Art tradition strong at IU

Arts Week -- featuring performances, lectures, displays and workshops held in various venues around Bloomington and on our campus -- clearly showed the strength of the arts in our campus community.\nWhat's just as impressive, however, is the range of activities that are available to us not just during a designated week, but all year round. Our role as a home for the arts is very much in keeping with our tradition as an arts and sciences institution. We celebrate that tradition proudly.\nMany generations of IU leaders have recognized that a solid grounding in the arts and sciences is a prerequisite to so many decisions that our students will make as citizens. That knowledge, that education, helps build a strong and civil society.\nThat tradition carries with it responsibilities. Federal support for research in the arts and humanities has eroded in recent years. In my 2000 State of the University address, I outlined a four-year Arts and Humanities Initiative that would designate about $1 million each year to support specific research projects undertaken by IU faculty members in these areas. \nThat's triple the annual grants that IU faculty members receive from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities combined.\nIn the first year of the program, 85 faculty members applied for the grants. This year, we had 114. The selection committee had a difficult task in narrowing those applications to 27 recipients -- 18 on the Bloomington campus.\nThe grants will help fund projects in a wide range of disciplines -- labor studies, English, Germanic studies, history, music, fine arts, philosophy and others. \nClearly, the subjects are varied. But all examine different facets of our society's cultural and historical heritage and its relevance to us today. They illuminate aspects of the human experience from which we can learn. As such, they are central to our university's effort to both advance scholarship and creative work as well as to have a positive impact on our students and on the larger society.\nMeanwhile, a task force headed by history professor James Madison has been meeting and plans to send me a report on the state of the arts and humanities at our university by the end of the academic year.\nThat group will focus, in part, on our University's real and lasting assets in these areas. Clearly, our School of Music is a great treasure. Our new Theatre and Drama Center will strengthen our reputation as an outstanding site for theatrical performance and education. Many of our other programs are superb.\nBut I also expect the task force to examine the very real challenges that any university faces in enhancing these programs. Funding issues are an important concern. So is the need to bring the arts and humanities alive to the public and to a new generation of students. Their individual academic decisions play a critical role in keeping any area of study vibrant.\nIn his autobiography "Being Lucky," Chancellor Herman B Wells said the University must continue to support and teach about the outstanding work by previous generations of scholars in philosophy, literature, art, music and science while encouraging "the development of new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new ways of expressing artistic and aesthetic values."\nIt is a challenge that remains as compelling today as it was when Chancellor Wells issued it.