We are sure that University President Jehuda Reinharz and the Board of Trustees were opting for the best out of a host of unpalatable choices when they decided to retire the Rose Art Museum, but we think their decision was ill-considered.At first, the administration made it seem in its press releases as if it was going to sell off all the art in the museum-"the university will publicly sell the art collection," read the document. Now the administration says it will only sell some works. Even though the University is being as unspecific as possible, it's obvious that it wasn't as clear on the exact nature of its plan as it should have been.

The president and Board of Trustees arrived at their decision without consulting Rose Director Michael Rush, the donors of the art or the wills of the deceased donors. Only now is the University reading over the donors' various conditions and stipulations, some of which restrict what the University is legally allowed to do with these relinquished works of art. The University also failed to consult adequately with the Massachusetts attorney general's office prior to its decision. This should have been taken care of before any decisions were made, not after. All of this resassessment and backpedaling hurts the school's image.

President Reinharz reasoned that keeping the Rose considerations under wraps would avoid bad press. "[The Board of Trustees] did not . want the discussion of the closing of the Rose to take place in the newspapers," he said at the open forum last Wednesday. But the sudden unveiling of these plans shocked the art world, students and the media alike. Instead of staving off bad press, he invited it.

The New York Times accurately described the reaction as an "outcry" in a headline, and the Boston Globe's editorial on the subject said the University's handling of the situation "showed all the grace of a trash can bumping down a flight of stairs." National Public Radio aired an interview with an incensed donor. The University doesn't need this unflattering coverage, especially not when it's hoping to recruit extra students to the Class of 2014.

The powers that be shouldn't have let this happen. They should have told the Brandeis community what they had on the table and kept the museum director in the loop, if for no other reason than common courtesy for our budget as well as for the Rose. If the extent of our budget crisis had been publicly known, many community members would have been less shocked by the Rose shutdown. Says Rebeccah Ulm '11, who organized last Thursday's sit-in at the museum, "I would be less frustrated and angry [with the decision] because I would have been a part of the discussion beforehand instead of after the fact."

The Rose decision was rushed, and a lot of its failings could have been cured with a little candor. This isn't the first time this editorial board has called for transparency in recent times, but we hope that this debacle will make the University reconsider its closed-door approach to decision making.