June 9, 2008
Cutting to the Soul
Witnessing and charting decades of steady budget slashing sometimes leaves me feeling that the Flagship University metaphor—a noble vessel leading a powerful educational armada—serves the public poorly, as does the slogan "New Culture for Learning." But all of that is about to change, as the University unveils a new Branding Initiative.
I hope that as the University repaints its brand, it will also rethink its metaphor. The proper metaphor, I submit, should be far more organic, akin to James Lovelock's Gaian Earth, a more complex living organism. More simply, the public needs to think of the University using a metaphor of flesh and blood, to see the Kingston campus as a complex, thinking, feeling human being because what happens on Kingston Hill is consumately about us, common people in an ordinary democracy. The URI community—the simple faculty, staff, and students who care about their very human institution—have mourned the steady atrophy (the now emaciated tissue and brittle bones) as The Kingston Hill campus has become a sad veil of its former self. But decades of budgetary starvation have been nothing like the flesh-eating consumption tearing at URI in 2008. The budget hackers have finally reached too far, and the soul of the University has been exposed, dragged out for brutal carnal assault in the broad light of day. The Governor and legislature have cut too deeply at the frailest lamb, higher education. The sacrifice is too great, and to stand by and let it continue would be a permanent public disgrace. If it is not already too late, it is surely time to protest and to begin reversal of the death spiral in Kingston.
Last Tuesday, the Fine Art Center Art Galleries became the latest victim of the brutal budget wars. The Galleries is a singular entity, with a single Main Gallery, an intimate Photographic Gallery, and a utilitarian Corridor Gallery, all under the directorship of Judith Tolnick Champa. The Galleries and the Great Performance links have already been scrubbed from the Arts and Sciences college website, leaving the pitiful "Turning to the Arts" section to highlight only the student-based performance music and theatre programs. The remnant link to the Galleries Schedule reflects the diversity of the galleries programming. That schedule also bears a poignant irony, highlighting the fundraiser that had brought a few hundred people to the Kingston campus only three days earlier for a formal appraisal of private arts works, asking "What is it Worth?" Further, the announcement for the September photography exhibit ("Cancel it," was the executive order) shows a picture of the Arizona desert with a sign, "Buy now; pay later." The sign now needs to be replaced by one in front of the cultural desert that will settle in on the Kingston campus if the decision to close the Galleries is allowed to stand, "Close now; pay later."
In August, URI will launch the fruits of a year's work on the Branding Initiative, unfurling the new "Think Big. We do!" tagline. As a lad who grew up in Missouri and who has lived in New England most of his life, URI will have to show me that there is substance behind those words. I'll have to be told about Yankee ingenuity and inventiveness, about standing up for principles, about daring to take on the establishment. I'll want to see what it means to think big through tangible actions. When you brand yourself, you have to be prepared to live up to your tattoos, to walk your talk. The students get it. They'll want to see URI do something that matters. And they are watching now. Only five days after closing, 300+ users of the Facebook social utility have joined an online group, "Save the Galleries," to share protests, links (the media has already started blogging about this), and ideas. They are out there, and they are very upset.
The issue, however, is not about being angry, nor is it about blaming anyone for this. The decision was, of course, nobody's fault. It was part of huge collection of cuts by Dean Brownell, under orders from Provost DeHayes, who was given a number by President Carothers, who listens to Board of Governors Chairman DeCaprio, who responds to second-term Governor Carcieri, who just wants to kill a deficit without displeasing important people or riling voters. The buck, or course, stopped at each desk in that chain of command, and all decisions made at all desks ultimately became also decisions of the body politic itself. We are all accountable. So in the end, what does this say about the citizenry and our decision-makers ? Is anyone living up to "Think Big. We do!" or are we all going to shrug our shoulders and sheepishly ask, "What can I do"?
There are three things at stake here. Any of them make the ultimate cost of closing the Galleries completely unacceptable, no matter the horrible weight of other fiscal exigencies, and therefore require an immediate reversal of the decision. Dean Brownell has acted under the narrow directives of preserving, to whatever extent remains possible, the ability of the College to meet classroom teaching needs this fall. A reversal, therefore, needs to come from Provost DeHayes or President Carothers, both of whom need to rise to this occasion to demonstrate that they do indeed Think Big! What a grand opportunity for leadership lies before these two gentlemen!
First, on a student-centered campus, the closing of the Galleries has a disastrous effect on the students themselves, and not just art students! Many faculty, who use the Galleries to drive home the meaning of philosophical or humanistic lessons taught in classrooms across campus, have often told me that for many of their students, the visit to the Gallery has been their very first exposure to high level public art! Operating at that level—exhibiting professionally curated contemporary art of the highest caliber—also directly involves a significant number of gallery interns who assist in the technically and aesthetically demanding business of curation and installations. For these interns, this may also be their closest behind-the-scenes contact with the epitome of the working visual art world, as they learn from a true master how galleries are run. For many students, that experience provides the essential entry level qualification leading to their first post-graduation professional position. Myriad students maintain contact with Director Champa, frequently reaffirming their gratitude for the quality of their internship training. Closing the galleries significantly diminishes the visual arts experience of any URI art student, diminishing the entire arts program, while it also empoverishes the campus culture for all other students and faculty.
Second, by coordinating with major programs across campus, the Galleries are able to significantly enrich major public offerings, which are available to both students and the public at large. There have been many examples of this during Champa's 17 years at URI, but the most recent was the collaboration with the Honors Colloquium, titled China Rising. More than a year before the Colloquium opened (in September 2007), Director Champa was at work conceptualizing and planning a coordinate installation, China—Seen by.... How would it be possible for URI students or the RI public to understand the true immensity of China's impact on the international economy or the global environment, or to develop even the basest understanding of the meaning of contemporary China without being able to see it with a full visual impact? In electing to respond to this need through a contemporary photographic exhibition, the Director became cognizant of the great differences between native chinese photography and the work of outsiders. The eyes of the person taking the image mattered! As a friend, I was privileged to share long talks with Director Champa as she studied published works, and to accompany her on a few of the dozens of scouting trips to places like the Philips Exeter Academy and Tufts Galleries, and to even follow her around on an exhausting day trip to targeted China installations in major public and private galleries in New York City, where she does her homework for future exhibitions. Similar scholarly preparation went into previous Colloquium collaborations on the Vietnam War and Global Sustainability, again benefiting both students and the hundreds of visitors to campus who saw these installations.
Emanuel—Harpers Ferry, WVA
Wet Plate Collodion Photograph by Robert Szabo
Date: 08/15/2003
One of the most enjoyable and unique aspects of Director Champa's programming was the often whimsical or playful nature with which she would seek to engage the public. During the winter of 2006, the "States of Siege" exhibition brought together the work of several reenactment photographers, including the great Wet Plate Collodion Photographer, Robert Szabo, whose work had appeared in, and on the cover of, National Geographic (April 2005). Director Champa assembled an amazing cast for an opening celebration, a bright and sunny day in early February, including several reenactor groups from southern New England, and Rob Goldman's youthful 14th Rhode Island Heavy Cavalry regiment from Providence. Szabo himself came up from Virginia, swapping stories with another wet plate photographer from Connecticut who produced a number of civil-war era tin-type photographs during the day. Some 300-400 people assembled, lunched on civil war troop rations (hard tack, salt pork, and gritty cornbread), listened to the roar of musket fire, and stirred to the sound of fife and drums, bringing the University vibrantly to life on a wonderful Saturday at the Galleries.
It must be emphasized that the public nature of these incredible exhibitions is a clear manifestation of the historical public outreach mission of URI. The URI Fine Arts Center Galleries are collectively the only Rhode Island public arts outreach center in the State (The Bell Gallery at Brown, and of course the RISD Galleries, are private). This is of particular importance in the southwestern part of Rhode Island where not only local senior citizens, but great numbers of K-12 school-age students rely on the Galleries for the experience of being able to see a wide variety of contemporary art in a professional installation. This form of outreach is supported by the taxpayers and it is a major error to undervalue this form of public support and recognition of the value of the University. Cutting off the Galleries eliminates a strong reason for many local residents to feel in touch with their state University, and URI can ill afford to alienate these constituents.
Finally, it should be clear to all that the proven value of the Galleries is only manifest through the extraordinary contributions of one person, Gallery Director Judith Tolnick Champa. Lifelong companion and wife of the great Brown University art historian, the late Kermit Champa, Judith is a native New Englander who has spent most of her life in Rhode Island and as an integral part of the Rhode Island arts community. Director Champa is a well known and well loved member of the URI community, often described as one of the most interesting and vibrant people on campus. One of the things that I have come to appreciate about her 17 years of work at URI is the enormous volume of literature produced as part of her job, the detailed catalogs and booklets that go with each installation. From the first time I met Director Champa I was aware that she was one of the very few people I had ever met whose everyday working vocabulary is far larger than mine. Reading the euphonous and always highly imagistic things that she has written makes it clear that there is extraordinary genius and talent here. Her reputation extends far beyond the State and New England, and for many Europeans in the art community, she is all they know, or need to know, about Rhode Island. The single most consistent presence of the University of Rhode Island in the New York Times, and thus the most visible sign that there was anything in Kingston, was the frequent listing of URI FAC Galleries events carried in the arts section, the result of a cultivated and carefully maintained relation between Director Champa and the paper. The departure of Judith Tolnick Champa from the URI campus would itself be a devastating blow to the spirit, culture, and erudition of the institution, a severe and immediate diminishment from which there would be no recovery. The University's official press release explaining that responsibility for the galleries would be "shifted to the Department of Art and Art History" is ludicrous; without Judith Tolnick Champa, there are only empty rooms and there is no creative spark of genius left to carry on, not in the entire art department, not on the entire University. A promise by Dean Brownell to begin talks with donors "to endow both programs" is far too little, far too late, and insulting to both the students and the community without Judith Tolnick Champa at the helm. It is also nearly impossible to accept the University's claim that cutting the Gallery and the self-sustaining Great Performances program would save $325,000—the University should be challenged to document this claim—and of course it is patently false to claim that this savings would be used to deliver the curriculum (no, it will merely be used to cover the budget loss so that tax cuts for wealthy Rhode Islanders and their corporations can be preserved!).
What makes the final decision on the Galleries unique is the fundamental quality of the values at stake. Is URI to continue to assert its claim to be the State's public outreach institution, a core of its historic land grant mission? Does this claim extend to the arts and humanities as well as to the sciences and technologies? What are the humanistic and artistic claims of the University, and how are they reflected by this decision? What does it mean to "Think Big" and how does this decision illustrate how "We Do"?
Without its major sports programs, like football and basketball, URI would remain an important center of higher education, and a vital public asset critical to life in the 21st century. Without its Galleries, it is just another school, with little soul and little to contribute to culture. URI may yet rise to make important contributions to survival in face of the monstrous global challenges that are the focus of this blog. But if it does not rise to this particular challenge, it will not be able to make meaningful contributions to the values that give meaning to mere survival. Surely, to think big requires an immediate restoration and restatement of the priority of the Fine Art Center Galleries and their truly unique Director.