Brandeis University cuts music Ph.D. programs

[Rach3]

Per Lebrecht today:

Faculty members are spreading the word that Brandeis University, one of America’s most prestigious colleges, has abolished its PhD programs in composition and musicology and put its teaching staff on hiatus.

Assistant Professor Emily Frey Giansiracusa writes: "As some of you know, our Provost told us in May that the Musicology graduate program at Brandeis would be put on hiatus, with the intention of restoring it when the University’s finances improved. The administration told us today that BOTH Musicology and Composition will be put on hiatus following this year – now with the intention of closing them permanently and shifting their scant resources to the sciences. This recommendation was made in spite of the results of an 18-month-long review of all Brandeis PhD programs, which found that Musicology and Composition ranked at or very near *the top* of all programs by every metric the PhD review team claimed to value. These elements included job placement rate, attrition, matriculation, and many other measures by which we were found to be excellent.

Despite the fact that our President has a background in economics, the administration makes this recommendation contrary to all economic sense; comparatively speaking, the PhD programs in Music are dirt cheap to run, and they produce among the best results at Brandeis. This decision is based, rather, on values: the Brandeis administration does not believe that the arts and humanities are worthy of study at the graduate level. It’s an attitude that smacks of the techno-utopianism of 15 years ago – before Silicon Valley realized that it might have to think about the ethical and historical questions in which artists and humanists are expert, before ChatGPT and generative AI pushed questions about the nature of human creation to the front page of every newspaper. This is an exceptionally strange time to declare so confidently that the arts and humanities don’t matter, but here we are."

[Lance]

This is tragic, for sure. As long as costs escalate, as they have been doing over the last few years, many people cannot simply afford education. Even state schools have climbed up the ladder. What will ultimately happen? We know!

[david johnson]

"all Brandeis PhD programs, which found that Musicology and Composition ranked at or very near *the top* of all programs by every metric the PhD review team claimed to value. These elements included job placement rate, attrition, matriculation, and many other measures by which we were found to be excellent.'

I worked in education for 40 years. I never accuse an administrator of knowing what to do regarding music matters.

[Rach3]

Et tu,Brute ?

https://www.masslive.com/news/2023/08/n ... -talk.html

Similar occurrence at my local FM classical recently, with classical programming moved to another FM frequency with shorter range, poorer sound quality, more static and interference, one of my radios can't even pickup the signal. I prefer to listen on a radio, not streams.

[maestrob]

Brian - I could not have said it better. WHAT has happened to Americans? They are missing so much! {Somehow the rest of your post got cut. Sorry, I have no idea why.)

maestrob/Brians said:
Europeans grow up with classical music in their veins, while our schools cut music programs as "elitist!" They ignore the character-building benefits of mastering the great art of music-making at their peril.

Grrr!

[Lance]

See reply to Brian's note, some of which got cut. My apologies.