Leading academics from around the country gathered on campus yesterday to address what many experts consider a crisis in the humanities.
A crowd filled Rackham Amphitheatre at 8 a.m. to begin a nine-hour day of speeches, panels and group sessions as part of the second annual Jerome B. Weisner Symposium.
"We are hoping that in one packed day of discussions we can make progress," interim Vice President for Research Frederick Neidhardt said. "In the very least we can understand what the University can do."
The topic of this year's symposium was "The Future of the Government/University Partnership: A National Policy Conference on the Humanities and Arts." The event, sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research, prepares for the Year of Humanities and Arts that begins in Fall 1997.
University President Lee Bollinger said a combination of free-market tendencies, censorship and a decrease in the confidence of standards have created a feeling of urgency.
"There is a sense of crisis, and something has to be analyzed," Bollinger said. "But it is also an exhilarating time to be participating in culture in the United States. It is a time of explosion, not consolidation. It is not a time for an easy ride through culture, but a time for holding on ... for dear life."
National Public Radio Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr, who was the symposium's keynote speaker, said the nation is lacking a feeling of public endeavor.
"Public institutions and public activities are, in their own nature, equalizing," Schorr said. "They permit the poor to paint, to write, to compose, to study and contribute to the creative life in America in ways otherwise only open to the affluent."
National Endowment for the Humanities Chair Sheldon Hackney said Americans are moving away from community ideals.
"As we retreat from each other, we not only know less of each other, but we care less for each other," Hackney said.
"There needs to be a national idea of community, a national sentiment. We need to have some notion that 'I belong to this nation and therefore I am somewhat responsible that community exists,'" Hackney said.
Schorr had critical words for President Clinton and the government's apprehension to support programs of humanities and arts based solely on merit.
"The result of indifference and hostility has been to throw government on the the defensive," Schorr said. "To support the arts and humanities endowments, President Clinton has to talk something close to double-talk. Liberal arts? They must be brought in by stealth. Maybe the word 'liberal' is enough to make the subject taboo."
Schorr said the nation needs to learn that all of its resources, including people, are finite.
"I think we will get to the point where classes will be brought together again through public institutions and publicly supported creative activities," he said. "I think so because I believe this is a maturing civilization, a little childish at times, and when it reaches adulthood, there is no other way to go but acting as members of a community."
ADDIE SMITH/Daily
Daniel Schorr, National Public Radio senior news analyst, speaks at the Weisner Symposium yesterday morning.