Rose Art Museum

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brandeis University
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<p>No doubt, these are difficult times, and this institution was hit hard by the Madoff mess (not to suggest that other institutions are not also dealing with major donor issues) and one should first trust it's leaders while making these tough decisions, with the goal of best sustaining the long term mission of the school. As it's been said before 'you never want a serious crisis to go to waste--you can do things you could not do before.' One hopes that that this is the case here.</p>

<p>Finances are not my area, and I'd certainly like to see Brandeis emerge stronger and healthier than before. My only caveat is making sure one can see the forest through the trees. Art plays a vital role and has ripple effects which are often difficult to measure. </p>

<p>President Reinharz's daughter is very engaged in this issue as a non-profit advocate for the arts. Besides her wonderful upbringing by her family, she went to school at Bowdoin where the offer of the college is to 'be at home in all lands and all ages; to count Nature a familiar acquaintance, and Art an intimate friend; To gain a standard for the appreciation of others work and the criticism of your own; to carry the keys of the world's library in your pocket, and feel it's resources behind you in whatever tasks you undertake; To be hosts of friends. . .who are to be leaders in all walks of life. . . ' I like that idea of a liberal arts education which, btw, Brandeis prides itself on. To be a top research university they must also provide top notch facilities and opportunities. The Rose is one such example. While it's not the university's 'mission' to operate a museum, it can be suggested it's mission is to provide the best resources to it's students. Ms. Reinharz, as a fundraiser, deals with with the problem of money and art. To her it makes sense b/c when she asks people to look inside themselves and ask what inspires them, people will usually find some kind of art. . .something that has changed their lives in some way. . .it's value to cultures and inividuals is subtle but profound.</p>

<p>It's something worth fighting for. . .</p>

<p>I'm a huge fan of Brandies. I know and respect faculty at this institution. It's a great school.
Can it be stronger w/o the Rose and it's collection??? Let's hope creative solutions can be found.</p>

22

<p>Thanks to all for such a spirited discussion. In my letter to the Board of Trustees I suggested that brainstorming and sharing creative thinking as well as looking to what fellow universities are doing to alleviate their own financial shortfalls might be the way to go. There have been several creative solutions proposed by petition signers and in the space of a few days, close to $10,000 has been raised by pledges from those very "poobahs". Additionally the Rose saw great attendance and foot traffic this past weekend. As someone involved in Brandeis for many years, there is not a time when I visited campus that I did not visit the Rose. It was an integral part of my daughters academic experience and at the same time one of few campus institutions in which every diverse campus group participates as well as the community, prospective students and families and the greater Boston and MA arts communities.</p>

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<p>i am not surprised rose has seen a lot of traffic lately -- and i'd bet most are people who never set foot in the museum who either 1) want to see it before its gone or 2) want to see it so they know what they are protesting keeping. i am not denying that it has been a wonderful resource -- but i do think it has probably been an under utilized resource. </p>

<p>its wonderful that those signing the petition have been willing to put their money where their heart is. i don't know how that $10,000 stands as an initial influx versus what is available from those sources -- but $10,000 is about 1/5 of one student's overall annual cost of attendance at brandeis. brandeis is faced with a problem in the tens of millions of dollars. my understanding (and i honestly can't recall where i read this) is that the plan of liqiudating rose was pursued after attempts to seek big money donations didn't pan out. if donors can in fact make up the difference, that would obviously be wonderful -- but i think a big part of why brandeis is where it now stands financially is because the big money donations aren't flying in.</p>

<p>i am not trying to minimize the importance of smaller donors -- every donor is of value -- its just a practical issue as to whether donations will be able to alleviate the current situation.</p>

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<p>My understanding is that Brandeis is in a different (i.e., worse) situation than many other institutions for a number of reasons: 1) Brandeis historically has depended on using all anticipated income from the endowment to pay current expenses (most more heavily endowed institutions use only some of the income and reinvest the rest back into the endowment); 2) Brandeis has depended much more heavily than most other institutions on current philanthropy--and many of those regular donors have been hard hit by Madoff. These two items have created a large current deficit as well as even larger projected deficits in the future; and 3) Massachusetts law puts severe limits on using either principal or interest on endowment funds which have depreciated in value below their original value at the time of gifting. While this last item applies to Harvard, MIT and all other non-profit institutions in the Commonwealth--Brandeis is particularly impacted because it is a young institution and many of the gifts to the endowment were made relatively recently and, as a result, the current economic crisis has caused many funds to be valued at less than what they were when they were donated. Many programs added in the last few years are funded through endowment monies which may be totally inaccessible as a result of this unusual law. </p>

<p>Hopefully, the Mass legislature will address this last problem but, in the meantime, the University must plan for the possibility that the law won't be changed and that it's endowment, which is still worth over 500 million, may be largely inaccessible to fight the problem. And since there will be few donors with the resources to help in the short term--the only options are to drastically cut the budget or sell some art. By closing the museum, the University frees itself from the deaccessioning rules adhered to by museums and Brandeis gains the flexibility to sell art as necessary to avoid draconian cuts in its core educational mission. </p>

<p>It seems to me that this action is unfortunate but necessary.</p>

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<p>It was actually fairly amusing to read the moral outrage of the New York Times editorial staff, given that the company is itself teetering on the brink and only wishes it had an art collection to sell! </p>

<p>"While it's not the university's 'mission' to operate a museum, it can be suggested it's mission is to provide the best resources to it's students." So every reputable college must have an art museum? Of course not--most don't have anything remotely like the Rose. Brandeis without the Rose Art Museum is still an outstanding school.</p>

<p>"In my letter to the Board of Trustees I suggested that brainstorming and sharing creative thinking as well as looking to what fellow universities are doing to alleviate their own financial shortfalls might be the way to go." How can anyone really believe that the Brandeis Board of Trustees, highly educated and successful individuals, more than half alumni, entrusted with the college's preservation, with its best interests paramount in their minds, and no doubt cognizant of the storm of opprobrium that would come their way, would have voted unanimously to take this action without exhaustive brainstorming, creative thinking, and consideration of alternatives? They aren't fools.</p>

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<p>there is an article in todays Justice ( The</a> Justice) in which COO French details the nature of the financial difficulties facing brandeis including some reasons brandeis is suffering more than some other schools. you may need to register to be able to read the article.</p>

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<p>There's been a lot of back and forth here with how this effects different individuals, covering current students, alumni, and others. If I may, I'd like to add another perspective.</p>

<p>Our daughter was home this last weekend for her mother's birthday. The Rose was the subject of a lot of discussion around the table. Our sophomore daughter is a dual major (one major in the sciences, the other in the arts) but most of her friends are science majors. A group of them were talking about this last week.</p>

<p>Most of her friends have merit scholarships. Only two of them (my daughter and one other) have scholarships that increase as tuition increases. The others have fixed scholarship amounts and are getting hammered with the tuition increases. At least two of her friends are investigating going back to their home states and attending school there if they can't cope with increases in the tuition.</p>

<p>My daughter likes the Rose and has gone there often. However, she thinks that it's supplemental to the academic mission of the school. As exactly as I can remember the quote, she felt that "It's wonderful, but it's not necessary. We need faculty and staff more than an art museum." </p>

<p>Functionally, we're talking triage here. With a $4,000,000 deficit this year and greater numbers running out for years (see the Justice article mentioned above), the school needs to maintain a critical mass of operating funds to maintain the appropriate level of academic services. Waiting until they are below that point will result in an overall failure. Let's remember that Brandeis occupies the site of a prior failed institution. It can and does happen.</p>

<p>Sure, everyone can find something to complain about in the past spending and endowment practices of the school. Everyone will look to their own interests first (as someone involved in facility design and maintenance, I've done nothing but carp about the physical plant for the last 2 years). But at some point, you need to either propose a viable self-sustaining solution to the problem or get out of the way of those who have one.</p>

<p>And let's be honest. The proponents of the Rose have raised $10,000 in a week coupled with a whole lot of complaining. Even if this was sustained for a year, it would raise barely 12% of the forecast deficit for the year. If that's the best response they can summon, then the level of interest is performing the triage on its own.</p>

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<p>Obviously 10,000 is only a minute amount of money that would barely make a dent in the financial mess that Brandeis is in. The point is that if $10,000 can be raised in a few days by reaching out to people with minimal relationship to Brandeis, there should be other sources of funding that perhaps remain untapped and seemingly the members of the University Board of Trustees, all of whom I am sure are fine and educated people may have not been given alternate scenarios or perhaps a true cost/benefit analysis of the long-term impact of this decision. To me this is a short-sighted decision that will perhaps embroil the university in legal struggles for years to come at significant costs for what purpose. The reputation of Brandeis has been so diminished by this decision as well as its implementation. We all know of schools that have gone under-two family members who live in close proxity to Brandeis are graduates of the missing Boston University School of Nursing, all of can relate to colleges and universities in which whole departments and programs have been elilminated as Brandeis considered eliminating the classics department 2-3 years ago, Dartmouth wrestled with the same issues as the Brandeis Swim Team/pool several years ago, Tulane eliminated their enginering program as well as several sports in wake of Katrina- we all realize we live in difficult times, schools have difficult decisions -this is simply the wrong decision for Brandeis to make because it sends a message devaluing the place of art on the Brandeis campus, it disrespects the legacies of those who made donations as well as those whose art has been accessioned by the Rose. It damages the reputation and the credibility of Brandeis as a serious, top tier liberal art university.</p>

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<p>Well, I guess that was kind of my point, but in reverse. If all they can raise in a few days is $10,000 then it's unlikely the people protesting the decision will make much of a dent in the problem. That's a trivial amount of money and it took a week for it to get to that level. By comparison, I was able to generate $2,500 in donations from a group of acquaintances for an MDA "lockup" in about 2 hours earlier this year. Based on what has come in to the art museum in the past week, the financial interest isn't there.</p>

<p>The school needs to come up with a way to address a continuing $10,000,000 annual shortfall. Generating that kind of revenue stream needs a total capital infusion well above $100,000,000 and more likely $250,000,000 in this economy. Let's face it, if there was that sort of other option out there, it would be being squeezed pretty hard at the moment.</p>

<p>The BOT and JR are not cartoon villains here. They're not twisting the tips of their mustaches while tying to art museum to the train tracks. The school has cut 70 positions from the staff this fiscal year. This isn't like the state posturing about how they've "cut to the bone" by dropping a couple of secretaries just before raising taxes. There is a severe structural deficit in the school's finances that needs to be addressed now. </p>

<p>Does losing the art museum diminish Brandeis' stature? It might. Would hacking another $4,000,000 - $10,000,000 out of the staff do far more damage to the school and its reputation than losing the museum? It certainly would.</p>

<p>Again, we all agree losing the Rose is awful. However, I have seen no one propose anything making as big an impact on the stability of the University as would legally liquidating as much of the collection as allowed by the terms of gifts. It's sad, but it's the only solution I've seen. Doing nothing while waiting for something better to come along has killed far more entities than most people believe.</p>

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<p>brandeismom. . .thank you for the link. i did not need to register.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
...It damages the reputation and the credibility of Brandeis as a serious, top tier liberal art university.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[quote]
Does losing the art museum diminish Brandeis' stature? It might. Would hacking another $4,000,000 - $10,000,000 out of the staff do far more damage to the school and its reputation than losing the museum? It certainly would...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well said. The arguement that Brandeis would continue to attract the same quality of students if they slashed staff, professors and financial aid while keeping the Rose collection is insupportable.</p>

<p>
[quote]
this is simply the wrong decision for Brandeis to make because it sends a message devaluing the place of art on the Brandeis campus, it disrespects the legacies of those who made donations as well as those whose art has been accessioned by the Rose.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Or it sends the message of putting a high value on the place of people, be they employees or students. As painful as it is, no organization should put appeasing donors above the health of the instituion and its future.</p>

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<p>Interesting take expressed by the Wall Street Journal raising several different issues. Given the current state of the art market, if a piece of work was donated after being appraised at $1million several years ago and the donor took as a charitable contribution-it same piece is now sold at a lesser value, the IRS can come back to the donor to adjust said charitable contribution write-off. As the museum staff will soon be gone and even if they were to remain, the University would and will need to contract art professionals to prepare the collection for auction or private sale, art handlers to package the art and prepare the catalogue of works and so on and so on. That is beyond the legal challenges that are or will be raised which can and will tie this up for years.
It is a very sad situation indeed. Curiously in all of this I wonder what else may be up for consideration as an asset to be sold-the Leonard Bernstein piano perhaps?</p>

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<p>I really believe that Brandeis's decision is just one of many we will see from a variety of schools over the coming weeks/months. For example:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/middlebury-college/646780-middlebury-facing-financial-difficulties.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/middlebury-college/646780-middlebury-facing-financial-difficulties.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>but more importantly, financial aid: the work portion of the package, beginning with the class of 2013, will increase. and unfortunately: "for the coming year, the College will reduce the amount of financial aid set aside for incoming international students. The reduction in aid for the first-year class will likely result in a decrease in the number of international students in the entering class.</p>

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<p>In today's Boston Globe, Reinharz reports that Brandeis has hired the public relations firm, Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications to deal with this p.r. nightmare and avalanche of bad press and bad will. They specialize in strong crisis management. Both he and Peter French will each give up 10% of their annual salaries, $50,000 and $40,000 respectively.
As far the Rose, Brandeis now intends to sell only "a minute number" of its 7180 works, "if and when it is necessary."</p>

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<p>Here's the Globe article:</p>

<p>Donation</a> drop puts Brandeis in a bind - The Boston Globe</p>