliations:
I have four voice-related degrees and certifications in Fitzmaurice Voicework, Knight-Thompson Speechwork, Somatic Voicework the LoVetri Method, Prajna Yoga, Vocal Health First Aid, Mental Health First Aid, and a Certificate of Advanced Theater Training from Harvard University. I have developed curriculum and taught workshops for the Fitzmaurice Institute and Knight-Thompson Speechwork. Adjacent to certifications, I have been recognized by the Pan-American Vocology Association as a Recognized Vocologist, I am a member of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers and have completed their Teacher Development Program twice, and I have extensive continuing education in many other systems.
I know, from my colleagues, that my first tenure-track position came as a direct result of these credentials. They weren’t required by my prior institution, but they boosted my visibility with the search committee members. My current position at the University of Michigan resulted from a similar kind of professional legibility, plus the security, professional development, and creative/research opportunities my first tenure-track job afforded me.
I try hard to do work that merits the privileged position I hold. At the same time, the reality is that my CV got me in that door, and large sections of my CV are purely debt-financed credentials that don’t necessarily have anything to do with merit, qualification, or brilliance. I understood how professional legibility worked from the outset of my studies, and my credentialing choices were made strategically in order to game my way to a high-level position.
That’s not to say I think my productive work is bad, but I do feel my scholarly and creative output is less prolific than I would like it to be, partly due to the fact that I have spent so much time chasing credentials and collecting trophies rather than generating new knowledge. I came late to the academic game—relatively late in life compared to many academics, and late in late-stage capitalism at any rate—and I knew I had to stand out to be academically visible. Folks younger than me have it so much worse, as tenure-line jobs dry up at the same time we credential more and more people. The field is ever becoming more competitive.
This is what I mean by the certification economy
I believe one of the reasons it’s difficult to generate or disseminate new knowledge in our field is because our certifications silo our practices; slow down pedagogical innovation; and disincentivize broad learning, continuing professional development, and cross-method collaboration. This impacts the evolution of voicework writ large, not just our methods and lineages.
At this point, I’d like to say that I am not anti-certification. Certifications do some folks good. They did me good.
But I do have bigger wishes for our discipline that this ecocomy will ever produce. This is my pie-in-the-sky dream:
I wish we weren’t identified by our certification labels. I don’t want to be labeled a Fitzmaurice teacher. I am a voice teacher. I don’t want to be labeled a KTS teacher. I am a speech teacher. I honor and use the systems I’ve been taught, but they don’t define my teaching.
I wish there were a more accessible way, even for someone like me, to engage more deeply with other methodologies short of certifying in even more things.
I wish we all published more than we paywalled.
I wish we could find a sustainable business model that allowed us to give away our methods at the same time we could begin paying our teachers a wage that honors their professionalism.
I wish that more people without my privileges were in positions like mine. Some of this can be addressed in job postings and search committee charges. I suggested that those of us on hiring committees commit to making time to read all the materials submitted, and that we intentionally skip the CV until after we’ve read a teaching statement or cover letter. But there’s only so much we can do when so much of the training itself is only available via certification program.d
I know there are people working on these issues. I wish we were doing it in an ecumenical, collaborative way, because—and here comes more real talk—
I have had (or witnessed) truly terrible teaching from Fitzmaurice Voicework teachers.
…and from Knight-Thompson Speechwork teachers…
…and from Linklater teachers…from Lessac teachers…from Miller Voice Method teachers…from Alexander Technique teachers…
And I’ve also experienced brilliant teaching from all of those places—sometimes even from the same people.
I wish we could acknowledge more often and more publicly that none of us has figured it all out and that other organizations have so much to offer. I wish we celebrated methods other than our own.
And finally, I wish that you didn’t have to choose a team and stick with it for financial reasons just in order to get a credential, because it’s making us all less knowledgeable about our discipline and each other’s work and diminishing our scholarship.