Funds for campus art nice but misplaced

By Sarah Bronson     11/13/08 6:00pm

Everyone likes art, right? The glass boats recently hung from the ceiling of Fondren Library are supposed to be the first of many projects around campus, according to the Arts Committee. Art may well be an "essential element to achieving our mission as a great university," as President David Leebron said during the official unveiling of the sculptures. However, as enjoyable as art can be, there remain several much more direct ways to make Rice a better school.The unveiling ceremony was exciting enough for there to be wine. The pavilion was crammed with men in sportcoats and women in bright skirts holding wine glasses while the four plasma screens featured the oozing of molten glass. Leebron stood somewhere in the middle of them all. Around 5:45 p.m., the group made its way into the library to admire nine glass boats hanging from the ceiling. A few inspirational speeches were given, a few pictures taken on BlackBerry phones. A student employee at the front desk, referring to them as "radishes," wondered if the rumors about the cost of the boats were true.

I deeply value art; otherwise, my decision to drop the popular German fairytale class in favor of a seminar on Ulysses would be completely inexplicable. But if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars at your disposal and you want to improve Rice University, I do not think you should spend it all on glass, even if you do commission one of the world's greatest living glassblowers.

For example, if you were to buy enough chocolate cake to soothe the nighttime hungries of every student on campus for the next fifty years, that would probably be far more useful than a metaphorical "passageway to knowledge." Students have been voicing their desire for late-night dining options. Art may inspire, but in those certain desperate situations that every Rice student has become far too familiar with, healthy blood sugar levels are far more propulsive.

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You could also build the MOB a band hall. The MOB is a band without a band hall. Instead, we creep about in a foul basement where pieces of ceiling sometimes fall on our heads and odors of sewage sometimes issue from the bathrooms, due to the construction upstairs. The room is acoustically dead. And it is really difficult to get marimbas and macroscopic buckyballs up and down the stairs. The MOB is the biggest supporter of Rice athletics. There is no better place to expel excess creative energy than a scatter band. The university even gets extra publicity from some of our more interesting performances. The MOB cares about Rice, but whether or not Rice returns the feeling remains in question.

Of course, there's always the less colorful course of action: helping to lower our tuition a little. Many current students chose Rice for its comparatively attractive price tag. Then tuition went up, and then the financial market tanked. Additional scholarships and the like, always ecstatically welcome, would be appreciated now more than ever.

I cannot recall the last time I heard someone describe the campus as "in need of beautification," even after the hurricane. In fact, most people are downright enamored with Rice's appearance. The library in particular is already full of original art, especially after the painted books displayed in our art gallery last year were hung all over Fondren. Students can look up from their work and see life-size horses and ostriches tumbling on the walls. Is it even possible to improve on that?

When people give money, the results tend to be visible, whether they take the form of a dirty plaque in front of a tree or a whole building complex named after a benefactor. In terms of visibility, the chocolate cake plan has very little sway; it would probably be difficult to feel good about the conjured image of a bleary-eyed student chewing cake at 2 a.m. The band hall, being underground, seems almost beyond hope of impressing anyone with its looks. Architecture and art, on the other hand, have that immense, timeless feel.

Still, the project of making the campus even more aesthetically appealing should be secondary to any functional problems, especially when the solutions are fairly obvious.

Sarah Bronson is a Brown College junior.

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