<p>more on the arts neighborhood:</p>
<p>key quote for prospective applicants:</p>
<p>"We hope to dramatically increase, dramatically increase, the number of students who are involved in the creative and performing arts," [Princeton University VP & Secretary Robert Durkee] said.</p>
<p>The president of Princeton, famously, has said she wants to attract "more green-haired people" to Princeton - which seems to be her short-hand for artsy types.</p>
<p>She said that early on in her tenure, before she had a real sense of how being the president works, and she paid for it. She has learned that off-the-cuff remarks can be taken as something they weren't meant to be, and that they can have very long lives.</p>
<p>Representing this as a "green hair" initiative mischaracterizes it. This is a serious and thoughtful effort to enhance the role played by the Arts in all areas of campus life. There is lots of support for the initiative throughout the institution, and there is serious time and money behind it, including additional faculty lines and additional admission slots for applicants of oustanding talent. Princeton's going to feel like a different place in 10 years because of this. </p>
<p>Choosing Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon as the Director was a brilliant move, too -- he's not only got impeccable Arts credentials, but he's well loved by students, fellow faculty, alumni, and the surrounding community. He'll get things done.</p>
<p>See</p>
<p>Feel like a different place? How so? What current "feeling" will change?</p>
<p>My guess is that the Arts Initiative will lead to the development of a critical mass of students who are both studying the arts and doing lots of arts-related extracurricular activities that will add counterpoint to the strong flavors of some of the athletic teams, or the Woodrow Wilson School majors, or the engineering students. I don't know that it will necessarily develop the sort of insularity that is sometimes associated with these other groups, but it's possible. And even that insularity isn't necessarily a function of exclusive tendencies on the part of the students, but rather the unique requirements and pressures of particular curricula or non-academic commitments. </p>
<p>Any way you cut it, it's going to lead to lots more interesting, creative senior theses.</p>
<p>good answer, but he really just wanted you to acknowledge some shortcoming in the princeton study body as currently constituted.</p>
<p>From where I sit, the current student body is doing just fine.</p>
<p>"My guess is that the Arts Initiative will lead to the development of a critical mass of students who are both studying the arts and doing lots of arts-related extracurricular activities." This is already happening on campus! No doubt about it! Not that you would know this by reading comments by the Princeton admin. The current admin seems incapable of presenting any new plan without denigrating its own campus and students.</p>
<p>What's the timeframe for the developments? It seems like they're still a long way off from actual implementation.</p>
<p>apparently, they're only at the community-feedback stage right now. further developments await changes to the student body, the raising of huge sums (even with the $101 million gift), and lots and lots of redesign-for-approval work for a town-gown project of this magnitude and complexity. from one of the articles above:</p>
<p>"While this goal [of dramatically increasing the number of arts students] is formalized, the university's plans for the neighborhood remain in the very early stages, Mr. Durkee said, and remain subject to extensive change."</p>
<p>in the end, too, construction could be spread out over several phases, lasting a decade or more. should be worth the wait.</p>
<p>I've actually met the concertmaster before...talented guy.</p>