In the Limelight
Baird Tipson
Just as music took its place among the four members of the classic liberal arts quadrivium (geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic were the other three), the arts rank alongside the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural and mathematical sciences in our liberal arts curriculum today.
Over the last decade, the College has made major investments in its academic facilities. We renovated and preserved William Smith Hall for the humanities, Daly and Goldstein Halls for the humanities and social sciences, and most impressively the new Toll Science Center for the natural, behavioral and mathematical sciences. Only the performing arts remained in the long-outgrown, forty-year-old Gibson Performing Arts Center.
Now the time has come to restore the arts to their rightful place at the heart of a liberal education. We intend to replace the present forbidding exterior of Gibson Hall with a dramatic, welcoming new face that will lighten Martha Washington Square in the evening and draw students and faculty in during the day. Our drama department will enjoy a completely renovated large theatre, a brand-new experimental theatre, expanded rehearsal space, office space, classroom space, and green room space. Music will have its own new recital hall, better rehearsal space, more classrooms and individual rehearsal rooms, and better storage for instruments. Our dance program will continue to rehearse in its present facility in the Johnson Lifetime Fitness Center, but its performances will occur on the new stage of the large theatre. Major events such as the George Washington Birthday Convocation, lectures by prominent speakers, admissions open houses, and the concert series will draw campus and community into the newly renovated spaces. Not least, we will fill an ancient void by constructing the College's first climate-controlled, secure art gallery, enabling theatre- and concert-goers to enjoy visiting exhibits as well as the work of our own students and faculty.
With the Casey Academic Center to its north and the projected expansion of the library/student center/dining complex across Martha Washington Square to its east, the newly renovated Gibson Center will anchor the heart of our campus, enticing passersby to enter and enjoy its many offerings. Theatre, musical and dance performances will occur nearly every night of the week, and even on those evenings when the stages are occupied for rehearsals, the building will continue to light up the square. Not only the campus but also the entire Chestertown community will be drawn (yes, we do intend to add additional parking and improve what we have) to ask, "what's on stage tonight at Gibson?"