Art at Harvard
Harvard would like to add more art to their liberal arts, which at the moment, I must confess, are very liberal indeed. The art is enthusiastic, a broad mix of classical and popular with perhaps a little too much popular. It doesn’t have the setting or even the selectness that it ought, at a university of our calibre. When I think, “Bastion of Culturally Significant Arts,” I don’t immediately think of Harvard.
Why?
Because deep down, I want Harvard to be something it isn’t. I want Harvard to be as rigorously scientific as MIT, as sensitive as Lesley, as establishment-minded as BU, and as traditional as itself. It isn’t. It has the capability, but right now, things are being designed by committee which need to be decided by mandate. The result is a university that is as clique-ish as MIT, as occasionally whiny as Lesley, as overpriced as BU, and as defensively liberal as itself.
Don’t get me wrong. I love and adore every one of those schools, and each has something amazing to offer the community. Especially Harvard. And a deep understanding of the arts really is important for students, of all ages. But when I think, “What does Harvard need most, right now?” The answer that I arrive at is not, “More art.”
It’s more careful screening.
See, what’s going on at Harvard is that there’s too much of everything, and it isn’t carefully chosen. It’s just added. Content is heaped in, and what happens is that Harvard gets out of hand. The current recession is going to be very good for Harvard; it will make them really examine where the money is going. Do we need to put every professor on a tenure track? Do we need certain classes? Do we need a bigger campus?
No. It’s a tough answer, but the answer is no. Instead of more, we need better.
Some examples of what I dream of for Harvard:
To have professors who do not discuss their political leanings during class hours. (I had one do this; in urging us to vote, she couldn’t even name McCain. It was Obama and, “that Other Guy.” Over and over. She swore that if “that Other Guy,” won, she was moving to Mars. She “couldn’t abide the thought.”)
Well, you know what? I expect you to abide the thought, at least as long as class is in session, because frankly, your politics have no place in a class which is not about politics. I was offended not by her leanings, but by her bringing them up, and by letting us and Harvard down by not doing so in a fair and respectful manner. You do not address anyone as, “that Other Guy.” It simply isn’t done, especially in a place that wants to be known as the place to go for culture. This, to me, was an example of something that Harvard needs to pay attention to. How many teachers are using the class this way? How appropriate is it? And… do we want this to happen with art as well? I don’t want to be taught a certain slant. I want to be shown all sides, especially when it comes to art, which is so subjective that we really need to reach, to stretch, to understand. It’s going to take very good teachers to cultivate that.
Which is another good point: classes taught by actual professors. I have had quite a few taught by TAs. More even than those taught by professors. I find it difficult to learn from a TA who does not know the material herself. (In most of these cases, it was a “herself,” and not a “himself.” I’m fine with that, it’s the TA status I find difficult.) I am really bothered by the number of classes where there is no professor, just a TA younger than I am, who is struggling to find time to correct the massive amount of work we turn in. I wouldn’t mind it if it were just a few cases, a few classes. But it isn’t. I have had classes taken from professors who, at the end of the course, had no idea who I was, because they had not seen a single thing I’d handed in. I had never had any actual interaction with them, and all questions were directed toward the crop of graduate students who waited in the wings, hovering anxiously and trying to get our papers back to us as they frantically worked on their own projects.
Or.. classes taught in up-to-date buildings. Harvard has a huge, sprawling capmus. You can easily get lost going between classes. Some of those buildings are beyond old: broken walls, threadbare carpets, radiators that don’t work. When I went to high school, we had buildings like that, because our school system ran out of money. What’s Harvard’s excuse? Surely, if a class is worth teaching, it’s worth teaching well. I don’t want them to add curriculum choices, I want them to value more highly the ones we have.
These grudges of mine are not fatal. I love my school. I even genuinely like the TAs, most of whom try desperately to make up in effort what they lack in experience, and are far more willing than the professors to help if you’re confused by the material. They work darned hard for their living, and have every reason to be proud of their work.
But… “Art.”
Art is not a thing. You cannot simply build it, buy it, have it. You cannot just “add” art. Art is something personal, valuable, and even secret; art is the spot in each of us that is capable of appreciating the beautiful, the lasting, the meaningful, in the world around us. Art is the opposite of commerce, it is not about production. It is about creation, removing materials from the line of production. It’s the act of putting together what’s there in a valuable and meaningful manner, which creates value because it represents some quality or relationship in the universe which we find to be true. This is not something that can be decided by committee. It is something that is decided privately in the back of the soul. The best that a committee can do is acknowledge that it exists, and do a better job of choosing representational examples. Adding more simply creates clutter. It introduces art for the sake of having it, it introduces the idea that art can be provided, instead of discovered.
Now, I know Natalie Portman graduated Harvard in 2003 with a psych degree. And as the number of famous artists who went to Harvard (or have been given honorary degrees) grows, Harvard wants to prove that they are a repsonsible member of the arts community. And I know that Harvard really does care about the arts, and our balanced educations. I just also feel deeply that, like politics, art is something that should be discovered as our learning takes us- it is something we should have available and be able to pursue, but the tastes should not be instilled by teaching. Only the will for it, the longing for it, should be taught.
Liberal arts does not meal left-leaning and artistic. It refers to classical learning. Languages, math, science, humanities, all of these things put together make a balanced person. I don’t want Harvard to develop its softer side. I think the creation of an “Arts task force,” is ridiculous; do we have a “Science task force,” or a “Language task force”? No. We don’t need one. What we need is more integration between art and what we learn already. What we need is more focus on what we learn already. I am afraid that Harvard will do for art what it is doing for the other subjects I am learning: relegate it to second-tier instruction, serve it up according to someone’s personal agenda (or create opportunities to, which will result in the same), let it happen in shabby, old classrooms on the fringes of campus. I want art to be what it is: pervasive, glorious, and uncontainable. I want it to be approached with the discipline and concentration that Harvard is capable of. I do not want more art. I want better art. Just as Harvard’s instruction needs to focus on improving the present version, I think we should focus on improving the art we have access to, not just exposing us to more of it, everywhere, until it becomes a commodity like any other. I want Harvard to shy away from providing more just because we need more. We are not children. We are not babies, who need to be fed from an artificial bottle held up by our Arts Task Force. We do not need to be thrown into the world of art, or have a wide net cast out to surround us with it until we absorb some.
We need Harvard to do what it has always done, to guide us in learning to appreciate and discover for ourselves. To encourage us to fairly and respectfully talk about it, to treat it with respect by giving it decent surroundings and proper introduction. We need Harvard to respect art, and us, by allowing us to pursue our friendship in our own sweet time, and we need Harvard to save its money for the best, and skip the broad sweep of popular art. Let us find it on our own. You know that we will. We always have.
One Response to “Art at Harvard”
freestyle - June 6th, 2009
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Emma
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