Closing Thoughts on a Debate Jehuda Punted
In debate, we have speeches at the close of the round called “rebuttals”. This terminology, despite its use in both high school and college, is something of a misnomer. To rebut something is to disagree, to counter-argue. The rebuttal speeches are actually the middle speeches, where everything being said is a refutation of an earlier argument and few to no new arguments are made. I think the phraseology evolved from the fact that new arguments are disallowed in “rebuttals”, but they should really be called “summations” or “closing arguments”.
Anyway, regardless of what you call it, this is it for me. Even before Jehuda decided to punt to the mob as I feared he would, I only had one big push left in me. Because line-by-line analysis in the 4th round of refutation gets really needly and it’s even worse in text than in audio.
So, to sum up, a few arguments that this debate really boiled down to:
1. Likes/Dislikes
In his last post, Greg makes what he claims to be a revelatory argument against me in saying that I don’t like art, so all my logic about its value (or lack) to a university community falls. Really, this argument is not so revelatory, given that I said things in my first post like “…[s]cience and research, though they personally hold even less interest for me than fine art…” which give a pretty good clue where art falls on my totem pole.
However, my personal feelings about art have nothing to do with my arguments about the Rose. Let’s pretend that the Rose Art Museum was actually a History Museum, specializing in artifacts from Egypt, India, and Russia. That’s something I would like more than you can possibly imagine. However, it would do nothing to change my support for the decision to close the museum and sell off the artifacts. I would personally be slightly sadder about it, since I would definitely have set foot in such a History Museum, but the fundamental truths of my arguments would remain. A museum would still be, objectively, the most useless building on a university campus. And rare artifacts/art would still be, bar none, the best moneymaker to sustain the school’s future.
I would think that it would be obvious that my personal taste and feelings weren’t entering into this already by my own sentence quoted above. I’m defending the freaking science program. Do you have any idea how I personally feel about science? If I were personally calling the shots, no university would have a science program. Seriously. But this argument isn’t about “If Storey Clayton ruled the world…”, it’s about what is logically sustainable for Brandeis, given Brandeis’ proper priorities.
What I am asking art, or more specifically an art museum (I cannot possibly stress this distinction enough) to do is justify its existence using some argument other than “OMG, art is indefinably, unquantifiably, objectively precious in a way that doesn’t even engage with logic”. Much of Greg’s argumentation and far more of the rhetoric employed by other opponents and the national news arguments on this topic relies on this magic flag that art is just so art that there’s nothing else that need be said about it. And this means art somehow trumps every other subject and aspect and thing just by being art.
That is nonsense. Art, like anything else that shows up in a museum or education, must be able to be weighed objectively against other things. Otherwise, there’s no point in having a debate. It’ll be like high school policy debate’s race to the “nuclear war” argument. Whoever says “art” first and ties it to their mast wins.
But again, what I’ve been advocating all along is actually an expansion of art education, so the real issue is an art museum. We have to weigh being able to visit an art museum on campus against the experience of all the other things Greg suggests we cut. And this is where the pro-Rose arguments just fall flat. Access to a museum at close range is a rare, luxury-type experience. In part because no one visits a museum more than once a month at absolute most. No one. Why would you? What would be the point? And I’m sorry, something that gets used ten times a year is a luxury item.
2. Trust/Distrust
Even if you buy the argument that my dislike of art is clouding my judgment, surely it’s evident that Greg’s distrust of the administration is clouding his to a greater extent. Greg fundamentally questions whether Brandeis needs to make cuts because he flat-out thinks the administration is lying to him. This is weird.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think all university administrations are 100% transparent. And as Jehuda admitted, perhaps a little more engagement of the community could have been warranted. Although I think they correctly anticipated the potential pitfall – had they asked to cut or sell or change anything, the community would have resounded with a “NO”, leaving them hog-tied. I’m running into this same thing at my organization – no one wants to believe the economy is so bad that things have to change. All over America, we are facing this question and everyone is putting up resistance. Sometimes brave administrators have to make the hard, unpleasant calls because only they can see objectively enough how bad the finances can get. I think there are probably pretty good professionalism reasons (e.g. not releasing every person’s salary) for Brandeis not throwing open the books for public examination and plopping a suggestion box on Rabb Steps to solve their fiscal crisis.
But let’s throw this argument back – let’s examine what Greg must believe about the administration to feel as he does. It is evident from the way Greg thinks this decision was made that Brandeis’ administration actively wants to destroy the reputation of the school for no reason. He thinks that they walked into this firestorm of controversy and mayhem with no tangible benefit, since he just doesn’t trust that cuts were necessary.
Unless it gets revealed that Jehuda and Friends are actually embezzling from the school, this makes no sense. Everyone could have anticipated that there would be a lot of backlash for this decision (perhaps not quite the extent that was manifest, though, but a lot), yet the administration forged ahead. I have to believe that it was because it was necessary to get a lot of money to make Brandeis sustainable. No other justification makes sense. No other reason would be worth getting the flack and criticism and student riling that has happened. Only fiscal responsibility justifies taking this kind of hit.
Greg goes on to say that he doesn’t want the people who mismanaged the money to get us out of the financial straits. There is something to this point, but there are massive practical roadblocks. As much as Brandeis has lost cred on the street for the Rose closure, imagine if they’d instead fired the whole Board and the President. Nothing instills confidence like 100% leadership turnover.
Additionally, it’s just practically hard to manifest 100% leadership turnover. Maybe the Board can fire the President. Maybe the President can challenge some members on the Board. At most, you’ll get about 3-5 people changing hands in even the most amazing shakeup ever.
But moreover, is the mismanagement of funds here really a firable offense? EVERYONE IN AMERICA could be fired on these grounds. All you read about everywhere is that no one anticipated what happened, no one had any idea this was coming, no one was prepared, etc. etc. So even if you kick “the bums” out, you’ll probably fill the vacancies with former Fannie Mae and Wachovia execs. Woo, sign me up.
Finally, my most compelling point on this is that the decision to close the Rose instills the confidence in the administration for me, because it’s a smart fiscal decision. The very reason I have faith in the administration is because this is a decision to cut something least essential to the educational experience at Brandeis, while making up the largest financial gap. Which is probably why Greg doesn’t trust the admin for the same reason. Though he has yet to justify, other than waving the “art is precious” flag, what’s so amazing about having an art museum on a university campus in the first place.
But I ask you, Greg, really, do you think that Jehuda and Friends decided to close the Rose for fun? Do you think they made this cut willy-nilly because they just enjoy shutting stuff down? You have to at least trust that they sincerely believe the university is in dire financial straits. Because otherwise you’re arguing that Brandeis’ administration is either malignant or psychotic. And I just don’t see any evidence of that.
3. Cut vs. Asset Sale
Greg makes a lot of great points in his last post about the Rose being sustainable and this not technically being a cut, but the sale of assets. I’m going to grant these arguments.
My main premise still stands, however, that this is the largest chunk of money that Brandeis could possibly save. Selling non-essential assets is way preferable to cutting essential programming. We’ll weigh what’s essential vs. what’s not in a minute, but I don’t think Greg’s really engaged the fact that the Rose is almost literally a gold mine. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars in them thar hills. You can’t even fathom how deep cuts of the same size would have to be to add up to this. Keep those bowls of Total in mind when making your final decision here.
4. Educational Experience and Weighing What Gets Cut
So this is probably the real fundamental decisive question. Most people, I hope, understand that Brandeis’ admin is not tripping on LSD with a machete in the jungle and just looking for places to rabidly cut for no compelling reason. Most people understand the gravity of the situation the school is facing to secure long-term sustainability. So then we have to weigh closing the Rose dollar-for-dollar against Greg’s suggested alternative cuts.
Greg Cut #1: Science Programs/Research
I think I gave this argument a pretty good beat-down already. Greg’s only response in his last post was as follows:
“Uh, why? Perhaps because it’s not MIT, however much it pretends to be? Perhaps because it’s a full university, not a technology institution? Perhaps because there are lots of non-science majors on campus, more than there are science majors?”
There are a lot of straw men here. Apparently, every school with strength in science should give up and cut their program if they aren’t name MIT (guess this means you too, Cal Tech!). And if you aren’t just a tech school, you should axe the science program. Come on. When I matriculated to Brandeis, the headline was that they were the #9 rising research institution in the country, made all the more impressive for not being a tech school. This didn’t personally appeal to me a lick, but I can understand how it’s a more significant element to the school than having priceless art in the basement of a rarely visited museum.
Look, if you’re going to be strategic, you have to try to plant your flag on some strengths. And heads-up, science is a greater strength for Brandeis than fine art. It just is. If this were the Berklee School of Music, the priorities would be reversed. But keep in mind that Brandeis here is not cutting arts altogether, but actually expanding the space available for student work on art. It’s just saying that students have to go a little further away to look at fine art in the flesh.
(Incidentally, Greg tries to claim that the same argument applies to being able to use another school’s library. Soooo many arguments to this: 1. Most other schools won’t let you check out books at their library and some won’t even let you set foot in it, whereas every art museum is open. 2. Most students use the library weekly and many use it daily, whereas I don’t think anyone set foot in Rose (other than student employees) more than once/month. 3. A library is used by every single student, whereas an art museum is used by maybe 50% of the art students only, other than for grandiose events. 4. Proximity is important for checking out and returning books, where there’s high turnover, as vs. looking at fine art, where you presumably don’t need to go check the brushstrokes every fifth day. 5. EVEN IF the library were on a par with the art museum [no one, not even Greg, actually believes this], there’s more total value in the fine art than in all the books of the library, so we should still cut the art museum.)
Greg Cut #2: Hiring Freezes
Uh, wow. If you think that selling some art smacks of desperation, just wait till you see the impact of a hiring freeze. Good luck holding on to your educational quality for more than a couple years. This is the kind of move people make right before they go under. I really don’t think Brandeis should stop being competitive in the professor market and go under while clinging to its art.
Moreover, this is actually the worst time ever to have a hiring freeze, because it’s a buyer’s market for employees. You can nab great professors at reduced cost from other schools who are in bad shape now because they’re desperate for work. This is the best time to hire, and freezing up is missing out on an opportunity. I’d sell a painting even if I didn’t need to just to make sure I could hire a star from somewhere else, who would stick around when the crisis passes because they appreciated that Brandeis hired them when they were desperate.
Greg Cut #3: Reducing Travel Reimbursements
Okay, if we get a hundred million out of this, then keep the Rose open.
I bet we get about $10k out of this, tops. Feel free to do it, but don’t think it’s comparable to anything on the scale of magnitude we’re discussing here.
Greg Cut #4: Increasing the Cost of Meal Plans
Uh, really? I couldn’t come up with a worse thing to do in this economy if I thought about it all day. In an economic downturn, let’s increase the cost of food for broke students. Yeah. That’s an awesome idea. That won’t impact student experience at all.
Also, unless you’re going to increase the cost of the plan by $33,000 per student, you still won’t get $100,000,000 out of this move. And if you’re going to charge over $30k for a meal plan, I think you might as well just shut down the school.
Greg Cut #5: Administrator Salaries
“[H]ow about those administrator salaries, by the way? Are those, you know, in line with a university about to close up shop unless it sells some paintings?”
Look, I’m all for trimming admin salaries. If we could save a few hundred million by cutting these, then I will gladly grant this whole debate to Greg.
Odds are, we save a few thousand here. Maybe even a hundred-thousand if we go completely nuts. But then the odds of Brandeis being able to be competitive in the marketplace for quality leadership goes away and we still need to save a hundred million. Hm.
I’m willing to spend a hundred-thousand or so to keep Brandeis in the market for quality leaders.
Greg Cut #6: All Sports at Brandeis
“There are lots of other alternatives: for instance, closing down the athletic program entirely. I hope Storey won’t argue that the sacred “educational mission” *rumbling effect* is more harmed by closing a Division III athletic program r0utinely doing battle with the mighty NYU Violets and those titanic teams from Bentley than by closing a highly internationally respected art museum, but if he does, I’ll just say this: he does like basketball more than Van Gogh. But just because he does, or I do, or Russ does, doesn’t mean that it has more educational value in the aggregate.”
Actually, the athletic department is about 500 times more essential to the educational mission of Brandeis than an art museum. And it has nothing to do with me liking to play basketball more than looking at Van Gogh (are there really Van Goghs in the Rose Art Museum?!). The only thing with sports I ever did at Brandeis involved playing them for my PE requirement and playing basketball with my friends. To be totally fair, none of these require having an organized sports program… you could throw up a rinky-dink chain-hoop in the back of a building and call it a day.
Here’s a fun fact: I never once in my four years attended an intercollegiate Brandeis sporting event. So my contact with Brandeis sports and the Rose Art Museum is actually tied at zero, making me personally a pretty objective arbiter of relative merit here.
So why do athletics trump an art museum? Student experience. Do you know how many aggregate hours students spend practicing or playing organized sports at Brandeis? Ask any one of them how essential that is to their collegiate experience at Brandeis. Compare the attendance figures for a Brandeis basketball game to a new exhibition opening at the Rose. I’ll grant that it may not be an ideal world when sports hold so much more thrall for people’s time than fine art, but it’s the fact on the ground. Way more people would stop applying to Brandeis if there were no sports than if there were no art museum on campus.
The whole point of being in Division III is that your budget priorities are clear and that you run your athletics department on the cheap. But the other point of having a Division III rather than no sports at all is the recognition that athletics are a big part of having a well-rounded student experience. I don’t want to launch into a public service announcement for the value of athletics for a young adult, but a lot of the platitudes there are really true – learning about teamwork, building physical fitness, the thrill of competition. And I’m a big believer in the thrill of competition, especially when Brandeis is nationally competitive in things like fencing, that cost very little to run but bring in big-time name recognition.
If Brandeis didn’t have hundreds of millions worth of art it could sell and were facing the same financial circumstances, I might advocate closing down athletics. Luckily, looking at a few pieces of art from the comfort of campus is just way less important to the average student’s experience.
Without an athletic department, many students whose primary focus is sports will lose all interest in Brandeis. Without an art museum, many students whose primary focus is art will still be interested in Brandeis because they have a quality art education program (now with more space!). Do you actually think student art was being displayed in the Rose? The Rose would be converted, in part, to a gallery that would actually display student art, whereas the status quo is “send it home to mommy for the fridge”.
Greg Cut #7: Student Center Rental
“[R]enting out more of the unnecessarily huge student center which no one asked for but got built because a rich family wanted one…”
Greg has actually found something that saves less money than cutting administrator salaries. Who exactly is going to rent this space? Taco Bell?
Also, while the Shapiros definitely drove the student center building, the need for the space was evident. Do you remember how cramped the clubs were on campus? Remember the debate office we had – oh wait, there wasn’t space for one because other clubs already had dibs.
Having too much space for student activity is a nice asset, and one that gets used way more than an art museum. If you could hypothetically unbuild the new center and save the money it cost, that might be an interesting comparison, but you can’t. And way more people use the student center (and even what’s left of Usdan) than the art museum.
5. Conclusion
I haven’t seen the books, but I’m betting that all of Greg’s suggested cuts combined still wouldn’t add up to the total value of the art in the Rose, if sold. And each of Greg’s cuts, let alone all of them together, would do more damage to the student experience than chopping the Rose.
Yes, people would refrain from donating fine art in the future. So what? How does having fine art to look at once a year or even once a month compare to daily experiences of students? Who decided that universities would start keeping art in the first place? Isn’t this weird and disconnected from the point of a school?
I would say this about any museum. Museums are great and I personally love visiting them. But they are places you visit generally once every year or two, and even fanatics wouldn’t visit more than 5-10 times annually. There is no other major undertaking of the school, from sports to classes to clubs and activities, whose major participants use so little. And that’s the bottom line. Even amongst its advocates and biggest fans, it’s the least used thing on campus. And it happens to be worth more monetarily than anything else on campus. What a perfect combination to make it the first thing to go.
[…] we’re doing the debate metaphor, I thought I’d finish with my “rebuttal” speech. But since Jehuda ended up […]
if this were a real LOR you would TOTALLY be over time…
To be fair, it’s more like the full opp-block, just done more like an LOR. This is holding the place in the round of both the MOC & LOR, so it can run a little long.
God, did you guys have to write so much! That’s ridiculous! You would SO have been overtime! Both of you!