Beauty in the Vision

A report released last Wednesday by the University-wide Task Force on the Arts highlighted the fact that the arts should be a fundamental element of Harvard’s educational aim. Established in the fall of last year, the Task Force on the Arts emphasized a greater engagement with the practice of art as well as the scholarly appreciation of it. While its ambitions may be economically constrained by university budget cuts and losses, we praise the report's affirmation of the arts, and hope that some short-term proposals are achieved without great delay. Harvard’s endowment has deflated, hiring freezes have been announced, and departments are attempting to rein in their budgets. This might bode ill for the visionary aspects of the report, and the long-range goals must take community collaboration into account for the future. As President Drew G. Faust said, “Now is the time to embrace, not retreat from the arts.” Some of the proposals in the Task Force’s report—such as increasing the presence of public art on campus and increasing the integration of the arts into our curriculum—should be implemented as soon as possible.

In light of the push for more collective social space that serves the student body, there should be more on-campus art exhibitions. The student body would also benefit from more visiting artists and artists-in-residence. An emphasis on teaching and interaction with undergraduates, in the shape of formal classes, informal extracurricular sessions, or study groups akin to the current Institute of Politics Fellows Program would benefit both students and the artists who would find in Harvard a community in which to live and create.

Among the report’s suggestions was a new undergraduate Dramatic Arts concentration, and Harvard could certainly create avenues for more performance-oriented study within existing concentrations—like music—that are currently more oriented toward history or theory. Certain measures can be enabled by existing funds for the arts and optimistic financial flags like the $5 million portion of a gift from David Rockefeller ’36. In this effort to increase the accessibility to artistic opportunities on campus, the task force has addressed the dearth of artistic engagement within our day-to-day study.

It is a shame that in all the administrative discussion of curricular review and General Education, tardy attention has been granted to the production and creation of art as part of the undergraduate curriculum. Moreover, the discussion of art has been marginalized to an arts-specific task force, as opposed to being discussed within the context of general curricular reform. This only underscores the fact that the arts at Harvard have been sidelined.

Yet the analysis that was produced from more than a year of consideration serves as a meaningful call for a deep shift in the appraisal of arts at Harvard. The vision is ambitious, but it is a reminder of the value that the arts can add to our educational experience.

The making—as well as the critique—of the arts must be given a spotlight now. The recent report is an impetus to begin implementation of programs that are possible given the current financial difficulties. Considering the existing arts infrastructure and the scope of potential improvement, it is only right that entwined goals of education and the creation of art should be aligned at Harvard.