A Call to Arts

Outside the classroom, Harvard seems like fertile ground for artistic growth. The campus boasts 120 extracurricular arts associations, from the Harvard Klezmer Band to the Lowell House Society of Russian Bell Ringers. But inside the classroom, fields of creativity can sometimes lie fallow. Most courses in the arts keep a safe theoretical distance from artistic production, and thus fail to provide students with a practical understanding of their disciplines. Hands-on courses—including courses in Visual and Environmental Studies or Creative Writing—often require previous experience and applications.

To investigate the role of the arts in academic life at Harvard, President Drew Faust commissioned a Task Force on the Arts late in 2007. Just over a year ago the Task Force produced a detailed itinerary for integrating the arts into the university’s curriculum. Although the Task Force Report has had minimal concrete impact thus far, the administration’s open support for the arts has caused a wave of optimism among the student body.

PUTTING ART IN ACTION

“[President Faust’s Arts Task Force] definitely had a large psychological influence on the company,” said James C. Fuller ‘10, former director of the Harvard Ballet Company. “One of the reasons we felt inspired and encouraged to take on the bigger space [i.e. the Loeb Mainstage for “Momentum,”] was because of the statement of confidence in the arts by the Task Force and the Harvard administration.”

Others in the Harvard Arts community share this sentiment, including Alissa E. Schapiro, ‘10, the co-director of the Harvard Art Show—an organization that provides students with a venue to display and sell their artwork. In a leadership luncheon led by the Office for the Arts (OFA) and Dean Evelyn Hammonds last year, the Dean commented that there was no venue for student artists to sell their work.

“We realized it was kind of crazy that we didn’t have this,” said Schapiro. “The Task Force on the Arts was really a catalyst for us because we realized there was a void on campus for student artists to sell their work.” At the Harvard Art Show, students from all sectors of the university could exhibit their talents.

“Everyone from VES to music, to anthropology to art history, you name it, we had someone represented [in the show],” said Schapiro.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

However, the Task Force on the Arts has done more than just inspire. Just as the Harvard Art Show strives to unite artists from all disciplines, the Task Force hoped to expose more students to the practice of the arts within the General Education curriculum. Its overall mission, “To make the arts an integral part of the cognitive life of the university,” as stated in its report, emphasizes the assimilation of the arts into various academic disciplines.

To carry out this ambitious vision, the Task Force created the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA), which oversees, revises, and prioritizes its original short-term and long-term goals. One of these goals is to encourage a great range of artistic expression.

“Student participation is not equal across all of the arts. A lot more students, for example, are engaged in the musical arts than in the visual arts. Our mission is to enhance student experience across the board,” said Professor Robin Kelsey, the Chair of HUCA and Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography.

Kelsey believes that attention drawn to the arts will not detract from other areas of study.

“I don’t see it as arts against the sciences,” he added. “Fostering collaboration is crucial. A huge amount of support for the arts has actually come from the sciences. When you think about it, there’s a lot of tinkering with materials and making in the sciences that is more analogous to art practice than, say, writing a humanities paper.”

As one of its main goals, HUCA plans to add more General Education courses that make the practice of art a manageable enterprise for all undergraduates. Kelsey’s own Culture and Belief 30 course Photography and Society, offered last fall assigned a final project that required students to make their own photography series inspired by photographers like Eadweard Muybridge.

FROM CRAFT TO CAREER

For those more serious about the arts, departments like Visual and Environmental Studies, Dramatic Arts, and Music already offer classes that incorporate high-level performance into the coursework.

“Dance is definitely finding a place in the curriculum,” said Fuller. “I’ve been very happy with the dance classes so far, and I hope these courses continue under reform.” Fuller is taking his third Dramatic Arts class, The Alvin Ailey Legacy: A Celebration of the African-American Heritage and the Modern Dance Tradition. In the course catalog, the class is offered to “experienced dancers only.”

The Music department also offers some performance-based classes, such as a chamber music course and Dr. William Bares’ new Jazz Improvisation course. Both of these courses are centered on creating art for credit, an endeavor that the Task Force strove to promote.

The Task Force also aimed to establish springboards for careers in the arts by creating a Master’s of Fine Arts program for visual artists and a Dramatic Arts concentration. But for the moment, Dramatic Arts has been relegated to secondary field status. The prospects of having a Dramatic Arts concentration may be exciting for Hollywood hopefuls, but others have expressed unease with the monopolistic effect it may have on the campus theater scene.

“There are things that I’m concerned about,” said Elizabeth J. Krane ‘11, president of the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club. “One of the beauties of HRDC is that you don’t have to be a Dramatic Arts concentrator. That’s one of the reasons why I came to Harvard as opposed to a drama school. Here, anyone can perform and also pursue their other passions. I’m also potentially concerned about the graduate school because the resources that we have might go there for those concentrators who will need to do it for credit.”

MAKE IT RAIN

In the meantime, the University’s funding for the arts remains surprisingly intact. Despite university-wide budget cuts, the Office for the Arts has managed to maintain the grants and fellowships that fund students’ artistic ventures. At the moment, Harvard students enjoy support from Artist Development Fellowships, Music Lesson Subsidies, and OFA Project Grants.

“The pace of the Task Force has slowed because of the economical situation, but our modes of financial support for the arts did not get cut,” said Jack Megan, Director of the OFA. “We were not able to increase them, obviously, but to keep [funding] programs fully intact is pretty remarkable.”

Thus considerable support exists for artistically inclined students, and the Task Force has laid down the groundwork for slow but effective expansion of this trove of resources. But its endeavors rely on student engagement as much as the administration’s initiative.

“In this bad economy, we’re looking for where the university can get the most bang for its buck. This means thinking about resources that are not strictly financial. For example, the richest resource we have is the intelligence and energy of our students,” said Kelsey. “If we are to realize the dream of the Task Force, we need the students’ involvement.”

—Staff writer Marissa A. Glynias can be reached at mglynias@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Minji Kim can be reached at minjikim@fas.harvard.edu.