Mary Schmidt Campbell
Dean, Tisch School of the Arts
Vice-Chair, President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities
When President Obama announced my appointment as vice-chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH as we call it for short), my 12 year old grandson, William wrote me a charming congratulations e-mail. In it, he stated overtly, what I am sure every adult who offered congratulations was thinking covertly, and that is what exactly is the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and what does a vice-chair do anyway? Good question William. After serving for almost two years as the chair of the New York State Council on the Arts (I stepped down from that post, July 1st of this year), I can safely say what the PCAH does not do. We do not give out grants or provide technical assistance or support individual artists as NYSCA does and has been doing so brilliantly for almost 50 years. And we do not provide any oversight to the grant making organizations that dispense federal funds nationally to cultural organizations or to college and universities across the country as do the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Institute of Museum Services (IMLS). We do function, however, as a bipartisan think tank. Not one to easily let his grandmother off the hook, I knew that William would have asked me next—grandma, “what’s a think tank?”
Before he even had a chance to ask the question, I offered him the dictionary definition: a think tank is a “body of experts providing advice and ideas on specific national …problems.” As I explained to my grandson, the President has a lot of different areas of American life to think about and his think tanks serve as a place where experts in the field can get together with the leadership of executive agencies and brainstorm exciting new ideas. Think tanks are groups of people who generate ideas that are good for our country and, in this case, good for the future of the arts and humanities. What often happens in any organization, be it a large institution, a small not-for-profit, a big corporation, a small business or government, is that we get used to the way things are. A dynamic organization has to have a way to think forward, a way to consider what new possibilities might offer.
What I didn’t tell my grandson William but what worries me a great deal is the fact that some observers have stated that the role of the arts is “art for art’s sake.” To be honest, I don’t quite understand why some would want the President’s think tank to think only about “Art for art’s sake.” Why in the world would we want to sequester the arts? Why would we want to confine artists to think only about art? Art is about the world, about who we are, our desires and beliefs, about the clash and disruptions of the world and the individuals who live in it. Why would we rob the country of the vitality of creative thinking by insisting that the arts and humanities stick only to themselves? Not only the arts and humanities, but science, engineering, architecture are all creative endeavors that have a role in the future of our country. Right now in American culture our cities and states could use some forward thinking, thinking that brings together some of the best minds from all of those areas. If we think for a moment about The Greeks, the Romans, the Renaissance and the accomplishments of thinkers like Brunelleschi, and Leonardo, they all understood the value of bringing together multiple disciplines as did our founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. And those are just the examples from western culture!
What should our president’s think tanks be thinking about? Our cities have been battered by floods and economic windstorms. Our infrastructure is aging. Some of our biggest states are floundering. Our public school education is begging for an overhaul in one municipality after another. New possibilities, and innovative thinking are necessary. Let’s bring the arts, humanities and all the wisdom of the ages to the table to think our way creatively to our future.
