<p>Unless those “numerous prominent alumni” who are threatening to cut off donations want to cough up enough cash to save the museum, they should just shut up. The decision has some effect on the school’s Fine Arts majors, though hardly a disastrous one, and no effect at all on the rest of the student body, who never go near the museum. I find all the clamor and outrage to be ridiculous. The school needs the money desperately, and selling the art is far preferable to slashing faculty and programs, raising tuition to even more astronomical levels or hammering financial aid. The decision was made by the people most knowledgeable about the situation. No one is in a position to second guess them, certainly not the poohbahs of the art world, who have no interest in Brandeis as an institution, nor the museum’s curator, whose ego was apparently bruised by the “manner in which it was announced”. We are enduring very hard times, and things will get much worse before they get better. Time to face reality and do what needs to be done to save the college.</p>
<p>I suspect bookmama22’s reaction would be quite different if her child were not an alumnus, but instead a current student facing the specters of skyrocketing tuition, reduced financial aid, deferred maintenance and repairs, overcrowded classes taught by second-rate professors and shuttered majors.</p>