<p>My daughter is still having a hard time making final decision, is down to Whitman an Wellesley. We know the eastern establishment vs western something new, single gender versus male/female suburb versus rural etc., now we're down to splitting hairs.
Does Whitman have a good, or any dance program? I know a new visual art building is opening in Fall 2008--will that include a studio?</p>
<p>If you explore the website I think you can find details on the art building: it has extraordinary studio space, etc. as I recall from looking at the plans awhile ago. Dance program is limited I think but well supported and there are some renovations/expansion of facilities being talked about but nothing underway. Emailing the admissions office might and also checking the website might give you a better sense of it all.</p>
<p>I looked around in the art website a bit too, and the new art building looks really awesome! I'm interested in studio art too, and my reasoning was that although Whitman's program is probably pretty small, it seems pretty strong too.</p>
<p>Whitman doesn't have a dance major but there are a number of classes, which are listed here:
<a href="http://www.whitman.edu/content/registrar/catalog/2008-2009/dance%5B/url%5D">http://www.whitman.edu/content/registrar/catalog/2008-2009/dance</a></p>
<p>My daughter took the Latin dance class and really enjoyed it. She wanted to take ballet as a freshman but couldn't get into the class, and she hasn't had time to try to add it to her schedule since. I've heard the president say he wants to expand the dance program. They are about to renovate the old athletic center (having built a new one), and I believe they'll be adding dance studios in there. The current dance studio is near the student center.</p>
<p>Chocolatecello, if you are an art major this may seem like a left-handed complement, but my daughter, who has declared Anthro and Biology as her major and minor, loves her painting class at Whitman so much she is taking the second semester painting in the fall. She took some drawing classes from CA College of Arts and Crafts while in high school, but otherwise had little or no studio art previously. To me that's the mark of an interesting art dept--when students who don't think of themselves as particulary artistic discover hidden talent and thrive in the class. She says the painting teacher is fantastic. The beginning drawing class at Whitman is super-hard to get into--it fills up at immediately; she tried twice. You have to assume that the new art bldg means Whitman is planning on making their arts program a big draw. My daughter was less enthusiastic about the Photography class she took her first year. She had had two semesters of photog in high school and felt the teacher at Whitman didn't compare well at all for a number of reasons. Hopefully they're working on that one.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for all that helpful info, leonsdaughter. That's really cool about the painting class, especially because painting is my focus in general - so now I'm really excited about that! :) I'm glad your daughter enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Thanks to all. My daughter has decided to go to Whitman and has been grinning from ear to ear ever since she made the decision!</p>
<p>Any chance of Whitman developing a minor in dance? Now thinking about my daughter</p>
<p>Suzybelle, could you expand on the fact that your daughter couldn't get into the ballet class? We've been thinking of Whitman for our daughter, and she wants to keep dancing, taking classes. How hard is it to get into the dance offerings they have?</p>
<p>There is currently only one section of each of the dance classes offered, and they have enrollment caps, so they fill up quickly. (My D was not one to go ask the prof to let her in a closed class, so I don't know how that would work.) However, the school is adding dance studios in the renovation of the old gym, so I would expect this situation to improve in a year or so.</p>