January 25, 2006--La Boheme Princeton Style
Did you see that insurance magnate and philanthropist Peter Lewis just gave Princeton University a $101 million gift to expand its “creative and performing arts activities”? (See NY Times story below.)
You might be wondering, why $101 million rather than, say, just a round $100 million? Well, it’s so that his gift will be the largest in the history of the University; the previous all-time high was a mere $100. Who says the Ego wilts in later years? On the other hand he’s still just 72.
You might be wondering about my tone here. You would be correct. I am intending to be ironic (mocking?). Let me explain.
Princeton’s president, Shirley Tilghman says it “will have a transformational effect on Princeton.” I’m no so sure.
Princeton is not in any significant way a fine arts school; it is not noted for its music, painting, film, or dance programs. In fact, I do not think an undergraduate can even major in one of these subjects. That is in part, I suspect, why Lewis’ gift was framed as supporting arts activities.
Let’s hear further from Dr. Tilghman, a molecular biologist: “After becoming president in 2001, I began trying to identify the things we are doing well while being particularly alert to ways in which we are failing to meet student demand or faculty aspirations.” Fine.
The arts emerged as one of those areas in which she felt the institution was failing. In talking with students and faculty, she heard “of student dance groups having to move all the chairs out of a classroom to create rehearsal space . . . and of music students who carried their instruments all over campus in rain and snow because there was no storage space.”
I know Princeton has a large campus and it does rain and snow there, but what is wrong with this picture? Since when should we be worrying about musicians having to schlep around their instruments; or, poor babies, having to move chairs and tables to prepare enough room for themselves to dance? Maybe with parents shelling out at least $50,000 a year in tuition and room and board fees Princeton feels an obligation, in loco parentis, to make sure its charges are warm, dry, and won’t strain themselves too much.
Which brings me to another question—since when have we been thinking that colleges and universities are the best places to train and encourage artists? To me, I can’t think of a worse idea. To do so sounds all too conventionalizing, what with arts faculty trecking down the same deadly tenure track as those in history and sociology and all the politicking and compromising that represents. Aren’t our artists supposed to be transgressive and anti-bourgeois? How much of that will they get at Princeton, especially if we move the chairs and tables for them?
The last I heard the most transgressive and creative thing to happen at Princeton was when they invented the art of Streaking? Remember that—running around campus all naked. Performance art?
How much did Peter Lewis contribute to that? Actually, as a Princeton Alum, maybe he was the first one to drop his pants.
You might be wondering, why $101 million rather than, say, just a round $100 million? Well, it’s so that his gift will be the largest in the history of the University; the previous all-time high was a mere $100. Who says the Ego wilts in later years? On the other hand he’s still just 72.
You might be wondering about my tone here. You would be correct. I am intending to be ironic (mocking?). Let me explain.
Princeton’s president, Shirley Tilghman says it “will have a transformational effect on Princeton.” I’m no so sure.
Princeton is not in any significant way a fine arts school; it is not noted for its music, painting, film, or dance programs. In fact, I do not think an undergraduate can even major in one of these subjects. That is in part, I suspect, why Lewis’ gift was framed as supporting arts activities.
Let’s hear further from Dr. Tilghman, a molecular biologist: “After becoming president in 2001, I began trying to identify the things we are doing well while being particularly alert to ways in which we are failing to meet student demand or faculty aspirations.” Fine.
The arts emerged as one of those areas in which she felt the institution was failing. In talking with students and faculty, she heard “of student dance groups having to move all the chairs out of a classroom to create rehearsal space . . . and of music students who carried their instruments all over campus in rain and snow because there was no storage space.”
I know Princeton has a large campus and it does rain and snow there, but what is wrong with this picture? Since when should we be worrying about musicians having to schlep around their instruments; or, poor babies, having to move chairs and tables to prepare enough room for themselves to dance? Maybe with parents shelling out at least $50,000 a year in tuition and room and board fees Princeton feels an obligation, in loco parentis, to make sure its charges are warm, dry, and won’t strain themselves too much.
Which brings me to another question—since when have we been thinking that colleges and universities are the best places to train and encourage artists? To me, I can’t think of a worse idea. To do so sounds all too conventionalizing, what with arts faculty trecking down the same deadly tenure track as those in history and sociology and all the politicking and compromising that represents. Aren’t our artists supposed to be transgressive and anti-bourgeois? How much of that will they get at Princeton, especially if we move the chairs and tables for them?
The last I heard the most transgressive and creative thing to happen at Princeton was when they invented the art of Streaking? Remember that—running around campus all naked. Performance art?
How much did Peter Lewis contribute to that? Actually, as a Princeton Alum, maybe he was the first one to drop his pants.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:59 AM
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