The Observer, March 10, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 20
Free Speech Zone: Case should utilize University Circle, shift to arts
To the Editor:
In the wake of the no confidence votes last Thursday, some thought should be given to the larger picture. Case as a true "research university" of the highest rank, President Hundert as leader and fund raiser, and University Circle as a much-talked about but never fully realized opportunity are all interrelated. How?
Case, or Case Western Reserve, is out of balance. In spite of a fine humanities or "liberal arts" faculty, SAGES, and Baker-Nord, this university is over-weighted towards the sciences, engineering, and medicine. Funding goes there, the best graduate students go there, and the larger reputation of the university is based there and pretty much only there.
But it doesn't have to be. University Circle has two of the pre-eminent humanities institutions on earth, and no university – not Harvard, not Princeton, not Yale – has anything like the geographic proximity of the finest orchestra in the United States, many say in the world, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Developing a real relationship between Case and these two institutions would go a long way towards addressing the imbalance between the sciences and the arts. But it has to start at the top, at the level of the Case president and the directors of the orchestra and museum. And it has to include shared teaching and funding of programs. Peter B. Lewis called for this over a year ago. His call was never heard, and he took his $101 million to Princeton. What for? The arts. It should have gone here. It could have gone here. President Hundert needs to act and restore confidence in the opportunity that has too long been unrealized.
Thomas P. Boyer
Former CIT student, 1966-1967
