By TONI MARIE MARCHIONI

Envision the consummate educational environment for the arts: students and faculty interacting on both intellectual and artistic levels, reaching almost spiritual heights—not just by participating in one another's art and discussing methods of learning, but also by nourishing the mind, body, and soul with cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary experiences.

This idealistic picture, which moves away from the "24/7 in a practice room" mentality, is a goal for Juilliard and was set in motion with the initiation of the Mentoring program in 2002. It is arguable whether our school has yet been able to reach these idyllic levels of cranial stimulation. What is not highly debatable, and instead grimly acknowledged, is the struggle of the Mentoring program to create a widespread culture throughout Juilliard or to become as extensively utilized and appreciated as it deserves to be.

The Mentoring program was developed by President Joseph Polisi to bring together students and faculty for the sheer purpose of expansive learning and exploring the arts in New York. In an interview last spring, he divulged that the impetus for the program (which is administered by Eric Booth, its artistic director; Bärli Nugent, assistant dean and director of chamber music; and Derek Mithaug, director of career development) was a chain of disturbing conversations he had had with students about what they were doing outside of rehearsals and classes. He realized that "very frequently, there wasn't much happening. The students weren't taking advantage of whatever was happening even in Juilliard, let alone Lincoln Center or in the city. Here we are, in one of the greatest cities in the world, surrounded by actors, dancers, and musicians, and we still have tunnel vision."

To break through this wall, the idea was to develop a program linking students with mentors from different disciplines, in order to encourage discovery outside of the students' divisions. But, as President Polisi admitted, the pairing of a dance teacher and a trombone student did not always yield the most compatible results. With a series of adjustments, including making the program voluntary and creating a Professional Mentoring option designed to focus on one particular project, the program has become an extremely important part of the Juilliard experience. But while it has been essential and meaningful for many students, it has remained unsuccessful in infiltrating the overall mentality at Juilliard—an astounding 90 percent of current students still do not participate in the program.

While it has been essential and meaningful for many students, the Mentoring program has remained unsuccessful in infiltrating the overall mentality at Juilliard.

President Polisi does not blame disinterest or ignorance for the meager participation in the program, but rather the lack of breathing room for the Juilliard community, both collectively and individually. Eric Booth agrees with this assessment and questions whether the nature of the Juilliard community even allows a program like Mentoring to exist. After many discussions, Booth said that the administration has "come to conclude that, as much as people resonate with the values of the program, they can't find the time or place to give it much priority in their lives; they feel perennially guilty, and want to go this way, but can't hack it even with the best of intentions."

Wanting to explore these concerns in more depth, President Polisi scheduled a town meeting, held on May 1, to launch a dialogue within the entire Juilliard community about these very values. Moderator Eric Booth provided background on the Mentoring program, as well as meaningful insight into everyone's comments. A group of provocateurs (Polisi; Marion Felder, B.M. '06, jazz studies; Richard Feldman, drama faculty member; Christopher Gross, M.M. '06, cello; Stephen Pier, dance faculty member; and Elizabeth Roe, M.M. '06, piano) were each granted four minutes to voice their perspective on the broad topics of Juilliard's core values and the balance of artistry, performance, technique, and profession.

First to speak was Gross, who reminded everyone that "personal development and technical development are not at odds with each other. We are obsessed with refining our craft and tend to ignore the reflective process." Such comments echoed throughout the meeting. This consensus, combined with the sheer attendance and participation, confirmed Polisi's and Booth's suspicions that it is not lack of passion, but rather lack of time that has prevented the Mentoring program and its ideals from really catching on at Juilliard.

For anyone who attended the meeting, it was obvious that Juilliard students truly desire to be connected, not only as artists, but as human beings. As Roe eloquently stated, "It's our job to connect to our audience, and it's imperative to connect the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual elements of our personal development. We're trained to be inward-looking because we're compelled to redefine what we do and to constantly improve ourselves, but this leads to a feeling of perfectionism where nothing is ever good enough. Instead, we have a larger mission at stake—we have to connect outward and be aware that art is such a hopeful, optimistic, beautiful thing. It's the purpose of being an artist to provoke and illuminate."

Pier suggested that to achieve this type of connection, "it's really important that we accentuate our education, which is different from training. Education is the sense of knowing about the how and the why, not just the what. You need to be able to ask the right questions, not necessarily come up with the right answers." This kind of education—personal development—is the foundation upon which the goal of the Mentoring program was based.

The president plans to schedule several more town meetings during the 2006-07 school year and hopes that they will become "a place where people can come and philosophize about the arts at Juilliard, about themselves as individuals within the arts, and eventually their role as artists in society." For the present, he says he hopes more students will make time to take advantage of the amazing resource that the Mentoring program is. He urges students to push past their time constraints and avail themselves of the opportunity to connect with "the most interesting and motivated faculty in the world, who are dying to do this. They're only frustrated that scheduling does not permit them to link up with their mentees on a consistent basis."

Whatever finding this extra time may mean—less practice? less sleep? less time on classwork?—it is definitely an adjustment that students should consider incorporating into their lives this year. As President Polisi said at the town hall meeting, "so much of what we do is about humanity. Our role as artists is to get on stage and to change the audience for the better after our performances. You can't do that just through technique or training. There has to be some sense of who you are as a human being." And who knows? Finding that sense of self just might help artistic growth more than that extra hour in the practice room.

Toni Marie Marchioni is a master's degree candidate in oboe.