"Don't close the Rose!" chanted students last night with flowers in hand as a faux funeral procession moved across the Brandeis campus to its final destination: The Rose Art Museum.
Sophomore Emily Leifer, 19, said last night's protest evolved from a meeting of the student group, Art Attack.
"We knew we had to do some sort of public demonstration in response to the Rose closing and the idea for a funeral came up. Everyone in the club really responded to it," she said. "Since many students were still trying to grapple with the news, we thought a funeral would be a way for people to come together to get an emotional understanding of the decision."
University trustees voted unanimously Jan. 26 to close the Rose Art Museum by late summer and sell its international collection to survive the troubled economy.
Leifer said holding a sit-in at the museum seemed too restrained.
"We really saw the funeral as a productive way for students to channel their emotions about the Rose, as well as a way to make these emotions visible," she said. "The funeral was thought of as its emotional and rowdy counterpart. The funeral imagery serves to mark an irrevocable change in our community whatever the eventual fate of the museum."
Rebeccah Ulm, 20, said one of the reasons she chose to attend Brandeis was the Rose Art Museum.
"It sets the art program apart from other universities. It has the best art collection north of New York. I decided if I wasn't going to go to an arts school, this was the next best thing," she said. "They are taking away the main reason I'm here and it's taking away some of the legitimacy of our degrees."
Ulm said the trustees' decision calls into question their priorities and how much they value the arts.
"I find it a devastating decision and the fact that it was made without consulting anyone is really mind-blowing to me," Ulm said. "They say they are doing these things to focus on the core of the Brandeis education and it saddens me they don't include the arts in that."
Leifer, a fine arts student, said many of her classes use the museum as a teaching tool.
"We would go to the vault of the museum and see in person the art we were learning about in our textbooks. Seeing the art in person really cements in my mind that these works were made in real time by real people," she said. "They are not just detached images in a book. They allow me to see the art as an object as well as a message."
Student Brian Friedberg, 26, is pushing to have more art-related protests and discussions on campus in the coming weeks.
"There will be at least one protest or intervention a week around campus," he said. "Small details and objects are already starting to pop up. More and more artists and alumni are starting to take immediate interest and we will be using their resources to their full potential."
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com
