Lewis '55 to donate $101 million

Businessman, philanthropist and University trustee Peter B. Lewis '55 will donate $101 million to the University to support the creative and performing arts, President Tilghman announced Saturday.

The donation — the largest in University history — is intended to jumpstart an initiative designed to expand programs in the arts, increase the number of artists teaching and researching at the University and create a new facility for the study and presentation of the creative and performing arts.

The gift also comes in the initial stages of what is expected to be a major University fund-raising campaign to bring in between $1.5 billion and $2 billion over the next five years. The money will go to support top University objectives, including the four-year residential colleges and increased financial aid, as well as enhanced offerings in the arts.

"This is the hardest secret I have ever had to keep," Tilghman said in an interview Saturday. She began discussions with Lewis last September but news of the gift was not confirmed until Friday night's Board of Trustees meeting.

In a report to the trustees, Tilghman described the donation as "a unique moment for the arts at Princeton," allowing the University to attract students who might otherwise discount Princeton because of its relatively few offerings in the arts.

"In order for Princeton to remain the great institution that it is, it must get better all the time," Lewis said in an interview Saturday. "We have to look for where we as a university are competitively challenged."

The proposal outlined to the trustees includes plans for a new interdisciplinary Center for the Creative and Performing Arts and the construction of a new arts complex as part of an "arts neighborhood," either near the McCarter and Berlind theatres or 185 Nassau. Additional exhibition space in the art museum is also planned.

In her report, Tilghman said she envisioned the center as "the hub of a dynamic community of creative endeavor that brings together students with faculty members and artists whose interests are well suited to Princeton's distinctive conception of undergraduate education."

Funding is also expected for the creation of several new tenure-track and visiting scholar positions in arts departments, including a new Society of Fellows in the Arts which would bring "innovative and early-career artists/scholars" to Princeton.

Tilghman also singled out the undergraduate certificate programs in the arts, noting that the University needs to "do more" and "do better."

"We should endow the programs with the resources they need to reach a large group of students, to expand the breadth and depth of their curricular offerings, to surpass their current high standards, and to command the respect of the entire University community and the broader world," Tilghman wrote.

Student arts organizations can also expect additional financial support and performance space as a result of the gift. Such groups "often find themselves struggling to scrape together the relatively modest sums of money that they require to mount a performance, purchase equipment, or arrange a trip," Tilghman wrote in her report, recommending that a fund be established to support student arts groups.

'A Princeton solution'

A plan to bolster the position of creative and performing arts on campus has been widely expected in recent years, as Tilghman, since becoming president, has repeatedly reaffirmed her commitment to strengthening University arts programs. The recruitment of more students focused on the arts has also been a priority, especially looking forward to the 500-student increase in the undergraduate study body size by 2007.

Discussions about strengthening the University's arts programs began about three years ago, Tilghman said, when she began asking administrators and students what they would improve about the University.

"It came through loud and clear that we were under-serving students in the creative and performing arts," Tilghman said, citing students' complaints about arts courses filling up quickly and a lack of performance venues. "We don't allow that kind of negligence in other areas, so why had we allowed it in the arts?"

Last spring, Tilghman formed the President's Task Force on the Creative and Performing Arts and asked the committee, chaired by Architecture School Dean Stan Allen GS '88, to analyze the University's arts programs and determine how to strengthen them. (See related story.)

The committee of 13 faculty members and administrators met weekly for 12 weeks during the spring semester and talked with Tilghman regularly before submitting its recommendations in June 2005. After consulting with students, alumni and faculty at the University and elsewhere, the task force devised what Allen calls "a Princeton solution."

"We wanted to continue Princeton's emphasis on the undergraduate education," Allen said in an interview Saturday. "Though we looked for models at other top universities like Columbia, we found that most were directed at graduate students."

Based on the task force's findings, Tilghman rejected the "professional school model," which she argues focuses solely on students who intend to pursue arts-related careers, and instead decided to expand creative arts programs for all students, "not only those who concentrate in departments that bear an obvious relationship to the arts," the report said.

Tilghman also concluded the creative arts should be more integrated with other disciplines within the University. "The creative arts programs at Princeton have not been, and should not become, isolated intellectual enclaves within the University community," Tilghman, a renowned molecular biologist, wrote in her report.

"They have always been, and should remain, in dynamic partnership with other University departments and faculties, traditionally the humanities departments, but increasingly with interested scholars in engineering and the natural and social sciences."

Tilghman is currently talking to other possible donors and will continue to seek support for the new initiative. No specific amount of money has been proposed for the initiative, nor has a deadline been set for reaching its goals, but she said the plans, after Lewis' donation, are off to a strong start.

"I am once again deeply grateful to Peter Lewis," Tilghman said. "There is simply no question he has launched us in a very dramatic, encouraging way."

The benefactor

Lewis, a self-described "half screwball, half businessman," is chairman of the board at Progressive Corp., the nation's third-largest auto insurer. In his interview, he said he chose the figure of $101 million to top the last significant donation to the University, Gordon Wu '58's 1996 gift of $100 million.

Lewis has pledged a total of $233 million to the school to date, putting him among the University's largest benefactors. Among his contributions are a $60 million donation in 2004 to support the new science library, currently under construction, and his donation of $55 million in 1999 to establish the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics.

Lewis has also previously made several contributions to the arts, including funding for performance and rehearsal space for student extracurricular arts groups, the student radio station WPRB in Bloomberg Hall and a suite of studio spaces for the Program in Visual Arts at 185 Nassau. Lewis gave his first million dollar gift to Princeton in 1982 to create a gallery for contemporary art in the Princeton University Art Museum.

Matt Margolin '05, former USG president and current University trustee, offered praise for the philanthropist. "Peter Lewis is one of the most amazing people I have met," Margolin said in an email. "He is down to earth, accomplished and savvy. He genuinely loves life."

"His donations over the years have responded to areas of the University that have needed them the most," Margolin said. "It is a pleasure to listen to him describe his commitment to Princeton because it is clear just how much the University has meant to him."

While Lewis, a former chairman of the board at the Guggenheim Museum, has made frequent and substantial gifts to the arts, he has developed a reputation for demanding that the recipients of his donations behave in a fiscally responsible manner.

In 2004, Lewis said he would no longer give to Case Western Reserve University because it was underperforming his expectations and in 2005, citing "differences in direction," Lewis resigned from the Guggenheim board.

In his interview Saturday, however, Lewis appeared to be confident about the way in which Princeton would put his money to use. "I hope this effort will increase students' loyalty to the University in a way that it can carry them throughout their lives as it has for me," he said.

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