Administrators, faculty and Rose Art Museum officials continue to conflict over the significance of the recent donation toward the Rose's operating expenses and the status of the Rose closing as a public art museum.Last week, University President Jehuda Reinharz announced in an e-mail to alumni that "a donor recently stepped forward to help fund the continued operations of the museum." But some, including Chairman of the Rose Board of Overseers Jonathan Lee, have questioned the significance of earmarking the donation for Rose expenses.

Rose Director Michael Rush said, "The only [University] contributions to the Rose are what I call 'below-the-line' expenses-things like light, electricity, heat and our share of how we use what is common to buildings that are on the campus." He said that there will be "no change in expense for the University" after the Rose is repurposed to an art center and teaching facility: "It's not about the content," he said. According to Rush, the amount of money the University puts into the Rose building has varied between about $200,000 and $300,000 annually during his tenure at Brandeis.

Joe Baerlein of Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, Inc., the University's temporary public relations firm, said, "I'd characterize this as . a gesture of goodwill, between both [Reinharz] and this donor, . knowing that the Rose gets support from the University for their overhead costs, and I don't think it's anything more than that. It's unfortunate that the gesture both by the donor and by the president would be interpreted as anything less than that."

Last week, Baerlein told the Justice that the anonymous donation was "a substantial, low-six-figure gift that is very generous." He said that Reinharz suggested to the donor that the gift be put toward the Rose's building expenses.

Reinharz said at last Thursday's faculty meeting that the donation "was given to us because of the overhead [the Rose] was not able to meet."

In response to a question regarding whether the University covers expenses for the Rose that it does not cover for any other building on campus, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French wrote in an e-mail to the Justice, "The Rose benefits from its own revenue and is responsible for its own expenses, including the overhead costs associated with its operations. The Rose, however, has not been able to fully meet its overhead expenses, so the University has contributed financially each year to cover those costs."

Lee said, "I am very skeptical of the genuine intent [of directing the donation toward the Rose]. It all feels like a ruse to me." Lee added, "There is no case to be made that the Rose was draining money from the University," and said, "I don't know of another university that gives less support to its art museum than Brandeis."

Rush also said, "This entire issue around the Rose has nothing to do with Rose finances. It all has to do with the Rose collection, and that has not changed from day one. The Rose was not financially in trouble."

In response to a challenge from a faculty member at Thursday's faculty meeting, Reinharz said that he is "not willing to say that the Rose is closing as a public museum" and repeated that "the initial press release inappropriately stated that the Rose was closing."

In response to Reinharz's statements, Lee said, "When he says the Rose is not closing, that's because they're turning the Rose into an art center, and he's being very careful to use these words in a way that's misleading."

A faculty member also questioned the validity of the Faculty Committee to Review the Closing of the Rose, asking if Reinharz would admit "that the faculty has not, in fact, been involved in the decision to think about the future of the Rose," given the impending closure of the museum despite committee recommendations.

Reinharz responded that the committee "can come back with any recommendations they want to make" and that "[the faculty] may give us a number of options."

Baerlein said, "I think that [the] phrase ['closing the Rose'] . respectfully should be left to the side, and let [the Faculty Committee to Review the Closing of the Rose] start to really go at the questions of what the function of the Rose is going to be going forward."

"When you're trying to intentionally confuse the difference between an art center and an art museum, that strikes me as playing with intellectual integrity here, and that's not right," Lee said.