Campus artists finally get top facilities

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The scientists got their laboratories, the jocks their plush weight rooms and climbing walls.

Now, at last, the massive campus building boom of the last 15 years is getting around to the performing arts. From big public universities to small liberal arts institutions such as Williams College, schools around the country are throwing unprecedented sums at new and often architecturally striking arts venues.

The big winners are student dancers, actors and musicians. Long accustomed to cramped, dark spaces, many are now enjoying more inspiring quarters, along with top-of-the-line electronics and acoustic setups. Top-shelf artists are taking their tours to campus.

The result, instructors say: Students are performing better.

"When you have a great building, you are inspired to do something great," said Leon Botstein, conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and president of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., which opened a new arts center in 2003. "For us, the building had the immediate impact of raising the aspirations of everyone involved in the arts."

But schools aren't just trying to please their theater majors. They are looking to these buildings to help attract students and faculty from a range of fields who are interested in culture, and to improve town-gown ties by making the local college a place to see a show or concert.

Some of the new structures are the most exotic buildings on campus.

The most unusual include Bard's Fisher Center, a Frank Gehry-designed, soaring, silver wing-like structure, and a new, $50-million theater complex that opened this fall at Will-iams. Other schools christening new theaters recently include Emory University in Atlanta ($37 million), and the universities of Denver ($70 million), Notre Dame ($64 million), Maryland ($128 million) and California, Davis ($46 million).

The University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami of Ohio and Sonoma State in California are among the many schools in various stages of planning and fundraising for new buildings. Princeton has opened a new theater and recently announced a $101 million gift for the arts.

Southeast Missouri State University is also on the fast track to new performing arts facilities with its River Campus, scheduled to open in August 2007.

The project is estimated to cost $50 million and will house the university's School of Visual and Performance Arts. Accommodations will include a 950-seat performance hall, 200-seat theater, a museum and a visitor center in addition to classroom space.

Staff writer Matt Sanders contributed to this report.