Actor Robby Benson interviews for teaching position

From Saturday to Wednesday, actor, director and writer Robby Benson visited the IU campus for the initial phase of a job interview as a professor of practice in the Department of Telecommunications.

Benson, who is best known for voicing the character of the Beast in the 1991 Walt Disney film “Beauty and the Beast,” also spoke Tuesday morning at the IU Cinema.

“I really, deeply believe that the University community would benefit enormously if we can find a way to get him here,” said Susan Kelly, a senior lecturer in the department.

“His passion for teaching is commendable and he’s an amazingly decent human being.”

Earlier in the year, the department posted two job openings, one for a lecturer in production and another for a tenure-track for a scholar either in the area of telecommunications law and policy or management.     

After the jobs were posted, Benson expressed interest in teaching at the
University.

Kelly, who is on the department’s search committee, contacted Benson after he expressed interest and asked him to teach two of her classes, one of the several stops Benson made during his time in Bloomington.

Previously, Benson taught at the University of South Carolina; the University of California, Los Angeles; University of Utah; Appalachian State University and California Institute of the Arts. He was nominated for New York University’s “Distinguished Teaching Award.”

Benson is also well-known for starring in “Ice Castles,” “Ode to Billy Joe,” “The Chosen” and “Harry and Son.” He also directed episodes of the popular sitcoms “Friends” and “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.” He wrote the libretto and score of the musical “Open Heart,” which showed at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. His memoir “I’m Not Dead...Yet!” chronicles his ability to lead a creative career while having survived four open-heart surgeries for a congenital valve defect.    

His talk at the IU Cinema, “Life of a Story,” covered writing a film script from start to finish, his 40 years in show business and the script he sold at age 18 as well as his successes and failures in movie making.

During his time on the IU campus for the initial stages of his job interview, he attended meetings with faculty from the Jacobs School of Music and the
Department of Theatre and Drama and a meeting with the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Additionally, Benson met with all faculty in the telecommunications department for two days.

There are 24 faculty members in the department, according to the department’s website.

The process is typical for prospective faculty members, Kelly said.

“You basically get run completely through the gamut of meeting everyone, so everyone can get a sense of who you are so that we know if we want him and so he knows if he wants to be here,” she said.

At the end of this week, faculty members will meet and discuss hiring Benson.
Walter Gantz, chair of the department, said the professor of practice position is an “opportunity-based position.”

A position for a professor of practice typically does not require a doctoral degree, but professors with the position usually have significant experience in their industry and an expressed interest in teaching.

“I like to think of this as a courtship, because as a department and as a University, we have a lot to offer,” he said. “And as an individual with all his years of experience, he has a lot to offer.”