School Renovations Underscore Excellence
The hallway to the Upper School Dining Room is usually crowded around lunchtime. This semester, it’s going to be a squeeze to get through any time of day since part of the main hallway and the seating area across from the Dean of Students’ Office have been blocked off.
But students and staff aren’t complaining—because it’s all for a good cause. Behind the drywall barriers, contractors are hard at work transforming the Upper School Game Room and adjacent areas into what will become Principia’s new IDEA Center.
The envisioned IDEA Center (IDEA=Ideas, Design, Excellence, Actions) will provide a uniquely student-centered learning space that underscores Principia’s spiritual and educational commitment. The aim is to foster student-driven inquiry and assessment while incorporating educational and technological advances to help students achieve their full potential. Scheduled for completion over the summer break, the IDEA Center and relocated Media Center, which is being built across the hall, constitute the first phase of a major, two-part upgrade and renovation. The second, longer phase, will result in an expanded and updated Performing Arts Center that will incorporate the vast, vacated library space on the lower level of the building.
Principal Travis Brantingham is extremely grateful and delighted that a generous donor’s grant is making these changes possible. He sees the investment as “recognition of the School’s impressive performing arts program and its commitment to high levels of student engagement and excellence.” Gifts such as these, he notes, enable the School to effectively fulfill the mandate of Policy 11—to “seek continuously to improve its educational facilities . . . [and] keep abreast of educational progress and in key with changing world conditions.”
The donors are also offering a matching grant that will double the first $1 million of additional contributions to the project. The Principia Parents Association is actively supporting this effort and has committed the funds it will raise from its annual Trivia Night and Online Auction to the renovations.
On Tuesday, March 8, the School is hosting a Benefit Concert for the School Performing Arts Center in Ridgway at 7:30 p.m. The event will feature College and Upper School Arts on Tour performers and four-hands piano duo Stephanie Trick (US’05) and Paolo Alderighi. Concertgoers will also be able to view additional information and plans for the new spaces. All Principia friends are invited to attend.