In a subsequent statement, President Padilla said, “Our actions will be based on the best interests of our students, mission, and entire campus. Not just one small piece of it, especially when that piece is not part of our strategic plan and our core mission of educating students and giving them the best campus residential experience.”
Both the decision and the justification for it deeply disturb me. As someone who regularly takes students to the Brauer Museum as a part of my teaching, and who frequently visits the Brauer for my own edification and enlightenment, and who works closely with people who support the mission of the Brauer, I consider that museum to be near the core of Valpo’s mission and a key feature of its unique identity. The artwork there relates directly to my vocation as a university professor of theology and the humanities. I have a particular interest in Christian theological interpretations of art, about which I have written in my book on fundamental theology. I am especially pleased that we have three central works that demonstrate excellence in the visual arts, precisely the three pieces that the university board wants to sell. These three pieces comprise the anchor for the whole collection.
I should add that I had met privately with President Padilla in his office exactly one week before he made his announcement. It was my first face-to-face meeting with him. I presented him with my recently published edition of Schlink’s Ecumenical Dogmatics, I explained a little about it and my scholarly work in ecumenical theology, and I discussed matters of shared interest (e.g., politics). We had a very pleasant meeting. I wanted him to know that he could count on me to help him as a resource, especially with respect to Lutheran theology and the American church scene.
My meeting and conversation with him that day would have been very different had I known about this secret board decision.
So on February 9, I began to write a letter to our faculty senate, to criticize this presidential/board decision.
That letter, whose rough edges were polished with the help of a few others, was sent to the faculty. After only two days, 75 current faculty had signed it, as had 17 emeriti or retired faculty. To read the letter, go here. (At last week’s faculty senate meeting, President Padilla referred to the letter as “the Matthew Becker letter,” but it is not my letter. I may have written the first four drafts, but it was ultimately submitted as a letter from the faculty who signed it.)
For more details on this controversy, go here.
The New York Times has assigned a reporter to the story. I learned today that her article will be coming out perhaps already next week.
Yesterday, at a special meeting of Valpo’s faculty senate, a few of us presented a memo, which we hope will become the basis for a senate resolution that would call upon the president and board to rescind their decision. Here is the content of that memo:
1. The sale constitutes a gross violation of professional museum ethics.
VU will be censured by professional organizations, lose credibility with those associations, and the museum will be unable to lend, borrow, or collaborate with other museums in the world.
The president claims he has his own “ethic” to uphold—a confusion of ethics and expediency? Will that “ethic” trump ethical standards across all disciplines, professional schools, and university organizations?
2. The sale violates the trust of artists, the public, donors, and faculty.
The Brauer Museum is at the core of Valpo’s liberal arts identity. The three masterpieces anchor the collection and its international reputation. Artists want their work to be displayed in notable public collections. Donors expect their gifts to contribute to the strength of the museum in perpetuity. Faculty count on these works as crucial pedagogical resources. This action tramples on the generosity and trust of current and past donors. It conflicts with the strong support for the arts and humanities in the Lutheran intellectual tradition.
What is the presidential and board rationale for breaking these basic and long-term trusts for the sake of short-term, perishable goods?
3. The sale may be illegal.
The sale clearly violates the terms of the trust agreement signed by the VU board president when the core collection was acquired in 1953. The Church painting was part of that gift; the other two paintings in question were purchased with funds from the restricted Sloan endowment fund. The president claims that will not be a legal problem. That remains to be seen. And, does it not matter that violating the trust is clearly unethical?
4. This sale is a poor management of assets.
To sell an asset of appreciating value and use it to buy something of depreciating value (dorms) is problematic. Furthermore, by selling these pieces through a private auction, Sotheby’s will be entitled to at least a 25% commission. Add in PR and legal fees, and that is a very poor return on the value of these assets. Selling university assets in a reckless and/or unethical manner has already resulted in the loss of major donors and negative press. More will come. This could also have a negative effect on our bond rating.
Is this short-term sale really worth the net outcome, especially in view of Valpo’s long-term future?
5. This sale seems very rushed.
Do we understand why a dorm renovation suddenly rose to the top of the university’s priority list? What is the urgent necessity for this project? The administration could provide no concrete evidence.
6. The process of making the decision to sell these masterpieces lacked transparency.
The plan to select and sell the works has been conducted with deliberate secrecy. The paintings were selected purely for cash value, without any investigation into or concern for their importance to the museum and the community it serves. No one with any knowledge of the collection was consulted, as if the details of the works themselves were irrelevant to the process. This is a shocking way to approach the sale of university assets, and not a path to a sustainable future.
7. The administration’s withholding of knowledge of the impending sale resulted in an unethical hiring process.
Last summer, while in the process of finding and hiring Jonathan Canning, representatives of Christie’s Auction house were on campus. This information was withheld from the search committee, and more importantly from Canning when he accepted the job. Any association with this sale will be devastating to his career. The university asked Canning to participate in a sale that would violate his professional ethics.
8. This impending sale represents a further attack on the arts and humanities at VU. Student response has been spontaneous, strong, and often emotional. They immediately connected this action to the administration’s ongoing dismantling of the arts on campus. Notably, among the nearly 400 signatories on the student petition, approximately half are STEM majors. The board/presidential decision is contrary to Valpo’s stated mission.
I don’t know what will happen here. We want to stop the sale of the paintings. Thankfully, for now at least, the masterpieces remain on the walls of the Brauer. But as I indicated at yesterday's senate meeting, my confidence about the leadership of the president and the board has been deeply shaken by the decision and by subsequent presidential behavior that I will not write about here. Indeed, I wasn’t able to control my emotions very well yesterday as I tried to thank the students who publicly spoke so eloquently, passionately, and persuasively about their reasons for opposing this decision. Those students give me hope. My heart is not the only one around this place that is broken right now.
If you want to sign a petition to stop this sale, please go here.
