Spring Break
Letter to the Editor: Closing the Benton will lessen students' quality of life
Issue date: 3/6/09 Section: Commentary
I am a business student here at UConn, so no accusations please about being out of touch with the realities of the world. I understand well enough. But I don't buy that cutting the Benton Museum of Art from the budget will have any part in getting us through this budget crisis.
Are we creatures of habit, lovers of a fast and easy solution, practical, efficient, unemotional? No, we are creatures with profound metaphorical identities, strongly connected to each other and our history through images, music and movement. Our history is not in textbooks, and does not exist in any realistic way in a classroom. Our history is told through a person who has had the courage to express the fabric of their life through art, song or story. Art is the most accurate record of history.
Now, as a country, I strongly feel that we are recovering from being lied to, misled, hurt, conned and taken advantage of. However, the greatest tool in this recovery is our enthusiasm for living, the value we each embody and our ability to make life joyful. A unique joy and particular energy is found when we have a place to connect to each other. This is a real need and it is expressed through a student's desire to belong somewhere, to love something, to know themselves and see something of themselves reflected in art on the walls, or the music they hear. That must be valued. That is our identity.
In a room in the Benton, there is merengue music playing, and wonderful artwork of people dancing close together, celebrating life, joy, birth, smiling women with big hips and poor men playing music together. Where are we looking for the solutions to the problems we now face? At some point, we have to concede: Our problems grow proportionally to our fears, and the courageous, joyful answers are the right ones.
-Katheryn Miller, graduate student in business administration
Are we creatures of habit, lovers of a fast and easy solution, practical, efficient, unemotional? No, we are creatures with profound metaphorical identities, strongly connected to each other and our history through images, music and movement. Our history is not in textbooks, and does not exist in any realistic way in a classroom. Our history is told through a person who has had the courage to express the fabric of their life through art, song or story. Art is the most accurate record of history.
Now, as a country, I strongly feel that we are recovering from being lied to, misled, hurt, conned and taken advantage of. However, the greatest tool in this recovery is our enthusiasm for living, the value we each embody and our ability to make life joyful. A unique joy and particular energy is found when we have a place to connect to each other. This is a real need and it is expressed through a student's desire to belong somewhere, to love something, to know themselves and see something of themselves reflected in art on the walls, or the music they hear. That must be valued. That is our identity.
In a room in the Benton, there is merengue music playing, and wonderful artwork of people dancing close together, celebrating life, joy, birth, smiling women with big hips and poor men playing music together. Where are we looking for the solutions to the problems we now face? At some point, we have to concede: Our problems grow proportionally to our fears, and the courageous, joyful answers are the right ones.
-Katheryn Miller, graduate student in business administration
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