The Value of Art I know what you’re going to ask. Is the Rose Art Museum still open? Well, happily, the answer is yes. As a Brandeis arts patron, you no doubt heard last winter’s news regarding the Rose. In January 2009, among several other initiatives it is taking to address the economic downturn, the university announced plans to close the museum and sell artwork. This decision became a source of controversy, protest, and debate on and off campus. Many people responded to the symbolism. Arts advocates who were unfamiliar with Brandeis or our museum took up the cause. As a lifelong arts advocate myself, it was rewarding to see so many people were concerned about our campus museum. In the past, we often struggled to get students and local arts patrons inside the Rose. Suddenly, it was acknowledged as a national treasure and an essential part of a Brandeis education. Attendance reached an all-time high as people across Greater Boston came to appreciate this wonderful cultural resource that they had frequently taken for granted. The university reassessed. Brandeis’s president announced the museum would stay open, and the provost appointed a Future of the Rose Art Museum Committee to define the next steps. I served on the committee, which comprised faculty, students, academic staff, Rose staff and overseers, alumni, and trustees.
For six months we solicited a wide range of ideas about the Rose through meetings, surveys, and interviews. In September 2009, the committee issued our recommendations to the Brandeis Board of Trustees and senior administration. Following a time of transition, we hope the Rose will ultimately become an even more meaningful part of Brandeis and the Greater Boston arts community. Crisis averted? Well, sort of. The Great Recession is having a dramatic effect on the arts. Nationwide, arts organizations and university arts programs are in jeopardy. In August, the New York Times reported, “Tens of
thousands of students at public and private colleges and universities around the country will find arts programs, courses, and teachers missing—victims of piercing budget cuts—when they descend on campuses this month and next.” The Association of Performing Arts Service Organizations has identified that 50 percent of America’s theaters, orchestras, and dance companies are facing budget cuts, and 48 percent are projecting deficits. Even the venerable Metropolitan Museum of Art was forced to make $10 million in staff reductions this year. State agencies, foundations, and donors that are lifelines for the arts are facing their own economic troubles. The Rose and Brandeis may have captured headlines for a time, but we were really among the first to confront a thorny predicament. Communities all across the country with institutional and governmental deficits are facing tough economic choices that are forcing them to evaluate and sometimes redefine their values and priorities. And where do the arts fall on your priority list? Inevitably, it comes down to this question: What is the value of art? Trying to answer that question became the gift in the Rose controversy. In many ways this was a difficult, even painful experience for my community, and we have not yet put it behind us. But the situation also caused people across campus—and, to some degree, nationwide—to consider how and why the arts are essential to higher learning. We engaged in complicated but real conversations about the role of museums and art in our communities, in education, and in our daily lives. Amid all the discourse surrounding the Rose, fittingly, the wisest response I encountered came from a Brandeis student. His name is Maxwell Price, Class of 2011, and he isn’t even an arts major. In an editorial in the student paper the Hoot, he wrote: “It’s time to wake up, folks, because it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and the arts are easy prey. I’m not saying that the Brandeis administration initially decided to close the Rose because students didn’t appreciate it enough. Yet I do believe that if we had shown as much interest in the art during all the years preceding the decision that we did in our protest, the Board of Trustees might have expressed a little more hesitation. “So here’s an idea. Let’s launch a demonstration to show how much we value the arts. March to the Spingold Theater to see a thought-provoking production by the Brandeis Theater Company. Storm the Dreitzer Gallery to view the new undergraduate art exhibition. Stage a sit-in of Slosberg Music Center, where the Lydian String Quartet performs. At this moment of transition, it’s time to turn the tide back toward the arts in liberal arts. And it starts when you show that you care.” State of the Arts provides you with myriad opportunities to do just that. I hope you will join me in exhibiting what you value most. Scott Edmiston Director, Office of the Arts