Photo by Mike Lovett, courtesy Rose Art Museum

The Rose Art Museum

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In a statement issued to Brandeis alumni, Reinharz said that the museum "is NOT going to close" and that the school plans to sell "only a limited number" of artworks "if the need arises in the future."

Jonathan Lee, chairman of the museum's board, called the statement "spin" and a "smoke-and-mirrors ploy," suggesting, along with several other donors, that the new plan in fact has changed very little from its previous iteration.

Reinharz set off a firestorm of criticism from the Brandeis community, as well as the nationwide academic and museum communities, in January when he announced that the school's board had voted "to close the Rose Art Museum" and "publicly sell the art collection," which includes 7,000 contemporary artworks.

According to the new plan, the museum will remain open as a "teaching and exhibition gallery." A spokesperson for Reinharz said that no art would be sold for at least two years barring a "catastrophic" economic downturn.

Jerry Fineberg, a former Rose chairman who funded a wing of the museum, said that much of the value of the collection is concentrated in a handful of artworks, so the school could sell "only a limited number" as announced and still do major damage to the museum's worth.

Donors to the museum have been particularly vocal in their criticism of Reinharz's actions of the past several months. Fred Hopengarten, a member of the Rose family that established the museum, said the family is exploring the possibility of retracting its big donation and giving it "to a real museum" instead.

Tonight the university will host a symposium titled "Preserving Trust: Art and the Art Museum Amidst Financial Crisis," which will discuss the school's predicament and the future of the museum. Panelists include no representatives of the art or museum worlds but rather three major figures in literature: former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, novelist Claire Messud, and Shakespeare scholar and Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt. It can be viewed live online starting at 6:30 tonight and will be posted to YouTube afterward.