The closing of the Rose

Many of you have probably been following the decision of the trustees of Brandeis University to shutter the Rose Art Museum and sell off its collection in order to make up a budget shortfall. The Rose's collection includes approximately 6,000 works of art, including paintings by paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and the trustees' actions have, understandably, provoked considerable controversy. Today's New York Times contains an article by Roberta Smith that expresses the real loss that would be felt if their plan comes to fruition. Smith writes,

What the university’s president, Jehuda Reinharz, and the trustees don’t seem to realize is how their actions stain the reputation of Brandeis itself. He characterized the choice as “painful” and “difficult,” but it had all the earmarks of a desperate quick fix rather than a rational decision. He even said it in no way diminished Brandeis’s commitment to the visual arts, pointing out the university could turn the museum into an arts studio and study center. But the decision was devastating for the university’s art and art history departments, which have always relied heavily on the museum.

At the museum on Friday, Aliza Sena, a 19-year-old sophomore, said that graduating seniors in art and art history were especially traumatized. “It’s like the school telling them that their degree is fluff,” Ms. Sena said. She transferred this year from Tulane University after deciding that she wanted to major in art rather than business, and the Rose was a major factor in her choice.

“I’m devastated,” she said. “It’s crushing to figure out this school’s priorities, and sad that they can make a decision without consulting anyone knowledgeable. It really makes me reconsider being here.”

It is true that, at a time of rarely precedented financial crisis in the United States and abroad, reprioritizing is frequently in order, from the household to the governmental level, but it is also important to recognize the role of university museums. William U. Eiland, director of the Georgia Museum of Art, heads up the professional practices committee of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), which has expressed "strong objection to Brandeis University's proposed plan to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its collection." Eiland reiterated the centrality of university art museums to the teaching and scholarship missions of those educational institutions and expressed forcefully his feelings that the decision of the Brandeis trustees will result in a terrible loss.