Brandeis University announced last week that it would close its Rose Art Museum and sell its entire collection in response to the school's deepening financial problems. The liquidation of the collection, which is worth about $350 million, has caused a great deal of controversy and sent shockwaves throughout the art world and the Brandeis community.
University administrators said last week that the institution's decision to sell the collection and convert the museum into mixed study-research space was made due to anticipated imminent budget shortfalls. Brandeis' endowment fell by roughly 25 percent — from $712 million to $549 million — during the second half of 2008, officials said.
The surprising announcement came last Monday, after voting members of the university's board of trustees unanimously supported the move.
"It's about looking at the overall picture in relation directly to the economic crisis that the country and the world is grappling with right now and trying to set priorities for the future based on the most important priorities for this university and colleges and universities around the country," Brandeis spokesperson Dennis Nealon told the Daily.
The Rose Museum, located on Brandeis' campus in Waltham, is home to one of the Northeast's most noted collections of contemporary art. The collection includes works by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
The announcement evoked an outcry from many in the Brandeis community.
Michael Rush, the museum's director, expressed "shock and horror at the university's decision to close the Rose Art Museum" in a statement released Friday.
"As a member of the Brandeis community I feel shame and deep regret over the shortsightedness of this decision," Rush said.
The move surprised even Rush and the rest of the museum staff, who were told of the decision for the first time only hours before the school informed the press and the general Brandeis community, Valerie Wright, the museum's registrar, told the Daily.
"We're all very upset, disappointed," she said. "We love the collection."
Brandeis' student body has responded in force to the decision with online petitions and protests, such as a sit-in at the museum. A Facebook.com group, "Save the Rose Art Museum" has attracted over 6,000 members.
"Students are having a variety of reactions all across the gamut of emotions," Brandeis Student Union President Jason Gray told the Daily. "At the end of the day, I believe there's a belief in the student body that the things that make Brandeis special — the unique students that we have here and the strong relationship between students and their faculty — that stuff will remain the same."
Aliza Sena, a sophomore at Brandeis and a gallery guide at museum, transferred to Brandeis because of the university's fine arts program. She criticized the decision, calling it "unwise" and "rash."
"Brandeis obviously thinks of this amazing collection as cash, not as the priceless art or intellectual property that it is," she told the Daily. Sena said that nearly everybody on campus was upset about the secretive nature of last week's events.
On the national level, the move reflects a trend among colleges and universities looking to cut corners and programs to avoid losses.
"I think nationally universities are going to start seeing the effects of this precedent," Wright, the museum's registrar, said. "Many donors are going to be much more hesitant to give to university museums because they'll be afraid [of] what could happen."
Mindy Nierenberg, senior program manager at Tufts' Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and a Brandeis alumna who studied studio art, was shocked when she heard the Rose Museum was closing.
"The message that it gives about the place of art and culture in a college education … really disturbs me," she told the Daily. "I know so many people, myself included, that will not give a dime to Brandeis after doing this."
But Secretary of the Corporation for Tufts' Board of Trustees Linda Dixon (J '63), although she was not able to speak for Brandeis, emphasized the careful decision-making process of university boards.
"Boards usually move very slowly and very deliberately," she said. "This must have been a very painful decision."
With its announcement, Brandeis caught the Massachusetts attorney general unawares, too. According to Wright, because the university was established as a not-for-profit educational institution, the attorney general's office must be involved with this type of sale.
It is also possible, she added, that some of the museum's works were donated with restrictions dictating how and if they could be removed from the collection and sold.
In response to the petitions and efforts to reverse the decision, Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz suggested in a meeting with students last week that the university might keep its art collection but still close the gallery, The Boston Globe reported. According to the Globe, though, he noted that the chances were slim as such a change would be contingent upon a drastic upturn in the economy.
But Nierenberg said a reverse by the university would not matter.
"Even if it's overturned right now … they have done so much damage to the institution and what it stands for," she said. "I can't imagine being an art student and choosing to go to Brandeis now, because they proved that they view it as the most expendable area on campus."
