Supply,Demand,and the University

Abstract

One reason there never seems to be adequate funding for the arts is that supply can never keep up with demand. Because of their mission and the environment they provide for creative minds, universities contribute to the problem by fanning the sparks of artistic desire. At the same time, because of their role in educating the audiences of the future, they are equally a part of the solution. In good financial times no less than in bad, Americans have tended to regard support for the arts in a puritanical light. Universities therefore make their most solid contributions to the arts in kind, by encouraging artists and the arts as part of the primary educational mission and by exposing all students to both the old and the new in art, music, and drama. Even though direct subventions are bound to remain inadequate, institutions can effectively provide support for the arts by resuming some responsibility for instilling aesthetic judgment in the citizens and consumers of tomorrow. Universities have a historical obligation to develop the highest in human awareness. This includes helping to determine tomorrow's tune by taking responsibility for informing the tastes of those who will pay the pipers of the future.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

1. Quoted by Jack Morrison , The Rise of the Arts on the American Campus (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), p. 4.

2. “To dramatize this point—it is estimated that the average manufactured product takes one-twentieth as many person hours today as it did during Mozart's lifetime, but a Mozart quintet takes exactly as many person hours to perform now as it did then.” William J. Baumol , “Financial Prospects for the Performing Arts” (1979 speech), quoted by Patricia McFate, “The Effects of Inflation on the Arts,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 456: 84 (July 1981).

3. Jay D. Starling and John P. Plumlee , “The Association of Art Museum Directors Survey Report,” photocopied (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University, n.d.), tables 4 and 5.

4. John Russell , “To the Rescue of the Fogg Museum,” New York Times, 28 March 1982.

5. The Performing Arts, Problems and Prospects, A Rockefeller Panel Report on the Future of Theater, Dance, and Music in America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p. 6.

6. Composers George Rochberg, Richard Wernick, and George Crumb are members of the University of Pennsylvania faculty. The Penn Contemporary Players perform their works as well as other new pieces.

7. “The Spirit of Excellence: Theater and the University,” The New Republic, 171: 15 (16 Nov. 1974).

8. “Nearly 90% of the directors hold a masters degree and nearly a third have a Ph.D.” Starling and Plumlee, “The Association of Art Museum Directors Survey Report,” p. 9.

9. Benjamin Franklin , Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959-76), 3:415.

10.

10. McFate , “The Effects of Inflation on the Arts,” p. 75.

11.

11. Russell , “Rescue of the Fogg Museum.”

12.

and Other Prints, exhibition catalogue, University of Pennsylvania, Arthur Ross Gallery (1983), pp. 7-8.

13.

13. Brustein , “Spirit of Excellence,” p. 14.