Financial Austerity and the State of Cultural Institutions
We’ve all heard the saying, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Sadly, we’re living through a convergence of crises, and the architects of our crises are seizing on the opportunity.
Calls for fiscal austerity started early in the pandemic as political, financial, and business leaders predicted a major economic contraction. In response, managers across the private and public sectors have been directed to find cost-cutting measures.
We know that the arts and humanities are especially vulnerable at moments such as these. Historically, in times of economic tumult, the cultural sector has lost support from governments and donors, even as it has seen other sources of revenue decline.
What makes this moment particularly precarious for cultural institutions, their employees, and their communities is the fact that this economic crisis follows a long period of cost cutting and layoffs. It comes at a time when, in many countries, there is an increasing push to force cultural institutions to, in the words of U.K. cultural minister Oliver Dowden, “be commercially minded” or lose funding—as if, a museum’s collections are like the showroom at a Pottery Barn and a university education is equivalent to a Quesarito (yes, that’s a thing) at Taco Bell.
The danger in this framework is, of course, the assumption that competition always generates the best outcomes. It suggests that education and access to cultural experiences are commodities. It reduces the many public goods that emerge from the arts and humanities into the language of money. From this perspective, financial calculations can take precedence over other values and short-sighted interests can be elevated over the common good.
Given all that has been happening in the world over the past year, it can difficult to keep track of how quickly the arts and humanities landscape is being transformed.
The sections below—Museums, Archives, University Departments, and University Presses—provide details on the extent to which U.S. and U.K. cultural institutions are being reshaped by calls for fiscal overhauls. The details are demonstrative rather than exhaustive (for example, the post doesn’t include information on the performing arts), but they provide a clear sense that we are living through a moment of historic change and that it’s a good idea to pay attention.
Museums
Museums have often faced cuts and closures during economic crises; see, for example, this crowdsourced list of closures (mostly since 2016). The scale at which COVID-19 will affect museums is still to be seen, but an October 2020 report from the American Alliance of Museums states that
Nearly one-third of museum directors surveyed confirmed there was a “significant risk” (12%) of closing permanently by next fall, or they “didn’t know” (17%) if they would survive.
Over half (52%) of museums have six months or less of operating reserves; 82% have twelve months or less of operating reserves.
Over half (53%) of responding museums have had to furlough or lay off staff. Overall, respondents indicate that approximately 30% of staff are currently out of work. Positions most impacted by staffing reductions included frontline (68%), education (40%), security/maintenance (29%), and collections (26%) staff.
Cuts to U.S. institutions are illustrative of broader international trends. For example, a restructuring of the Victoria & Albert Museum may close the department of Theatre and Performance—a relatively new department created when the V&A closed the Theatre Museum in 2007. There is a petition if you wish to sign it.
Funders, whether they are private or governmental, have sometimes used moments like these to undermine the curatorial independence of museum professionals. This crisis has been no different. For example, in September 2020, the U.K.’s culture minister, Oliver Dowden, threatened to cut funding to major museums if they removed controversial statues or memorials:
"Some [statues] represent figures who have said or done things which we may find deeply offensive and would not defend today. . . . as publicly funded bodies, you should not be taking actions motivated by activism or politics. The significant support that you receive from the taxpayer is an acknowledgement of the important cultural role you play for the entire country. It is imperative that you continue to act impartially, in line with your publicly funded status, and not in a way that brings this into question. This is especially important as we enter a challenging Comprehensive Spending Review, in which all government spending will rightly be scrutinised.
Archives
In 2020, the U.S. Office of Management and the Budget approved the Public Buildings Reform Board’s proposal to close and sell the National Archives building in Seattle—an essential repository of history for indigenous communities in the northwest. According to a complaint filed on 5 January 2021, the archives also holds “50,000 original files related to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, as well as original records related to the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.” On 12 February, a federal judge placed an injunction on the sale of the archives building, but the future is still unknown.
At the beginning of this year, the library and archive of the Wallace Collection was threatened with closure. In response, nearly 29,000 people signed a petition to keep it open, and—good news—the campaign was a success!
But, not all art history archives have fared as well as the Wallace Collection. Currently, the National Art Library (NAL) at the Victoria & Albert Museum are being threatened with its staff being cut by two-thirds. A petition to save staff jobs notes that management is also threatening to "close the NAL to the public for 12 months."
In February, Christie’s closed access to its one-of-a-kind collection of historic auction catalogs.
The Society of Antiquaries of London, an important historical archive, library, and museum founded in 1707, is facing the threat of relocation. Located at Burlington House for 140 years, the government began raising its rent—from £4,800 a year in 2012-13 to £150,000 a year in 2018-19. Effectively, the government is forcing the society to spend its reserves while it seeks support from MPs and a fair compromise. If forced to move, the society would likely need to sell off parts of its historical collection to cover the costs.
University Departments
The economic effects of COVID-19 have also hit university campuses quite hard. In its wake, staff were effected the most dramatically, with massive layoffs to housing and food services staff in particular as campuses shut down their facilities. As campuses reopen, many of these jobs will also come back. However, administrators at multiple universities have used the crisis as a moment to accelerate cuts to faculty, departments, and programs—jobs and majors that will be lost permanently.
It’s clear that some government officials see this as an opportunity for long-term changes in how higher-ed functions. For example, a unanimous Kansas Board of Regents voted in late January to use the pandemic to dissolve tenure protections until 2022:
In light of the extreme financial pressures placed on the state universities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, decreased program and university enrollment, and state fiscal issues, effective immediately through December 31, 2021 and notwithstanding any other Board or institutional
policy, any state university employee, including a tenured faculty member, may be suspended, dismissed, or terminated from employment by their respective university.
This declaration ignores the standards framed by the American Association of University Professors, which requires going through a formal process initiated by financial exigency. And, there are real reasons to be concerned that universities, legislators, and regents in the United States may be tempted to use the cover of COVID-19 to set precedents for ignoring longstanding principles and standards into the future.
The short list below includes just a few of the colleges and universities that have initiated (or are attempting to initiate) substantial faculty layoffs and department or program closures in the U.S. and the U.K.
At this point, a number of professional arts and humanities organizations have made public statements against efforts to shutter university departments and layoff staff in the middle of a pandemic:
You may also want to read this joint statement at #wearehumanistic by dozens of organizations.
And, while not necessarily linked to COVID-19, it is also worth having a look at how UC Santa Cruz handled a strike by teaching assistants in February 2020.
University Presses
I know that most people outside academe rarely read books by university presses and that the small print runs of these books are often cited as a reason for their lack of relevance (which, by the way, is a great example of a false cause logical fallacy), but the fact is, these books (and journals) shape scholarly inquiry as well as teaching. Their effects can grow slowly—shaping and reshaping thoughts, opinions, and actions—until one day the average person on the street understands academic arguments as common knowledge. A case in point: Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions from 1962; you may never have heard of it—or even understand many of its arguments—but I bet you have a good sense of what a “paradigm shift” means.
Threats to university presses have existed for a long time and were exacerbated by the 2008-9 economic collapse. And, in the past few years as universities have continued to struggle with the effects of 2008-9 and the broader work of legislatures to cut public funding for universities, there have been a number of closures: University of Akron Press (2015), Duquesne University Press (2017), University Press of New England (2018), and Ahsahta Press of Boise State University (2019).
In 2016, Northern Illinois University decided that its press was "nonessential," putting its support on the chopping block. The university provides $320,000 of the press’s budget $750,000. Its football coach received $568K per year.
In April 2019, Stanford University’s provost announced it would cut the university’s $1.7 million annual subsidy to the press. This is, by the way, a press that generates $5 million each year at a school that pays its football coach $4.8 million per year.
In February 2021, the trustees of the University Press of Kansas began a review of the press in light of financial strains—a crisis driven in part to state cuts to the university budget. There is an online petition to save the press. There may be some money in the banana stand however; their football coach makes $3.3 million per year.