After a month and a half of rehearsals, character and production research, and a hard weekend of performance, students involved in the production process may not receive cultural event credit. As you know, Winthrop requires students to 'attend' 18 cultural events to graduate, but it is often difficult for students who participate in events to get credit for them. In the world of virtual events, the university has sent out surveys following events where attendees reflect on the event, but event participants are expected to fill out the same reflection surveys. There is a lot that goes into successfully staging a production, and it is disrespectful to not give cultural event credit to students who were a part of the event, not to mention it could delay their graduation. It is disrespectful to require students who were a part of the process to write an essay following the event to get the same amount of credit as someone who simply saw the show one night and wrote about it. Performers, directors, choreographers, stage managers, and other stage crew should automatically receive credit for shows they participate in. Without us there is no event. 

This petition was created with theatre/dance students in mind, but the same goes for students who lead panel discussions.