At 5 a.m. today, the final report of the Committee on the Future of the Rose Art Museum was released to the Brandeis community. According to Provost Marty Krauss, members of the committee were "explicitly told in their charge that whether or not the University proceeds now or in the future with the sale of art would be a decision made by the Board of Trustees, so it wasn't an issue for [a] faculty, student and staff committee to opine upon." The resulting report only perpetuates the incorrect idea that the majority of unrest over the Rose Art Museum situation involves how the Rose will be "better integrated into the educational mission of the University."The charge itself states that the committee's purpose is to "recommend ways for the Rose to continue to play a vital role in the cultural and educational mission of the University." According to this charge, CFRAM fulfilled its responsibilities admirably, but the report does not address the most meaningful aspect of the entire Rose Art Museum conflict: the potential sale of art. Instead, it seeks to put unease over the implications of the University's decision for the greater artistic community to rest using "faculty and student engagement" and "outreach initiative" as comforting buzzwords for vague future plans.

In the "Central Recommendations" portion of the report, the committee advises that the Rose "remain . a university art museum open to the public" and that the administration take steps to put "lingering uncertainty" about whether the Rose is closing as a public art museum to rest. This recommendation flies in the face of a crucial fact that museum and art experts have made abundantly clear: Once a public art museum claims the ability to sell art for purposes other than to purchase more art, the artistic community will no longer consider it a public art museum. The Rose may remain open as a showcase for its expansive collection, but it cannot be the public art museum it once was while the possibility of art sales remains.

The committee recommends that the University undergo a "consultative process involving appropriate professional and community input" before selling any art. If art is to be sold, we hope the University implements this recommendation. But in addressing the future of the Rose, the committee should have looked into-and should have been instructed to look into-how the sale of art will affect the status of the museum, its ability to attract new outside exhibitions of the quality and prestige of previous exhibitions and its role as an institution on this campus.

The charge to CFRAM made it abundantly clear that the committee would act in an advisory role. This page would have liked to see this advisory role encompass more than the ability to recommend greater "community engagement" on an uncertain timescale that will demand an uncertain amount of money and manpower to fulfill. The committee missed the opportunity to provide educated criticism and evaluation of the fundamental issue at the heart of the Rose: its status not as an organization that could be more extensively "integrated with" the academic institution of which it is a part, but as an organization that can no longer be considered a public art museum by the greater intellectual community.