Westminster policy presents barriers for students

On Nov. 5, Princeton students began scrolling through the Registrar’s website for next semester’s course offerings. But the courses listed in the catalog aren’t the only options available to Princeton students.

University students can take courses at Westminster Choir College (WCC) and at Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS), a Presbyterian institution unaffiliated with Princeton University, to supplement their regular University courses. But while both schools are open to Princeton students, the logistical hurdles and accreditation policies involved vastly differ.

Julia Neufeld ’10 and Stephanie Ng ’10, currently taking “Prayer in the Spiritual Devotional Life,” are among the handful of undergraduates who take classes at PTS every year. Neufeld explained that enrollment consisted of filling out paperwork with PTS that was then sent back to Princeton’s Registrar, which she described as “very accommodating.”

Ng noted, “It was just a couple of emails, no big deal.”

Taotao Liu ’09, however, described the process of enrolling to study at WCC as “a little strange.” Liu, the only Princeton student in several years to take courses at WCC, is currently doing graduate work in piano accompanying at WCC.

To enroll in courses at WCC, Princeton students first have to speak to the departmental representative in Princeton’s Department of Music, who then writes a letter to Associate Dean of the College Frank Ordiway. Ordiway in turn writes an authorization letter to Dean Marshall Onofrio, the WCC administrator who oversees the program. This allows Princeton students to take music lessons and courses free of charge at the music school and WCC students to study here. For University students, WCC’s specialized courses in conducting and piano accompaniment, for example, offer resources unavailable through the Princeton music department, which doesn’t offer a bachelor’s of music.

While Neufeld and Ng receive full Princeton credit for their PTS course, though, music courses at WCC do not count for course credit.

“Why do you want to do that?”, music department administrators asked Liu when she told them she wanted to take advanced music courses at the college during her senior year. “They told me that [to justify studying at WCC] it had to be a class that wasn’t like anything offered at Princeton – but to give me credit it would have to be a class that was like something offered at Princeton, which doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

Music department administrative assistant Greg Smith said in an e-mail that a hurdle arises from the schools’ incompatible academic calendars. WCC begins its fall semester in early September and its spring semester in early January, whereas Princeton begins its fall semester in mid September and its spring semester in early February.

Smith noted that he recently spoke with a WCC student who “in limbo” because Princeton’s spring course offerings weren’t posted yet and wouldn’t be posted until late November. This was problematic because WCC’s registration deadline was before the end of October, he said.

Smith added that Princeton students may also have trouble finding a private teacher given the size of WCC’s student body.

Musical performance certificate student Alexis Rodda ’10 is the only Princeton student currently studying at WCC, though for voice lessons only, not a class.

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“My voice teacher has helped me so much. I can’t describe how much she’s helped me grow as a musician,” she said, adding that her lessons are “definitely worth it.”

Rodda noted that the long walk — she devotes a two-hour block per lesson — and the high level of expertise within the music department may make studying at WCC impractical for most students.

“You could probably stay here and get most of what you need from music in general, unless there are more specific subjects you want to take that Princeton doesn’t have,” she said.

For Liu, however, this was not the case.

“Princeton likes people to think that you can get whatever you want from them,” Liu said. “You can get a wide range of things from Princeton, but there are definitely cases like mine where I wanted something that Princeton was not able to provide, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

She added that her current piano teacher at WCC “taught [her] more than anyone at Princeton could have taught [her] about accompanying.”

“A lot of the things I’m learning this semester are about the things I learned last year [at Princeton] being wrong,” Liu said. “My general conception of music from Princeton was nowhere near good enough.”

WCC, however, provides Liu with a different approach. She credits this to the institution’s differing attitudes towards music: At Princeton, she said, music is seen simply as an extracurricular activity. “At Princeton, it’s like, ‘I have all this work, and I should just go sing for fun’, whereas at Westminster it’s much more serious,” Liu said. “The only thing that they do is sing and study music.” Liu explained that WCC students have to take classes in acting, diction, language and pronunciation — subjects not readily available at Princeton.

“It’s just a different attitude when they don’t have a hundred pages of reading not related to music,” Liu said. “They approach [music] from a different perspective.”