For reasons I can’t figure out, Brandeis University is in such dire financial straights that the university has decided to sell its famed art collection housed in the Rose Art Museum.

The university is taking the line that its core mission is to educate its students, but isn’t artwork a learning tool and resource? And is the university also selling its library collection (because both are objects that contain knowledge and are used to build new knowledge)? If not, why not?

These questions are rhetorical because–clearly–I consider the sale of an art collection (especially during “times like these”) to be an educational absurdity that reflects the lack of big-picture thinking on the part of the university.