Brand focuses on arts, humanities

Almost a month after President Myles Brand was originally scheduled to give his State of the University address, he delivered the speech to the University community Tuesday in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. Brand, also a philosophy professor, invoked the teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Plato and Descartes to convey his message of the importance of the arts and humanities.\nSpeaking once again in the spotlight of television cameras, now commonplace for Brand, he said the arts and humanities have experienced a decline in status and support because of "increased attention to the medical and life sciences and information technology." He said decline needs to be reversed.\n"Several decades ago, 75 percent of entering freshman indicated that their primary reason for attending college was to develop a philosophy of life, which is a surrogate for interest in the liberal arts," Brand said. "Now, 75 percent say they attend college to gain career skills."\nDuring his speech, Brand also referred briefly to incivility among some faculty members. Since the riots after the firing of former men's basketball coach Bob Knight, civility has been a hot topic on the Bloomington campus.\nBrand said he is trying to call attention to the issue but that no formal plans are in the works to change the situation.\n"There is some interruptive action by some disgruntled faculty, and I think that is unfortunate," Brand said after his speech.\nGail Hanson, professor of physics, said she would not call the faculty disgruntled but said that people are upset.\n"It is people who honestly want to see the University doing everything at the highest level that it can," Hanson said. "We feel that we don't have adequate support to do that. It's not a question of our own personal interest."\nBrand set forth several proposals for improving the arts and humanities.\nBrand said he will make $4 million available in research grants to support scholarship and creative work in the humanities. Funding for these areas is waning, Brand said, and the extra money is a way to help close the gap. His four-year plan would begin this spring.\nBut Hanson said she questions the plan, especially because of the deficits many schools have fallen into recently.\n"If Brand could come up with $4 million for whatever it is he's planning to do, then why can't there be money to balance the budget in the College of Arts and Sciences?" Hanson said.\nAnother plan Brand set forth was the appointment of a University-wide task force of faculty members and administration to propose new ways of enhancing the arts and humanities.\nSince this is also a year when the state legislature decides how much money to allocate to IU, Brand also set priorities for the budget. He said the University's first priority for the biennial budget request is the new School of Informatics and that the first capital priority is a new science building for the Bloomington campus.\nAfter speaking about the arts and humanities for 10 minutes, the insertion of two science-based areas as the top budget priorities was Brand being realistic, not inconsistent, said James Sherman, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council and professor of psychology.\n"Yes, they can be in conflict with each other," Sherman said. "You have to have both parts to do a good job"