UNH Closes Art Museum Due to Budget Cuts But Keeps DEI Administrators
“It is unusual for an R1 university and a flagship land grant university to be without a museum and yet, here we are”
This says a lot about the school’s priorities, doesn’t it?
The College Fix reports:
Amid $14 million in budget cuts, UNH closes art museum, keeps DEI administrators
As it grapples with slashing $14 million from its annual budget, the University of New Hampshire recently shuttered its Museum of Art and announced it’s laying off 75 faculty and staff members to balance the books.
However the university has yet to publicly identify cuts into personnel dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion, which reportedly costs an estimated $1 million-plus in annual salaries.
Similarly, its Museum of Art operates at an estimated cost of around $1 million annually. It was shuttered in January due to budget cuts.
“It is unusual for an R1 university and a flagship land grant university to be without a museum and yet, here we are,” museum Director Kristina Durocher said in the statement announcing its closure.
Durocher pointed out faculty had used the museum’s exhibits for student instruction, and some students showcased their own work at a venue that had been around in various iterations for 60 years.
The New Hampshire Art Association told The College Fix UNH’s decision to close the museum was a “mistake.”
“It is so sad to me that UNH does not see the value of accessible art to its students and community at large,” association Executive Director Amanda Kidd-Kestler said via email. “In addition to the favorable economic impacts, art brings people together.”
“Art has the power to foster empathy and spark difficult conversations,” she added. “In this divisive time, art is more essential than ever.”
While programming by UNH’s Aulbani J. Beauregard Center for Equity, Justice and Freedom will be reduced, campus leaders “have not indicated whether only staff or the entire department would be cut,” Neetu Arnold, research fellow at the National Association of Scholars, wrote for Reason on Feb. 2.
In an email to The College Fix, she said UNH “should first cut roles and services that have little to do with providing an education to students.”
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If they dedicate museum space to black history or art or whatnot, they would be forced to find the money to keep it open even if nobody wanted to see it.
That would not take up much space in New Hampshire.