Committee promotes creative arts

President Tilghman has established a faculty task force to examine the future of arts programs at the University in an effort to make it an international leader in the creative and performing arts.

"Our mission is to report back to the president with a kind of vision for the creative arts at Princeton," said Stanley Allen GS '88, dean of the School of Architecture and chair of the task force. "Our job is less to think about the specific content of courses and programs than to suggest a number of alternatives that would be a scaffolding of the arts program . . . We're talking about the next 20 years."

The committee began meeting last month. It has no set agenda, members said, but expects to report to the president in June, a schedule Allen described as "very aggressive."

Provost Christopher Eisgruber said the administration plans to take the task force's findings seriously and allocate the resources necessary for Princeton to become "nationally and internationally known as a leader in the performing arts."

"It has been a priority of the president and of all of us [in the administration] to enhance what is already a very good program here at Princeton in the creative and performing arts," he said, adding that the arts are "something the president is committed to fundraising for."

Broad questions the task force might explore include whether the University should make certificate programs into majors or expand programs like creative writing into graduate programs, as well as what facilities concerns the arts will face in coming years, Allen said. "We're approaching these questions with a very open mind," he said.

Another task force member, Michael Cadden, director of the Program in Theater and Dance, said, "The whole idea of the task force is to come up with those goals, to rethink the whole thing top to bottom without thinking about the practicalities, even."

Though the task force will compare the arts programs of the University with those of its peers, Allen and Cadden both stressed the need to find a solution unique to Princeton.

They both cited Yale University as an example of an institution whose arts reputation — especially in drama — depends on the strength of its graduate program, which does not translate into a better undergraduate program.

"One of the key working principles here is that as we go forward we will build on Princeton's primary commitment to undergraduate education," Allen said.

Allen noted that the University's programs in the arts already have many strong points on which to build. In particular, he cited the creative writing program as "the crown jewel of the creative arts at Princeton." But he acknowledged that many people do not think of the University as particularly strong in the arts.

"There seems to be a perspective that the creative and performing arts are less important [here] than they might be at other colleges and universities," he said. "We don't know that that's the case, but we want to know how much of that is perspective and how much is reality."

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When asked if the task force would gather student input, Allen said he had not considered it but was open to the idea. Andrew Trueblood '05, outgoing president of the Performing Arts Council, said he had not heard anything about the task force.

"Given the structure of performing arts groups on campus, which is very student-oriented, I think it's essential to get student input," he said.

The president's task force on the arts overlaps with a similar but more narrowly focused task force formed by the Council of the Humanities. Anthony Grafton, chair of the Council and a member of both task forces, said the Humanities Council will take a "more microcosmic" approach, examining "modest things" that the Council can improve in the short term. Grafton said faculty overlap between the two task forces — which have six members in common — will ensure coordination.