Advocacy

Yesterday about two hundred students and other protesters staged a sit-in at the Rose Art Museum, reports the Boston Globe, which has been following the story closely since Monday. A Facebook group and a website, established this week shortly after the news of the closing, played a major role in rallying students and support.

The Boston Globe also presents some of the larger issues surrounding Brandeis University’s finances. Modern Art Notes has published an general email sent by Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz to those who wrote to him. In it Reinharz gives a few more details about his school’s financial situation. The Justice, the independent student newspaper at Brandeis, and the Wall Street Journal are also looking into this part of the developing story.

The Brandeis Hoot also weighs in on the situation, and Emily Leifer of the Justicewrites an op-ed about Brandeis’s public image.

Art & Education, the academic wing of e-flux and Artforum, republished and emailed CAA’s statement against the closing.

Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums, has issued a Statement on the Closure of the Rose Museum at Brandeis University. Read it at the Boston Globe’s Exhibitionist blog.

Artinfo.com has published the response from the Association of Art Museum Directors.

The Association of College and University Museums and Galleries, a CAA affiliated society, has published its statement, ACUMG Responds to the Closure of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University.

Also as reported in the Boston Globe, the president of Brandeis University, Jehuda Reinharz, said that while he would not reconsider closing the museum, he is entertaining the possibility that his school might not sell the Rose Art Museum’s art collection and reaffirmed that the museum building would become a “fine arts teaching center with studio space and an exhibition gallery.” CAA notes that the Rose Art Museum as it stands now is already this.

Other updates and articles can be found at Bloomberg.com, the New York Times, and Modern Art Notes, including a Q&A with Michael Rush, director of the Rose Art Museum. Time also interviewed Rush on Tuesday, and Lee Rosenbaum at CultureGrrl has additional information.

Donn Zaretsky at Art Law Blog is also writing about the Rose situation, with deaccessioning in mind.

The College Art Association (CAA) was shocked and dismayed to learn of the decision by Brandeis University to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its entire art collection for operating revenue.

CAA supports the Codes of Ethics of the American Association of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors, which clearly state that works of art in museum collections are held as a public trust and that any proceeds of sales must only support the acquisition of new works. However, perceiving an entire art collection as a disposable financial asset and then dismantling that collection wholesale to cover other university expenses is deeply troubling for all college and university collections.

The closing of the museum at Brandeis will be devastating to the academic community, not only affecting our colleagues at the museum and students and faculty in the Department of Fine Arts, which offers programs in both studio art and art history, but also depriving the entire arts-loving public in New England and around the world. The teaching of art and art history in higher education is untenable without the direct study of physical works of art, and it appears the Brandeis Board of Trustees has disregarded the kind of scholarship and creativity that have been the hallmark of CAA members for nearly one hundred years.

According to news reports, neither Brandeis University nor the Rose Art Museum is on the brink of economic collapse, nor are they unable to maintain the collections. Given that no clear explanation has been offered on the school’s financial exigencies, the closure of the Rose Art Museum and the sale of its collection appear to be in violation of professional museum standards and of academic transparency and due process; the decision also demonstrates a lack of academic responsibility and fiduciary foresight. We appeal to the Trustees of Brandeis to revisit and reverse their decision.

Paul B. Jaskot
President, College Art Association
Professor of Art History
Department of the History of Art and Architecture
DePaul University

Linda Downs
Executive Director, College Art Association

Download a PDF of this letter from the CAA website.

On January 14, 2009, CAA President Paul Jaskot and CAA Executive Director Linda Downs sent a letter to Bill Ivey of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, discussing the needs of artists and scholars in the coming years.

CAA has signed onto letters with many other nonprofit organizations urging full funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute for Library and Museum Services (IMLS). However, CAA felt that it was necessary to have a separate voice on issues of importance to its members.

CAA will have a presence in Washington, DC, in March 2009 at the Humanities Advocacy Day and Arts Advocacy Day. Jaskot and Downs will be making separate appointments to visit the new chairs of the NEA, NEH and IMLS once they have been appointed.

CAA Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama

January 14, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama
President-elect Transition Team

Dear President-elect Barack Obama:

College Art Association, representing over 16,000 artists, art historians, scholars, curators, collectors, art publishers, universities, and libraries, looks forward to working with you and your administration to ensure the revitalization of support for professional artists and art historians in America.

College Art Association:

• Promotes excellence in scholarship and teaching in the history and criticism of the visual arts and in creativity and technical skill in the teaching and practices of art;
• Facilitates the exchange of ideas and information among all people interested in art and the history of art;
• Advocates comprehensive and inclusive education in the visual arts;
• Speaks for its membership on issues affecting the visual arts and humanities;
• Publishes scholarly journals, art criticism, and artists’ writings;
• Fosters career development and professional advancement;
• Identifies and develops sources of funding for the practice of art and for scholarship in the arts and humanities;
• Supports and honors the accomplishments of artists, art historians, and critics; and
• Articulates and affirms the highest ethical standards in the conduct of the profession.

As the leading association in the world that represents professional visual-arts practitioners, CAA endorses your campaign platform’s support of the arts. We strongly agree that in order to remain competitive in the global economy America must reinvigorate the creativity and innovation that has made this country great.

CAA would like your Administration to include not only community arts organizations in its arts program of support but, also, to give greater focus to professional artists and art historians in academia, art museums, and independent professional visual-arts practitioners. Visual art must be reinstated as a respected and esteemed profession in America.

CAA advocates that professionally educated artists and art historians teach K–16 students. To meet this end we must offer all students, K–16, equal access to visual-arts education taught by professionally trained instructors in studio art and art history.

We also believe that public/private partnerships should expand not only between schools and communities but also among the academic community within colleges, universities, and art schools.

We endorse the creation of an art corps comprised of professionally educated artists and art historians who will work with students in urban schools on community-based projects that raise the awareness of the importance of creativity and professional artists. CAA would also like to see an emphasis on visual arts in government-sponsored projects such as AmeriCorps, in both urban and rural areas that address job preparation as well as environmental issues. Professional artists are eager to work on environmental programs that involve community-organized design projects.

CAA would like to emphasize that, in order to publicly champion the importance of arts education, America needs to support the proper preparation and training of artists and art historians who teach at the primary, secondary, and college/university levels. Visual arts need to become part of the core curriculum in each grade and at every stage of education.

CAA fully supports increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Library and Museum Services. Specifically, professional artists need to be supported on an individual basis, and we strongly recommend reinstatement of the Individual Artist Fellowship program to enable our best artists to pursue and develop their work. We have found that grants to other areas of the arts and humanities far exceed federal and private foundation grants to professional visual artists. It would be an outstanding legacy of this administration to again make federal support of the arts a priority in defending the promotion of our nation’s cultural heritage.

CAA supports legislation that will allow scholars to publish so-called orphan works, which are copyrighted works—such as books, pictures, music, recordings, or films—whose copyright owners cannot be identified or located. This legislation has been introduced in prior Congresses, and we hope it will be passed during the new Congress. Due to the risks of publishing copyrighted material without obtaining permission, many art historians and scholars are unable to publish orphan works, thereby causing great detriment to scholarly publishing, research and public access to these works. At the same time, orphan works legislation must be carefully crafted in respect to the legitimate interests and concerns of visual artists, including photographers.

CAA supports your platform for cultural diplomacy by enhancing international opportunities offered through agencies, such as the United States Information Agency, for exhibitions, teaching, research, and lecture tours by professional visual artists and art historians. CAA’s international membership testifies to the promotion of cultural understanding that occurs through international cultural exchange. Every year CAA seeks funding to support travel of international artists and art historians to its Annual Conference. Current Homeland Security laws and a lack of government funding make it difficult for foreign artists and scholars to present their work and research at conferences of their peers. CAA endorses streamlining the visa process and providing government support for international exchanges of graduate students and professional artists and art historians.

CAA supports providing health care to professional artists and art historians. This is a major concern for professional artists and art historians who are not associated with a college, university, or art museum and attempt to work independently to support themselves. As you are aware, each state has its own laws on insurance. Professional organizations such as CAA would like to offer national healthcare coverage for artists but are prohibited from offering insurance to its members due to differences in state laws. CAA endorses the creation of a National Health Insurance Exchange as one step in the direction of coverage for artists. In the meantime, we encourage you to press for government reforms of insurance laws so that professional organizations such as CAA will be in a position to assist its members to obtain universal coverage.

CAA endorses tax fairness for artists. We have worked hard—and will continue to work hard—to support the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, which was introduced in the prior Congress by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow artists to deduct the fair market value of their work, rather than just the costs of the materials, when they make charitable contributions of that work. Not only has the current tax law been harmful to artists, the creative legacy of a whole generation of professional visual artists has not been donated to our great public institutions because of disincentives to donate created by the current tax laws.

CAA realizes that change takes the support and involvement of every member of society. CAA is committed to promoting the support of professional visual artists and art historians in all areas of American society. We stand ready to help provide information on visual arts professionals, suggestions for specific programs, or any other aid that you may find helpful in promoting a better world for artists and art historians in America.

With your leadership and the groundswell of support for activism, we can reestablish the professional visual-arts practitioner as a contributor to positive cultural change in America.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Jaskot, President, CAA, and Professor of Art and Art History, DePaul University; and Linda Downs, Executive Director, CAA

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems, has unveiled the Humanities Indicators, a prototype set of statistical data about the humanities in the United States that is organized in collaboration with a consortium of national humanities organizations.

“Until now the nation has lacked a broad-based, quantitative analysis of the status of the humanities in the United States,” said Leslie Berlowitz, chief executive officer of the American Academy and project codirector. “We need more reliable empirical data about what is being taught in the humanities, how they are funded, the size of the workforce, and public attitudes toward the field. The Humanities Indicators are an important step in closing that fundamental knowledge gap. They will help researchers and policymakers, universities, foundations, museums, libraries, humanities councils, and others answer basic questions about the humanities, track trends, diagnose problems, and formulate appropriate interventions.”

CAA worked closely on the Humanities Indicators project since its inception and eagerly looks forward to the essays that will interpret the first set of statistical information. CAA provided information on hundreds of art-history departments at colleges, universities, and art schools that were then contacted to participate in filling out questionnaires to add to the statistics. For the first time, statistical information on academic art history and art museums will be represented in separate categories instead of being summarized (as in the US Department of Education and US Department of Labor statistics) in the general arts category.

Visual art in higher education and elsewhere, however, was not considered. Linda Downs, CAA executive director, notes that “the visual arts are only represented by art history in the indicators because the American Academy chose to follow the current definition of the humanities used by the National Endowment of the Humanities. I have argued for the inclusion of statistical information on artists, and the academy has promised that they will include visual artists in next year’s collection of statistics. Visual-arts statistics are not kept separate from performing-arts statistics by the Education or Labor Departments. So, any step in this direction will be useful for CAA.”

The Humanities Indicators reveal that:

• The picture of adult literacy in the US is one of polarization. Among Western industrialized nations, we rank near the top in the percentage of highly literate adults (21 percent) but also near the top in the proportion who are functionally illiterate (also 21 percent)
• Public debate about teacher qualifications has focused mainly on math and science, but data reveal that the humanities fields suffer an even more glaring dearth of well-prepared teachers. In 2000, the percentage of middle (29 percent) and high school (37.5 percent) students taught by a highly qualified history teacher was lower than for any other major subject area. The definition of “highly qualified” is a teacher who has certification and a postsecondary degree in the subject they teach
• Humanities faculty are the most poorly paid. They also have a higher proportion of part-time, nontenured positions compared to their counterparts in the sciences and engineering. But almost half of humanities faculty indicate that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs overall
• Since the early 1970s, the number of Americans who support the banning of books from the public library because they espouse atheism, extreme militarism, communism, or homosexuality decreased by at least 11 percentage points, although from 26 percent to 34 percent of the public would support banning some type of book. In the case of books advocating homosexuality, the decline was a particularly significant 20 percentage points
• Recent federal legislation identifies certain languages as “critical need languages” (Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, and Uzbek, among others), but the data show these languages are rarely studied in colleges and universities. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of students studying Chinese
• Charitable giving to arts and cultural organizations grew between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s before leveling off. But little public- or private-sector funding for the humanities goes to academic research. This trend undermines both academia and the public since public institutions rely on humanities scholars to provide much of the knowledge on which these activities are based
• The number of American adults who read at least one book in the previous twelve months decreased from 61 percent to 57 percent in the decade between the early 1990s and the early 2000s. The greatest rate of decline (approximately 15 percent) occurred among 18-to-24-year-olds

The project collected and analyzed data from existing sources to compile a prototype set of seventy-four indicators and more than two hundred tables and charts, accompanied by interpretive essays covering five broad subject areas. The indicators will be updated as new information becomes available, including data from a survey administered last year to approximately 1,500 college and university humanities departments. The academy views the indicators as a prototype for a much-needed national system of humanities data collection.

Among the organizations collaborating with the academy on the effort are the the College Art Association, American Council of Learned Societies, the American Academy of Religion, the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, the Association of American Universities, the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the Linguistic Society of America, the Modern Language Association, and the National Humanities Alliance.

Update: Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed has the first review of the Humanities Indicators, with comments from readers.

CAA has joined a list of twenty-six national organizations, six regional museum associations, and thirty-nine state associations in sending a letter to President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. The letter, drafted by the American Association of Museums and sent on December 22, 2008, states the case for the importance of US museums of all kinds and recommends $50 million in funding for the Office of Museum Services at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in fiscal year 2010—an increase of $19 million over this year’s budget.