Important as both are to university life, academics and athletics often seem like different worlds. Last weekend, however, young humanities scholars found themselves courted as if they were varsity athletes.
The University's third annual Symposium in the Humanities, held Oct. 3-5, hosted promising high schoolers from across the country in a conference to recognize their achievements, expose them to University resources and programs and encourage their interest in the humanities.
Ultimately, the University aimed to attract applicants from what it considers the liberal arts' "blue chip" players.
The symposium combined faculty lectures, film screenings, workshops, and precepts around a single theme: "the 1960's in New York City." Under topics like "neo-avant-garde music," "Andy Warhol," and the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's," students explored humanistic subjects like history, ethics, art history, and dance.
On Saturday night, artist Frank Stella '58 was the featured speaker at a special dinner held for visiting students and their hosts.
Another purpose of the event was to combat a perception that the University is chiefly geared toward math and science. By showcasing its artistic community, the University also showed it is as committed to poetry as to physics and crew. "There are many forms of recognition for high school students who are talented in math and science," Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel said in a 2000 interview for the Princeton Alumni Weekly. "But there are not as many for students talented in the humanities and creative arts."
Lena Evans, a Symposium attendee from La Jolla, Calif., agreed.
"I've never heard of people recruiting for the humanities like this," she said. "I didn't know Princeton put such emphasis on it."
The students, flown in at University cost from across the country, represented 83 schools of all religious, public, and private denominations. They were selected by their schools for creativity and academic aptitude after the University invited the schools to participate in the event.
But, as University admissions officials firmly pointed out, acceptance to the symposium is no guarantee of admission to the University itself.
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