has completed its 30-year Sasaki Associates Campus Master Plan.
‘This is the culmination of one of the greatest moments in the history of Interlochen, and we’ve been working for 30 years, for this moment,” says President, Trey Devey. “Seventeen facilities across this campus are second to none to ensure that we’ve got world class assets, facilities for the arts, as well as our residential living learning community.”
Originally the plan included ten facilities, and over the years that became 17. And this year the two most recent facilities were completed, the Dance Center and the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow House.
The school raised $90 million for the new facilities over the course of three decades. Money also became available to help provide more students with financial aid. Eighty percent of the kids that come to the academy out of high school receive some form of financial aid. Some $19 million each year is awarded to as many kids as the school can assist.
“We try and bridge that gap for the camp students for most of those who apply for financial aid,” says Devey. “We’re able to accommodate that in some way. So we really try and do what we can just to break down the barriers to say you can have the best artistic education.”
The Master Plan is one step towards creating a campus with opportunities for all students with a passion for the Arts. Equity and inclusion is a working goal. Student demographics range over forty countries. Thirty percent of all students come from the U.S. while less than 20 percent of students are international.
Vision 2028 is the strategic plan laying out the next several goals leading up to the centennial in 7 years.
“This strategic plan is called Vision 2028, and there’s there’s two themes the formative experiences about developing excellence and the young artist destination is about access,” says Devey. “We’ve got audacious goals with the goal of excellence. There are elements like, for example, we’d like to be able to take our students on tour on a consistent basis so that we can say to the world, this is what we have in Traverse City. ”
Access also means encouraging more people from the larger Interlochen community to come visit campus.
“We have about pushing 150,000 people a year that come to this campus to experience everything that we have to offer,” says Devey. “We want people to come here more often and we want more people to come to campus and now’s the time to do that.”
The Master Plan has involved five presidents and numerous staff and alumni, many who were able to attend a ceremony 1 pm, October 22, to celebrate its completion.
“This has been a team effort. And so now it’s about taking all of that work and looking forward to think about where do we go next as an institution,” says Devey. “It’s meaningful for me because so many people have been involved in this.”
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