Will Colleges Abandon the Arts?
Posted by: admin in What planet are art policy makers from?, Artistic failure on campus, The (art failure) complicity of the universitariat, Art is the first thing that goes out the window, Failure of arts education, cutting the arts lifeline (budget), Artistic failure in AmericaAn article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, published in the wake of Brandeis University’s sell-off of the Rose Art Museum, details the effect the bad economy is having on campus support of art programs.
Without Change, Campus Arts Programs Could Risk Their Survival
By Brad Wolverton
Buried in the recent news about big endowment losses and the steps colleges are taking to weather the economic crisis is an emerging pattern: Culture, it would seem, is expendable.
First came Brandeis University’s decision to close its art museum and sell off more than 6,000 works in its collection. Then Miami University, in Ohio, and Texas Tech moved to sell or shutter their radio stations. Now Utah State University may stop its academic press.
Even Bowdoin College, a longtime supporter of the arts, which completed a $20-million renovation of its art museum in 2007, recently said it may dump its big-band jazz ensemble.
Some of that may just be skimming the fat. But faced with increasing costs and shrinking government support, more institutions may do what was once unthinkable: cut entire academic programs.
That prospect hung over a group of college presidents gathered here last week for the annual meeting of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Mary Pat Seurkamp, president of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, summed up the mood this way: “Some people are saying, ‘We know our mission and we love the liberal arts. But you don’t have to have all of them.’”
The recession is intensifying administrators’ scrutiny of underperforming majors, leading to tough questions: Are those majors helping to drive enrollment and revenue? Do they have a vocal or wealthy constituency? If not, maybe they should go.
“It’s a bad stew,” says Harriet Zuckerman, a senior vice president at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, one of the biggest supporters of the arts and humanities on campuses. “These are episodic symptoms of what is likely to become a more serious problem.”
As the economic downturn has deepened, colleges have demonstrated a swiftness for shedding programs whose goals have not been aligned with core missions.
Art experts say that may help explain the fall of the Rose Art Museum, at Brandeis….
Entries (RSS)
February 11th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
If we let what’s profitable to enrollment (and possibly endowments) guide a programs survival, will we end up with massive sports arenas on college campuses that only turn out accountants, MBA’s and other limited majors determined by the amount of alumni donations that are brought in?
February 15th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Oh, I can see this happening very easily. I don’t think it will happen totally. However, I have already seen how the economy plays a huge role in college offerings. I don’t see how these times would be any different. This time around, I fear the magnitude of the amount of cuts that will take place. Nowadays, colleges are run like businesses. If it doesn’t make money and bring up enrollment, programs get the ax. It has happened before. It will again. The only good thing is the pendulum always swings back and forth with time.
April 5th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Well if ‘artists’ keep producing trash of course the faculties will cut back. The difference between sport and art is that athletes have talent working hard to achieve, which ‘artists’ dont.