When Brandeis University announced on January 26 its intention to close its Rose Art Museum, the plan seemed clear: the museum would be shuttered this summer and its entire collection of some 7,100 works sold. “The Rose is a jewel,” university president Jehuda Reinharz said at the time. “But for the most part it’s a hidden jewel. It does not have great foot traffic and most of the great works we have we are just not able to exhibit. We felt that at this point, given the recession and the financial crisis, we had no choice.”

Just as clear, however, were the protests: from the Rose staff and board of overseers, the Brandeis community, and the art museum community. The Association of Art Museum Directors was “shocked and dismayed,” the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries “saddened and disappointed.”

Within days, Brandeis began to waver. Perhaps it would close the museum and keep the art, or maybe it would sell only a few works from the collection. On February 5, Reinharz said he had “screwed up.” Most recently, last week, university provost Marty Krauss released a statement in response to a request from the appointed “Committee for the Future of the Rose” clarifying plans for the immediate future of the museum. The upshot: the museum will remain open for now, current shows (“Saints and Sinners,” on spirituality in art, and a look at Hans Hofmann circa 1950) will be extended, and a new exhibition drawn from the permanent collection is to go on view July 22. But esteemed (and vocal) director Michael Rush is out, along with several other staff members.

Again, response was critical and swift. The museum’s board of overseers wasted no time issuing a response in which Meryl Rose, a member of both the board and the family that founded the museum, said that the university administration “is carrying out an elaborate charade, the first step of which is to turn the Rose from a true museum as its founders intended into something quite different.”

ARTINFO spoke to Meryl Rose about her take on Brandeis’s actions and her hopes for the future of the museum.

Meryl, on April 23 the Rose Art Museum’s board of overseers released a statement saying that the announcement university provost Marty Krauss made earlier that week about plans for the museum is misleading. Can you tell me about that?

Well, the endgame hasn’t changed: They want to sell art, period. What has changed is that they’re saying they’re keeping it a public art museum. But museums don’t operate in a vacuum. They cooperate with other museums. There are traveling shows that go around. A museum needs a director, a curator, patrons and donors; and all of that has stopped at the Rose. So the museum is really pretty much dead in the water right now.

The board’s statement said that the university has been misleading in terms of how much staff is being retained, and in what capacity. How many employees are left?

I think three, though I’m not sure that’s correct. But these are the people they need to sell the art, and to oversee it so that nothing happens to it while they’re preparing to sell it. These are not people to carry out the functions of a museum in any meaningful way.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the university does want to sell off the art, and that that’s a good idea. Now is not a great time for the art market, is it?

I can’t even for the sake of argument go down that road. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason ever to sell art is if the art doesn’t go along with the mission of the museum and the money is used to buy other art. Period. That’s the way museums operate and should operate. It’s not law, but these are the ethics that bind museums. At a university such as Brandeis, which was founded by one of our chief justices, you would think that the ethics would play a big role. It’s really quite sad.

These are sad times.

They are sad times. But there are certain things you just don’t do. There will come a time when fortunes are made back, and endowments are replenished, and the university will be ok. But once they do this, it cannot be undone. It’s forever. You just don’t sell your culture.