Staged dramas can influence behaviors.(portrayal of women students' issues through theater programs)

In a time of short attention spans, 24-hour news networks and constant information overload, schools need flashier ways to get their messages across. Two groups are banking on theater to do just that.

At the University of Michigan, the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching puts on travelling theater performances intended to sensitize professors about how women, minorities, and people from impoverished backgrounds face often subtle and unintended obstacles that put them at a disadvantage as either students or teachers.

The group presents a rehearsed skit containing some element of controversy in the classroom, breaks to let participants discuss suggestions to deal with the situation, and then enacts their ideas.

Goals are to remove barriers to career advancement for women and minority faculty members and to "create a classroom environment where all students feel safe and are able to achieve their full potential," said Constance Cook, director of the center.

Organizers note that one of their biggest problems is with professors who balk at the idea of a group of twenty-something actors trying to enlighten them on creating a more-inclusive classroom. Who wants to hear, after all, that his ideas are old-fashioned or chauvinistic?

But the group's non-lecturing format keeps most potential conflict at bay. The ...