Happy Birthday To You, Brandeis’s Scheme Is Not For You: Or, Silly Rhymes Aside, Why Those Who Really Don’t Like Art Should Come Clean To Begin With.
You're using me to justify what?!
I must admit I hadn’t expected a reply of any kind from a fellow Mepper, though I considered the possibility that some Brandeis alumns might disagree (though, as Storey points out, the vast majority of Brandeis alumni are as annoyed about this as I am)–but I must say I was pretty flabbergasted at Storey’s take on my post about the closing of the Rose Museum.
And it took me a while to figure out what exactly was behind it…I mean, Storey’s not a big fan of a lot of things the Brandeis administration does (I’m surprised to hear of his positive feelings towards Jehuda, actually), so I would have assumed a fire sale of invaluable art to make up for the ill judgment of people who trust too much in snake oil salesmen wouldn’t have made his top ten list of good Brandeis decisions, let alone being a “brilliant and courageous move.” But after reading through the post a number of times, I think I’ve finally figured it out:
Storey doesn’t like art.
Or more to the point, Storey doesn’t like funding things which, well, he doesn’t like. Now this isn’t an attack on him personally: he’s extremely intelligent, cultured, obviously loves great literature, music, things of that nature. And he brings up a lot of good points in his reply to my post. But at the core of what he’s arguing is the basic premise that when it comes down to it, art just really isn’t that interesting to him, and since it wasn’t that interesting to his friends either, it must not be that important to Brandeis’s “educational mission” (which, apparently, refers only and exclusively to classes and classrooms–more on that later) as a whole. Arguing by anecdote is always problematic, and even more so when the anecdotal arguments are based on faulty premises to begin with. So taking up the gauntlet, let’s take some of Storey’s general premises first.
“<1. Brandeis Needed to Make Cuts
I think this is perhaps the round-winning premise right here. Because frankly none of the discussions I’ve seen among alumni have seriously engaged this issue. If you’re going to argue that closing the Rose was a bad idea, you have to be able to point out what you believe should have been cut instead. Because Brandeis is (perhaps a little late, but finally) taking this economic situation seriously and being serious about their endowment and ensuring that the university doesn’t disappear in twenty years.”
I’m a bit surprised, frankly, that someone as naturally suspicious of authority and unprovable claims of fact as Storey would buy into this so easily. But the basic problem with this argument is it relies on the assumption which is presented as a given: Brandeis needed to make cuts. An excellent argument, except for one problem:
How do we know?
How do we know that Brandeis really needs to make cuts? I can see three possible things to explain why:
1.Because the economy is bad.
Er, yes. The economy is bad. But there are lots of institutions of higher learning–such as my own, which is much larger–which have managed to navigate these turbulent waters thus far (without the incredible tuition revenues Brandeis enjoys, by the way) without having to cut programs, gut salaries and hold art tag sales. Certainly lots of adjustments have had to be made–hiring freezes, possibly, or reducing travel reimbursements, or increasing the cost of meal plans. But using the vague argument that “the economy is bad, so obviously we’re in bad shape” doesn’t wash here, not without specific evidence. Moreover, this didn’t come out of nowhere–the evidence that a serious recession was on the way has been building for many months. If Brandeis truly is in such dire straits that it needs to make cuts everywhere to survive, I would suggest that the expert business people who so badly misunderstood market conditions in the first place that they put Brandeis in a terrible position are not the best ones to make decisions now on how to get it out. File this under Jon Stewart’s theory that the bus driver who drives the bus in the ditch is not the best option for driving the bus back out again.
2. Because the Shapiros won’t be able to give more money to Brandeis–in the future.
First of all, the Shapiros have made it clear that they intend (and will be able) to honor all their commitments to Brandeis. If they are affected by the Madoff scandal, it would affect future giving. Second, if Brandeis has lived so beyond its means that it’s relying on uncertain future revenue to pay for current projects, then again, I don’t think trusting the people who put it in that position to make the right decisions to fix the problem is particularly wise. I’m sure even Einstein would agree.
3. Because the trustees say so.
Sorry, but I’m not nearly as sanguine as Storey is about the reliability of people who put Brandeis in this terrible position in the first place. This is especially true since the board obviously consulted almost no one outside of the administration about this: not the faculty, not the students (but hey, who cares about them, right?), and certainly not anyone from the Rose itself. If you hold secret discussions, then publicly reveal your decision without any kind of public comment period, any solicitation of suggestions, any reaching out to other groups on campus, you’re hardly in a position after the fact to ask people to trust you. Show some facts and figures. Show me the programs you’ve determined you would have to cut if you don’t sell the art. Show me how lean and mean the rest of the university’s departments and sections are functioning (how about those administrator salaries, by the way? Are those, you know, in line with a university about to close up shop unless it sells some paintings?). If the administration really did all that research–and I’ve got a Picasso to sell you if you honestly believe it did–then it should be happy to reveal it to everyone, or at least members of the Brandeis community. What’s the danger? People might find out things aren’t quite as dire as they’ve been told?
Hmm.
But beyond all of this, there’s one huge problem with the “but Brandeis needs to make cuts!!!!!!” argument: this isn’t a cut. It’s a sale. The Rose is a self-sustaining institution–it costs Brandeis essentially nothing to keep it on campus and running, as the director of the Rose himself points out. This is an attempt to sell assets to shore up other areas of the university. You can still argue a sale of assets is warranted–I’ll get to that argument in a minute–but you can’t pretend it’s a budget cut when it isn’t.
“And so Brandeis’ only alternative to cutting was to raise tuitions. And if you’re going to plant your flag on raising tuitions into a recession/depression when Brandeis already offers arguably the most overpriced post-secondary education in America, well then hats off to you. But you’re not going to win this round.”
Nope, it’s not. There are lots of other alternatives: for instance, closing down the athletic program entirely. I hope Storey won’t argue that the sacred “educational mission” *rumbling effect* is more harmed by closing a Division III athletic program r0utinely doing battle with the mighty NYU Violets and those titanic teams from Bentley than by closing a highly internationally respected art museum, but if he does, I’ll just say this: he does like basketball more than Van Gogh. But just because he does, or I do, or Russ does, doesn’t mean that it has more educational value in the aggregate. And there are other examples: the science program (about which more later), or renting out more of the unnecessarily huge student center which no one asked for but got built because a rich family wanted one, are two more. But again, if the Brandeis administration did look into all these things and rejected them for good reason, let’s see the numbers. There should be nothing to hide, and no reason to accept the board’s stated reasons on good faith alone.
Also: does getting rid of one of Brandeis’s significant assets make its tuition more or less of the “most overpriced post-secondary education in America”? Just curious.
“2. Resale Value
So as long as we’re all together on Brandeis needing to cut something,”
We’re not, but on you go!
“the only task left is to prove why the Rose Art Museum is the absolute best possible thing to cut. And it is, big time.
The biggest, most obvious argument here is that the Rose Art Museum is one of exactly two locations on the entire Brandeis campus that contains significant stock of resalable items. The other is the Library.
I hope no one out there thinks that an art museum is more essential to a general education university than a library.”
Come on, now, who needs books?
…kidding. 🙂 But the problem with this argument is that it’s based on the at best unverified and at worst false premise that these are the only two options–they’re not. But even if they were, you could make the argument that the Library, which is NOT self-sustaining, drains more from Brandeis than the Rose, which is. And the more Storey claims the Rose isn’t used by the student body (which I think is based only on anecdotal evidence), the more his argument here falls flat, because obviously the fewer students who use something, the lower the maintenance costs (you don’t need to keep it open at all hours, you don’t need as much staff, you don’t need as much security, etc., etc.) Fortunately for Storey in this case, I don’t agree that the Rose isn’t well used. Unfortunately, that fact also harms his earlier argument about how useless it is for Brandeis’s “educational mission” *crash of thunder*.
“So why is resale value important? It means you can cut, pound for pound, far less than you would otherwise have to cut, because you’re recouping the losses as you cut. So really, if you don’t cut the Rose, you’re going to have to find two things of Rose-budget-size to chop instead of one, or maybe even three. Think the bowls-of-cereal vs. Total commercials here. And if you think ‘Deis alumni kicked up a fuss about closing an art museum they never visited when they were enrolled, imagine the fury over clubs or sports or classes – things that they actually used.”
Except, again and with feeling, this isn’t a cut. The Rose does not drain significant money from Brandeis’s budget. It’s self-sustaining. There is no “Rose-budget size,” because there is no Rose on Brandeis’s books (in any significant degree). This is a sale of assets, not a cutting of losses, and that’s an enormously important distinction to make.
And now we come to the real root of Storey’s approval of this move:
“3. WTF is an Art Museum Doing on a College Campus?
Seriously. Someone tell me. I never understood it then and I don’t understand it now.
This whole progression seems to me like someone sticking a pole in their back because they think it’s vaguely decorative and then getting accustomed to it for years because “it’s always been there”. And somebody walks up and says “we have to cut something from you – looks like that pole is pretty out of place” and then the guy screams and cries because he’s so used to the pole, instead saying they should chop off all his fingers.”
Um. Wow. I’m not sure I’m fully prepared for the “art museums aren’t like poles in the back” argument (can’t imagine why…), but here goes: Poles in the back serve no useful purposes, whether someone gets used to having one or not. Art museums, by contrast, store important things such as, well, art. Paintings. Sculptures. The finest examples of human expression. For any university, one of the primary goals must be not simply to impart knowledge and provide methods of learning–teaching people how to learn, so to speak–but also t0 act as a repository and storehouse of that knowledge and its products, information both written and artistic. It is only this which allowed knowledge to survive during the darkest times of our history when most people found things like books to be a useless luxury and preferred rather to burn them than read them. An absurd premise? Not if you believe, as Storey does, that America is on a path to inevitable annihilation, and that society will eventually break down. If that does happen, you better hope some storehouses of literature, music and art survive, as they did in the monasteries during the Dark Ages, or get ready to start over from scratch. I’d rather not go down that road, thanks. And this is particularly important for Brandeis, a university which was founded on the premise of knowledge and artistic achievement overcoming the ignorance and hatreds of people more interested in behavior driven by anecdotal evidence (“The Jews took my job! The Jews are the problem!”) than the common humanity reflected in the art all races, creeds and ethnicities produce. Art was given to Brandeis specifically because it was the university which would not sell out, which would not forget, which would be a storehouse of memory. It violates both that trust and the spirit which motivates its founding when it decides selling art makes more sense than closing an athletic facility or cutting a bloated program, even if such choices are really necessary. And that makes art museums, especially at Brandeis, much more important than a pole in the back.
“I just fundamentally don’t understand why it’s even that great for an art program to have a fine art museum. Yes, you can get a closer look at some fine art during the relatively few hours the museum is open without getting out of your PJ’s. Seems like a luxury item at best to me.”
I think Storey would fundamentally understand it if he liked art, or found it valuable. Creating a piece of art in your classroom and then being told “nice job, now send it home to mom and dad so they can hang it on the refrigerator” is not exactly what most fine arts students would appreciate, I think, unless Storey can convince the Musem of Fine Arts in Boston and the many others within the “cultural mecca” of Boston to take student work. We’ll wait to hear the results of his request.
“4. Location Location Location”
I’ve already responded to this argument in detail above, but I would also ask here how this differs from the situation with the library. Boston has more universities and colleges per capita than any other city in North America. Brandeis students couldn’t go anywhere else to go to a library? Really? I mean, if it’s all about getting the kids out of their PJ’s, I suppose.
“5. Advancement of Art Education
Oh yes, this argument flows to my side of the house as well!
What the opponents of Brandeis closing the Rose don’t want you to realize is that the space for the museum itself is going to be converted into a fine-arts teaching center with studio space and an exhibition gallery!!!”
Dear God, that’s right! Because we know that the space, once vacated by the art, will not present any temptation to people who have been trying to get rid of the Rose for years to be used for any other purpose!
….
Right. First of all, Storey and I again just don’t agree on the trustworthiness of the board here. Are we really to believe that a group of people who did no outreach, held no public discussion, solicited no opinion from the students who would be most affected by this decision, will then turn around and turn this into a fine arts teaching center? I’ve still got that Picasso to sell you if you think so. But second, if this is true, it obliterates the whole “budget cut” argument. If Brandeis does turn this into a fine arts teaching center, it means it has to spend money to convert the building, increase hours to provide staff and security, maintain the building…
Wait, I’m confused…weren’t we trying to save money here?
Because as you’ll note, the minute this happens it becomes Brandeis’s burden. Not the Rose–which is self-sustaining–but Brandeis’s. And what happens if, a few years down the road, Brandeis finds itself in exactly the same position it is now, brought there by the same people who brought it there a few years prior?
Raise your hand if you think Brandeis might be tempted to cut that not-helpful, under-enrolled (using Storey’s logic) fine arts program and use the space for more, er, useful endeavors.
Moreover, once the art is sold, it’s sold. There’s no getting it back, and I promise that no one will EVER give ANYTHING to Brandeis again. Why do so when you know that it will be thrown away as soon as Brandeis needs some extra coin? This won’t ultimately permanently end any giving of art to Brandeis–it will severely curtail the giving of anything not purely financial to the school. And that has ramifications well beyond just the Rose.
Sooo, let’s now see what we have of Storey’s argument:
“Let’s see what’s left of Greg’s rant now…
‘This is indicative of a very, very bad trend: when you get in trouble financially, don’t look to the places where you’re financially strongest for help. Don’t go to the richest vein to mine.’
Why isn’t this a place where you’re the strongest? Cross-apply my analysis re: resale value. I think a big collection of rarely displayed fine art is about as rich a vein as you’re going to find at Brandeis, unless there’s gold under Volen or something.”
Nope, I’ve talked about this above. Art isn’t a gold vein. It might be an investment for people living in Westchester, but for most it is (thankfully) much more significant. And such work wasn’t donated nor intended for the purposes of cashing in like a mutual fund when you need the cash.
“‘No, when you’re in trouble, completely obliterate something which doesn’t bring in a whole lot of money and the defenders of which will therefore squawk the least.’
Again, not obliterating the actual arts program, just the art collected itself. And not obliterating that, but selling it. It would be much worse to have a bonfire of the contents of the Rose Art Museum, I’ll grant.
Also, hard to imagine anyone squawking more than I’ve heard in the time subsequent to this announcement.”
See above for my comments about the altruism of this sale vis a vis the arts program. But I’ll grant that there has been more negative reaction than I would have expected, which I’m both surprised about and glad to see.
“‘It’s the opposite of trimming the fat…this is cutting into the muscle first and seeing what happens.’
No, cutting into the muscle would be chopping a program that’s a known asset of Brandeis’. Which would probably be a science or pre-med program. That’s where Brandeis has made a name for itself and flexes its strength – cutting there would indeed be insane.”
Uh, why? Perhaps because it’s not MIT, however much it pretends to be? Perhaps because it’s a full university, not a technology institution? Perhaps because there are lots of non-science majors on campus, more than there are science majors?
“‘Since it tends to be the business people who dominate Brandeis’s Board of Trustees who make decisions like this, I find this way of looking at things astonishing (though maybe I shouldn’t, given the way Wall Street conducted itself over the past decade)–I thought the whole business mantra is to cut the bloated areas, not remove from places where there is nothing left to, well, remove.’
Except for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art.”
Which shouldn’t be considered a removable asset–see above.
“‘It’s always the arts. Always. Every time, on any level. When in doubt, attack the arts. Low on funds? Cut the music program. Can’t make ends meet? Get rid of the art studio. Balance in the red? The heck with the theater program.’
See, this is exactly what this isn’t. It’s what it looks like at first glance, if one doesn’t realize that the space is staying in the arts program and that this decision was made in lieu of cutting faculty or classes in the arts program. It’s not your typical slashing of arts to protect sports or some similar decision that high schools make in these situations like clockwork. It’s a very smart analysis of a gold mine that Brandeis happens to have collected that is utterly tangential to the business of educating students. The arts program, despite a hit to reputation, actually thrives under this decision. They aren’t cutting theater, they aren’t cutting music, but they would probably have to if they didn’t have a whole bunch of paintings to sell.”
See, this is exactly the problem–Storey trusts the administration which has proved utterly untrustworthy through this whole affair, and I don’t. Show the numbers, show the research, and give us more than “it was a hard decision.” I’ll believe it when and if I see it, which I doubt.
“‘From middle school to research university, the script is the same: cut the arts to save money while pontificating about how difficult a decision it was, how much it pains you to do this, how truly necessary it is for the institution’s survival, etc., etc.’
I believe Jehuda’s sincerity here – I really do. I highly doubt he wants his legacy to be chopping out institutions that have been at Brandeis a long time. From his speech on September 11th to his treatment of the debate team, I’ve always found Jehuda to be remarkably smart and sincere. But maybe that’s just me.”
Did you get this from his “office minute”, or from his biannual letters asking for money?
“‘All this despite the fact, in Brandeis’s case, that how necessary this actually was is very much in question (given the utter surprise this came as to the museum’s board, director (check out his statement if you don’t believe me), faculty and students, it can’t have been in the works for that long, unless the university was planning this secretly for a while and is now lying through its teeth),’
Well, this is the fundamental question – is it necessary to cut? As someone who spends his days analyzing what cuts we need to make at a non-profit foundation with a formerly sizable endowment that’s evaporating ever more rapidly, I think it’s probably necessary for Brandeis to cut. Again, I trust them here. Even if they’re being a bit over-cautious, I think it’s brilliant and necessary to be over-cautious when facing this magnitude of bottomless pit type downturn. As my CEO explained when announcing layoffs the other day, organizations that don’t cut in a planful way ahead of when they need to end up cutting chaotically and painfully later than they should have. I like Brandeis being on this side of the fence.
As far as the speed with which this was done, have you seen how fast decisions are moving these days? Would you have believed a year ago today a third of what’s unfolded since then? It may have been something they’ve contemplated in the past as an emergency money boost, and they needed to pull the trigger when the Madoff thing hit.”
I’ve already talked about this many times: I don’t believe them (and will be happy to change my tune when evidence to the contrary is provided), and hardly thinks this qualifies as “brilliant.” Smacking of desperation, perhaps. And the fact that they would have contemplated this, and not going after a Division III athletic program or a huge science program, is I think instructive of the mindset there.
“‘since the art collection is likely not to fetch now as much as it was estimated to be worth then.’
This is a valid argument, but something of a chimera. If it were an up time, there would be no need to sell the art, so you’d never sell the art then.
Put it another way – let’s say you have twenty chunks of gold and a hundred chunks of coal and you need to raise cash fast. The gold’s value fluctuates from $10,000-$50,000 a chunk and the coal is always worth $5/chunk. If you need cash fast when the gold is worth $15,000 a chunk, do you sell the coal instead because later the gold might be worth more? I don’t think so. Because no matter how much coal you sell, it’s still freaking coal and basically worthless. And your gold will be foreclosed on by the time you get around to selling it, waiting for its value to pop back up.
I also question the extent to which the arts market is falling at a rate commensurate with, say, stocks or housing. Sure, it’s not an optimal time for luxury items, but rarity of items and auctions are mechanics that tend to keep these kinds of items in much more stable price rhythms than things traded on a wider market.”
Other people more expert on fine art than me have argued that this is a bad time to be trying to sell art–I’ll trust them more than non-art oriented business people. Second, the whole point is you don’t sell art. It’s not a stock and wasn’t intended to be such.
“‘And what happens the next time people defer too much to the Bernie Madoffs of the world, not asking questions, not following up, not looking for details about how this money is mysteriously being made, just happy to see the checks come in? What happens when the next set of big donors gets in trouble? Close down the music program and sell the instruments?’
See Greg, here’s where you really undercut your whole argument. The whole point of this is that Brandeis is getting smart NOW and planning for a future that’s less certain and rosy (pun intended) than the past looked. By putting money away now and shoring up the future sustainability of the institution, Brandeis is finding a way to make its own way forward and not have to cut like this in times ahead.
And if they fail and have to face a situation like this in the future, I sure hope they again prioritize selling off a valuable collection of rare stuff over cutting the actual tangible educational experience of the students.”
And I’m sure they will, since they won’t have learned their mistakes the first time around. Indeed, what they and every other school will have learned is that when you get in trouble, you can and should raid your fine arts programs for financial assistance….as schools always, always do.
“‘So here is my suggestion to Brandeis, one of which I think many alumni would approve: have the guts to publicly admit you made a mistake, and using everyone’s input, come up with a way to ensure you won’t make it again.’
It’s not a mistake. Reneging now because people complained about an extremely intelligent (if somewhat painful) decision would be a gigantic mistake.”
It’s fair to say we disagree on this point. 🙂
“‘Then stop this absurd and short-sighted art fire sale and go to your science program–the one which pays its graduate students far more than any other graduate program on campus–and take some money from it. Close down a lab for a change, or cut a grant, or freeze the funding for that new chemistry wing you’ve been talking about.’
Remember that “cutting the muscle” argument from before? Yeah, it’s here in spades. Science and research, though they personally hold even less interest for me than fine art, are what’s keeping Brandeis on the map. That butter stuff, the monkeys, all that stuff gets ‘Deis in the news even more than art museum closures. And that stuff pays for itself in time. Unlike the $5 admission fee at the Rose.
Props for suggesting a place to cut – not many are even going that far – but this ain’t the place for Brandeis’ long-term sustainability.”
Answered above.
“‘Perhaps then you’ll get some people asking the hard questions, and start finding solutions that don’t involve slashing programs which are fundamental to the cultural and artistic life of a university campus.’
Again, people are asking all those questions now, as evidenced by the massive number of people sharing your view. But I’d like more details on why a random collection of art is “fundamental to the cultural and artistic life of a university campus”. How was it fundamental to your experience? How did it affect those around you? What did you think of the Rose on a day-to-day basis? Because I just fundamentally question that there’s any real value there. I didn’t see it in four years on campus and I don’t see it now.”
But the fact that so many people have referred to its importance puts the lie to this view. I’m not going to argue that because I didn’t go to the Rose much, no one else did either. You can’t judge entirely on your own individual tastes. Instead, look at the trends, and tell me what is more likely to go in these situations: fine arts or sciences? Ever?
“‘But whatever you choose to do, please, just once, try looking somewhere other than the arts for things to cut. It’s about time someone else started paying the price for your ill judgment. I’m very fond of Brandeis and remember my time there with pleasure, but sorry…they’ve missed the boat badly on this one, and they deserve to take heat for it.’
Sadly, they are taking crazy heat for a really brave and brilliant decision. I hope they stick to it and don’t get cowed by the media and alumni blitz. Again, I can’t stress enough, the actual arts programs are getting more space from this transaction, while a misplaced museum gets redistributed.
Honestly, really, everybody wins here. Einstein would be proud.”
Thankfully, I think he wouldn’t. I think he would be horrified that again, cultural treasures were getting sold off in the oldest capitalistic trick in the book on the whim of people who didn’t make their research public or their process transparent.
I appreciate Storey’s spirited argument, but I’m not convinced. Brandeis has misstepped badly here, and it’s about time it started admitting that it has.
[…] Storey and I continue our pleasant little war, it appears Brandeis has already ended the debate, while pretending the sides weren’t the […]
got to give you props for the photographic einstein rebuttal!