Theatre Arts student surprised with CFPA Presidential Scholar award

Rachael Chapman, a Theatre Arts major at Western Washington University with concentrations in acting and education, was surprised in class this week with the Presidential Scholar award from the College of Fine and Performing Arts. CFPA Dean Dan Guyette surprised Chapman in her costume history class on Tuesday, May 3, to hand out the award.

Presidential Scholar awards honor top students in six colleges and were instituted by President Emeritus Karen W. Morse during Western’s Centennial in 2000 to honor graduates for their exceptional scholarship and service to the university and community.

According to the nomination letter submitted about Chapman for the award, Rachael is "a spirited, connected member of Western’s College of Fine and Performing Arts whose creativity and scholarship, involvement with the production of multicultural theatre for children, and her intense involvement as a future educator in creating multiple links between Western and the local schools make her an ideal candidate for the CFPA Presidential Scholar."

Chapman was unanimously voted by Theatre Arts faculty as the nominee from their area.

The nomination letter goes on to describe Chapman as being heavily vested in productions of the Theatre and Dance Department, both as an acting major and as a future educator. She is in the current production of “Jungle Book,” and she also appeared in “High School Musical” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In the Summer Youth Theatre Institute this past summer, she led two successful workshop units that taught students basic devising and script-writing skills and lighting design techniques. This summer she will be assistant director of the Summer Youth Theatre Institute. In the fall of 2010, Rachael helped department chair Deb Currier teach eighth grade students how to analyze and perform monologues, which were then presented by middle school students and WWU actors.

In 2010, Rachael was cast in and worked with the Multicultural Outreach Tour (MOTley). Crew members created plays based on multicultural tales from around the world and then performed then in a traveling show. Rachel was a key member of the troupe, having also worked in the Theatre office to book the tour.

"She was a perfect ambassador for the department, and the Theatre and Dance chair received many compliments from the elementary school administrators on her professionalism and enthusiasm," the nomination letter states.

In the summer of 2010, Rachael worked as an educational instructor at Western's Summer Youth Theatre Institute for primary- and secondary-level students. She led two successful workshop units that taught the students basic devising and script-writing skills and lighting design techniques. Rachael was also responsible for creating scripts and finding monologues and scenes for the students while helping them develop their skills as actors.

For her Creative Pedagogy course this past fall, Chapman and a teaching peer partner taught a fourth grade class at Everson Elementary a 45-minute lesson on plot development that was structured to exercise the students' verbal linguistic, visual-spatial and musical intelligences.

"Rachael’s extensive and ongoing service to Western as a leader in student community outreach has been instrumental in furthering the positive awareness of arts opportunities offered by WWU," the nomination letter states. "Rachael’s dedication to this department, theatre education, and to WWU have been instrumental in encouraging young people to see a future in the arts in general and in WWU's performing arts program in particular."