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January 26, 2009
Brandeis to Sell Art to Pay the Bills
Rocked by a budget crisis, Brandeis University will close its Rose Art Museum and sell off a 6,000-object collection that includes work by such contemporary masters as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Nam June Paik.
And other things, as draconian, are on the drawing board. Read more in The Boston Globe article.
I hope we do not see too many more of these kinds of decisions. But I am afraid that we will. What we have seen so far is likely just a small part of what is in store as educational institutions try to maintain their core mission or even their very existence in the face of economic disaster.
Update: January 27, 2009
As predicted by Jim Getz in a comment, the Madoff fraud does seem to be part of the problem. Here's a quotation from a revised and expanded Boston Globe story from today.
Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz said yesterday that the university had no other choice. The university's endowment had suffered in the economic meltdown, and Reinharz said he anticipated further fallout from the Bernard Madoff scandal, in which several longtime Brandeis donors have lost money.
Posted by Duane Smith at January 26, 2009 8:28 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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Comments
I wonder if the whole Madoff scandal hurt Brandeis as well. Jewish nonprofits were one of his biggest resource pools. I'm hoping that they at least keep Warhol's portrait of Judge Brandeis.
Posted by: Jim Getz at January 27, 2009 6:17 AM
If corporate mentality has hit the university administrative world like I believe it has, faculty will be learning the meaning of "down-sizing" all too soon. The Humanities are going to take a huge hit across America. . . . :(
Posted by: Alan Lenzi at February 1, 2009 1:53 PM
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