I am thrilled that this is going to offer multidisciplinary training for 21st century artists. I'm an alum, I have two degrees from the School of Music. And so, I acknowledge that there's a process in coming around to my excitement. But in the end, infusing the student body with diversity, and different approaches, and multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary types of curriculum is just-- so exciting for the student experience. The world is changing-- and lots of different ways in which public consume entertainment, but also the art form. And success for our graduates in theater has been diversification. So I believe that this move sets us up to continue to train theater artists, for the future. But with perhaps more things in their tool bag. One of the goals of our strategic plan is to structurally support and value collaboration, interdisciplinarity, curricular flexibility, and shared governance. The creation of this new school exemplifies all of those things. But we're excited about this, because at the end of the day, this is really about students. It really highlights our strength in these areas. So we're coming to this from a position of strength. We are incredibly proud of our programs, in the performing arts, in music, and in theater and dance. And by making this move, we are in consolidating, and calling them out, and naming them in a much more visible way. We're making visible to the outside world, hey, this is what we do here at IC, and we do it well. Our current students are our future leaders in the arts. And so it's up to them to determine where we're going. And so opening their minds to potential and possibility, out of the box, kind of thinking, imaginative kinds of projects-- that they will come up with-- will prepare them for the arts. Being a School of Music, Theater and Dance, I think is great for the outside sort of perspective of the college. It will do nothing but elevate our stature. You know, this fits into the continuing evolution of Ithaca College. Again, it goes back to that strategic plan. How do we support collaboration, interdisciplinary between among our schools? This is an example of things that we could continue to do as we move forward into our 130th.
