WHENEVER I'm angry with my roommate, I have a secret weapon -- showtunes. For some odd reason, she finds these, my favorite CDs, torturous, and will do nearly anything to avoid listening to them. Imagine my delight when I learned that officials at Eastern Connecticut State University had a similar idea -- offering opera tickets as an alternative to community service for students charged with disciplinary infractions. While the Connecticut Opera is understandably miffed at the insinuation that their performances are punishing, ECSU should be commended for its attempts to encourage in its students an appreciation for the arts, not matter how maddening its methods.
In his 2001 federal budget proposal, President Clinton urged Congress to raise the annual budget for the National Endowment for the Arts to $150 million -- a $52 million increase. But an identical proposal was rejected last year, and pundits predict similar result this year ("President budget request for NEH faces an uphill battle, lawmakers warn," Chronicle of Higher Education, March 24).
With government funding for the arts facing constant criticism, and an increased focus on standardized learning pushing arts out of school curricula, someone has to stand up and fight for the arts. And perhaps it's time that higher education took up that cause.
Last Tuesday, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia approved a proposal to establish a Ph.D program in music at the University. The program will be the only one of its kind in Virginia, which currently is the only southeastern state that does not offer the degree. This comes on the heels of a General Assembly decision last Monday to allocate $9 million of its $48.1 billion budget for a new studio art building on Carr's Hill.
This is a welcome change at a university that, in the shadow of ACC basketball, top-notch academics and excellent pre-professional training, is hardly known for its commitment to the arts. Pleas for expanded arts programming have plagued the Board of Visitors for years, to little avail. And yet we are not alone -- U.Va. actually boasts some of the best music and theater programs in the state. The fact that the Commonwealth currently offers no Ph.D programs in music suggests that it is the state government -- not our administration --who is to blame for a lack of attention to the arts in the past.
And yet University officials fought to enrich our arts community and won. Hopefully, this trend will continue, as more and more colleges realize the particular advantages that allow them especially to cultivate the arts.
Most students, when they enter college, have little or no idea where their futures lie. Universities thus have a duty to provide students with plenty of opportunities to explore all aspects of academia and culture, to cultivate a passion for something and to encourage its application in the real world. The activities they choose to provide and emphasize are particularly influential. The state of higher education in this country -- the fields it chooses to emphasize and the paths down which it chooses to lead its students -- has a tremendous bearing on our country's future.
Additionally, colleges are often well-equipped to handle the controversial aspects of art. While elementary and high schools often are prohibited from producing this play, or displaying that photograph, the intellectual dynamic of higher education allows artists to take risks that challenge both the creative and social norms.
And so, as long as universities continue to support arts programming, to provide creative outlets of all kinds for their students, to develop the talents of artistic genius, art may still have a chance to thrive. But if colleges follow what has become a disturbing national trend of de-emphasizing arts in favor of the more concrete disciplines of science and technology, there may be no one to fight for the arts in 50 years. No one to consistently defend its pragmatic benefits, its pure aesthetic value, and its individual and cultural worth.
Support for the arts in recent years has taken many different forms, and its not always easy to articulate the importance of this aspect of education and culture. There are logical, concrete studies on the effects of arts education on young scholars, and on psychological well-being. There also is the notion that art is part of our cultural history, that we can define ourselves through the ages by simply examining the paintings or music of the times.
And then there are the people like me, who can't quite quantify the value of arts, but who know that singing or dancing or sculpting makes them happier than anything else. Who feel that way because, somewhere along the line, someone let them explore their passions and taught them how to listen to the voices of the past through the arts, and to develop an artistic voice of their own. As the arts continue to face an uphill battle in the political arena, that someone becomes more and more crucial. Universities should leap at the chance to be that someone.
(Katie Dodd's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
Read More
ONIBUDO AND SAWAYA: Police, not students, were agents of chaos
By Naima Sawaya and Nathan Onibudo | 16 hours agoSaturday, the state, not students nor protesters, brought violence to this campus.
IYER: Sports stadiums should sport more benefit to Virginia residents
By Arjun Iyer | 3 days agoPast stadiums in other states show that Virginia has the potential to succeed at such a construction project, provided that proper measures are undertaken.
KURTZWEIL: True financial aid must be transparent
By Paul Kurtzweil | April 29, 2024The implications and revelations of the lawsuit should inspire greater transparency at the University in order to ensure that financial aid is properly and equitably distributed.
