WCC welcomes transition; department changes image

By Jeff Frankel

The Arts and Sciences Department at the Princeton campus is undergoing changes that would benefit both campuses, said Robert Annis, dean of Westminster Choir College.

The plan calls for changing the department to the Arts and Sciences Program to “create a stronger integration and linkage with the College of Liberal Arts, Education and Sciences” on the Lawrenceville campus, said Annis.

It’s a step in the creation of a new two-campus college.

“The concept is to bring together our current programs in music, theater, musical
theater, dance and fine arts in the new college and to develop additional arts,” he said.

The change would shuffle some professors around to make the program more cohesive, said Dr. Elizabeth Scheiber, assistant professor of French and Italian, currently at the Princeton campus.

Professors will be grouped in the Lawrenceville department with their specialties. “Instead of having faculty that is made up of this diverse group, we [will] actually be housed with like faculty members,” she said. The new program will “borrow faculty that are from Westminster and some that are from [the Lawrenceville] campus.”

The program, already approved by the Westminster Academic Policy Committee and the American Association of University Professors, still needs to be approved by the Liberal Arts and Sciences Academic Policy Committee.

However, this change may be coming too fast, said one Princeton campus teacher.

“I think very often in academia that changes are too slow,” said Diana Crane, the coordinator of the Arts and Sciences Department and associate professor of Piano and Voice. “I feel this decision was done a little too fast.”

She stressed that the details were not fully worked out yet, and they need to be soon.

“The administration needs to take the next step,” she said.

This change will not only help the Lawrenceville campus, but it “is a change for the better at Westminster,” said Dean Joseph Nadeau of the College of Liberal Arts, Education and Sciences.
“Instead of being very limited, [the Princeton campus will] now have access to the entire spectrum” of liberal arts, he said.

However, in order for the change to be completed, several groups need to agree on the move. First, a clause in the professors’ contract obligates all members of any affected department to agree on the move, said Scheiber.

“The clause reads that the faculty member that wants to be transferred has to agree [to it],” she said. “The department that would receive the transfer has to agree that they want the transfer, then the dean needs to agree.”

According to Scheiber, the students of the department should not feel any differences that would affect their coursework.