"There is nothing of any value related to puppets and puppetry being sold at any university that you could not get at very little cost through instruction at workshops and festivals or free through your own study and experience. At this writing only the University of Connecticut is even offering a degree in puppetry and that degree is worthless in terms of improving your chances of being employed as a puppeteer."
It's very un-Christian of me, but I call bulls--t on that.
I do agree with the author that you don't need to have a degree in puppetry to be a puppeteer (I don't have one and most of the puppeteers I know don't either). I also agree that there are lots of great skills and information that can learned at festivals and workshops, but UCONN's Puppetry Program is almost universally recognized throughout the puppetry community as being exceptional. It may not be right for everyone, but calling its degree "worthless" is insulting to the school and reveals a real ignorance about not only it's program, but also the puppetry accomplishments of its alumni.
There's a long list of extremely talented UCONN alumni working as professional puppeteers today, including folks like Pam Arciero, Frankie Cordero, Tim Lagasse, Jim Napolitano and Jennifer Barnhart to name a few. In fact, possibly other than past employment with the Muppets, the biggest common denominator amongst the top tier of professional puppeteers in the United States is an association with UCONN.
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12/12/06 Update: Rob Saunders, another UCONN alumni, adds his thoughts here.
