April_17_questions


 * //Commentary from Ellen Schattschneider//**

Like many of us, I have been trying to understand the Provost's April 17 message on the Future of the Rose Art Museum.

Time.com reported Friday night (April 17):

http://lookingaround.blogs.time.com/2009/04/17/more-on-the-rose/

citing Jonathan Lee, chairman of the Rose Art Museums' Board of Overseers, that the Provost's announcement and the change of policy were issued at the insistence of the Massachusetts State Attorney General. The implication seems to be the the SAG has demanded: (a) that the Museum stay open as a public museum and that (b) the administration make an unambiguous public statement to that effect. Hence, it would appear, the the striking sentence at the conclusion of the Provost's letter, "This announcement affirms the University’s commitment that the Rose Art Museum will remain a museum open to the public with professionally trained staff." (This statement so far as I can tell marks a striking departure from previously stated policy.)

It would now appear that the Museum's Director Michael Rush has been terminated, the Museum's Administrator has been terminated, and that the position of Director of Education will remain unfilled. Some of us have been puzzled by the Provost's statement that "Karina Sheerin will continue as Director for Financial Control, Budgeting, and Analysis at the Rose". My understanding is that Ms. Sheerin is a Heller School employee: I believe she has done about four hours per week of accounting for the museum and has had no direct relationship with art or museum administration matters.

This means that only two staff members will be working at the Rose Art Museum.

Under these extraordinary circumstances, it seems to me that the faculty is entitled to clarification from the President and Provost on the following questions:

1. Is the Time.com report substantially correct? If so, does this mean that the State Attorney General threatened to sue the University unless the Rose Art Museum remains open as a public museum? If so, what kinds of early consultations with the SAG led the President to embark us on this long and difficult three month odyssey?

2. If the Time.com report is correct, what is to gained by keeping the Attorney General's intervention in this situation from the university community? Why did the Provost's message to the community not explain this important background information to us, so that we could understand why the University's policy has shifted so dramatically? (nb. on February 5 in the Boston Globe,

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/02/_globe_photomat.html

after his well publicized apology, the President still insisted, "we don't want to be in the public museum business.")

3. If the Attorney General has in fact, insisted that the Museum stay open as a public museum, is a staff of two (a preparator and a conservator) in fact sufficient to allow the Museum to stay "open" as the term "open" is normally understood?

4. The Provost's announcement means that the museum will have no academically-substantive Director, no Curator, no Director of Education, and no Administrator. Given the President's repeated insistence that his goal has been to better integrate the Rose Art Museum into the University's academic mission, how can that goal be reached absent an Education Director? How can a staff of two (neither of whom is a trained curators or education specialist) responsibly supervise the academic internships referred to in the Provost's message? (I say this with the greatest respect for Roy Dawes and Valerie Wright, who are splendid at what they do.)

5. Is there in fact still a revenue stream for the Museum, given that membership dues are gone, donations to the Museum have stopped, and the status of various endowment funds related to the Museum are now murky? Once again, does this put us out of compliance with the SAG's requirements?

6. By in effect firing Michael Rush (as well as the Museum's administrator) before the final report of the Committee on the Future of the Rose Art Museum is submitted, have the President and Provost preempted and undercut the work of the Committee? Would it not have been more prudent and more in keeping with our agreed-upon process to keep these two highly respected staff members in place until the Committee had a chance to deliberate fully and to make its final report?

I am sure we will be discussing these and related questions at the town hall meeting about the Museum on Tuesday. In advance, it would be very helpful if clarifications on these matters could be posted to the faculty so that we may have an informed conversation with the Committee about the most productive way forward.

respectfully,

Ellen

Ellen Schattschneider (Anthropology)