BU College of Fine Arts Dean's Blog

Welcome

As I have settled in on Commonwealth Avenue in the past few months, I have met many students, faculty, alumni, staff, and fellow members of arts organizations around Boston, and well beyond. This is a way for us to stay in touch.  If I have not yet met you, we can use this blog as a way to get acquainted and exchange ideas.

I want this to be a dialogue. Please let me know of your thoughts on anything you see here or on matters of interest to you that relate in some way to the arts.

President Kennedy

Fifty years ago this morning, John F. Kennedy, a Bostonian, was elected president of the United States. He was a promoter and defender of the arts. His visionary words lead to the creation under his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and later, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.

Here are some of those words:

"I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft." Amherst College, 10/26/63.

"The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is very close to the center of a nation's purpose...and is a test of the quality of a nation's civilization." Statement prepared for Creative America, 1963.  JFK Library

Unfortunately, few leaders today share President Kennedy's interest in, much less, understanding of the crucial role the arts play in our society. If current political and economic trends are an indication, public support for arts organizations will continue to decrease. This is why students must prepare to become not just artists but arts advocates. They cannot wait for leaders to do this for them.