At 1:17 PM -0500 1/15/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
I have had the impression that US government arts funding is minuscule in comparison to the actual budgets of the large arts organizations.
Another, quite different facet of this discussion just occurred to me. (Thanks, David!)
This is a research university. OK, so what does that mean? Well, what it DOESN'T mean is that the university budgets funding for basic research from its state support (small and not growing), or its tuition. No, it's a big grants-writng competition, and the kind of grants we're talking about can come either from government (NIH, or any of a dozen other alphabet soups) or from private industry.
If no one has ever worked in private industry, you might be very surprised at some of the decisions that are made, mainly because of their tax implications more than anything else. My own experience was with the Disney organization, when I directed The All American College Singers shows for two summers and ran the vocal auditions for that program during the winter in between. When our audition tour was booked, they automatically booked hotels for us in each city (although often at the hotels the Disney executives liked, which were a little pricier than our housing allowances covered!). They automatically booked transportation, including rental cars in each city. They gave us a reasonable per diem for meals. (Nice enough that I could save up for a beautiful birthday present for my wife!)
During the summers when I worked at the theme parks, they automatically rented apartments for me AND my family, provided air transportation for me AND my family, rented furniture for our apartments, and rented us a car. OK, that's my point: every penny was deductible as a business expense, so they rented rather than maintaining their own apartments, fleet of cars, etc. When my summers were over they returned all the rented stuff (including me!!) and life went on.
THAT'S WHAT GOVENMENT-SPONSORED AND CORPORATE-SPONSORED RESEARCH IS ALL ABOUT! They are renting first-rate scientists and engineers and providing the necessary supporting personnel and equipment rather than maintaining their own staff researchers and labs. The university benefits from having nationally-known researchers on the faculty (some of whom actually teach once in a while) and having labs updated with good, modern equipment and being able to offer research fellowships to graduate students. It makes economic sense both for them and for the sponsoring organizations. And every contract includes an amount--often a very substantial amount--for "overhead," and the departments that generate those overhead funds guarded them very jealously and never wanted to share them with the rest of us! (Does it surprise anyone at all that music departments' chance of landing research contracts amounts to a snowball's chance in you-know-where?!!!)
The arguments about funding sources can't help but strike me as more than a little simple-minded, but hey, man, what do I know; I'm in the band!!!
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
