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COMMENTARY: Sale of artwork is in line with core school values
by Hillel Buechler
Rose Reactions | 2/3/09
Posted online at 2:35 AM EST on 2/3/09
The closure of the Rose Art Museum and the subsequent liquidation of pieces in its collection epitomize the University's pillars of academic excellence and social justice. The faculty and students of this University are valued above its buildings and its property, especially those that are luxuries.
There was an utter lack of transparency on behalf of the Board of Trustees and the administration during this decision-making process, and for that both governing bodies deserve the harshest of criticism, but the ultimate decision was admirable. I did not hastily nor easily arrive at this conclusion. At first I was rather conflicted about it, but now I'm fully behind the dual decision to close the Rose and sell some art.
Closing the Rose is not, as one student suggested at the student-run sit-in at the museum this past Thursday, comparable to closing the University library.
And the University is not signaling abandonment of the fine arts, either. As Ingrid Schorr, program administrator to the Office of the Arts, wisely told students, "Maybe the fancy dining room is closing. But the kitchen is still open."
The University thrived in its 13 maiden years without the Rose. It's unreasonable to conclude that the University cannot continue to flourish independently of its Rose, as it once did.
To gain a more comprehensive perspective on the situation, it's important to look back at this University in the year that the Rose project was completed and opened to the public for the first time.
The front cover of the Oct. 24, 1961 issue of the Justice features what I initially considered to be a shocking editorial. Its title, "A Question of Values," lies just above a picture of the newly constructed Rose.
"This is the Rose Art Museum," the editorial begins. "It was built upon receipt of a donation of $250,000 by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Rose of Boston. For the same price, Brandeis University could have had nine fully endowed perpetual tuition scholarships, … two hundred one-year full tuition scholarships, … twenty-five students could have received complete college educations, ... and for the same price Brandeis could have had one fully endowed professorial chair, or about twenty different visiting professors for a year apiece."
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
michael
posted 2/04/09 @ 11:39 AM EST
Is this an essay written in the satirical style of Swift? If not, it is bizarre.
While you give a nod to the "lack of transparency", do the "core values" of Brandeis include gutting one of the finest University museums in New England, putting forward a 'plan' with no meaningful financial information provided, trashing the much-taunted Brandeis community by threatening an alternative of mass faculty firings, and generating publicity which has made Brandeis appear as an insitution controlled by panic button pushers ?? Do you have any idea how ridiculous Brandeis now appears ? No future donor, no informed prospective student and no rational person will take you up on your trip down memory lane before the Rose museum existed. (Continued…)
Bekah
posted 2/04/09 @ 11:41 PM EST
Well, I enjoyed the 'trip down memory lane', for one. Good reminder of what real activism is-- not just joining a Facebook group for a museum you've never visited. (Continued…)
Kiernan
posted 2/10/09 @ 1:04 AM EST
Let me start out with a confession: I am a freshman at Brandeis, have no experience in the realm of managment, and have believe stick figures are art. (Continued…)
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