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The Board of Trustee’s authorization for the university to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its collection has been met with disbelief, outrage and protest from both within the Brandeis community and beyond. The reactions of people who cannot comprehend the decision the Board made have been the topic of tens of national headlines in the past two weeks.

Less well heard, however, are the voices of community members who dislike the decision, but understand the difficulties the Board faced.

“It’s an awful decision, but it’s a hard choice,” Jordan Warsoff ’11 said, “I trust them. We wouldn’t still be here if [the administration] didn’t know what they are doing.”

Warsoff continued to say that, unlike many students who do not believe that closing the Rose is the correct decision, he was “convinced” that looking into closing the Rose was the only option after he saw Executive Vice President and Chief Officer Peter French’s presentation to the student body last Wednesday.

Prof. Detlev Suderow (IBS) agreed, saying that the decision to authorize the closing of the Rose is “unpleasant but necessary.”

In an e-mail to the faculty listserv detailing why he supports the university administration, Suderow wrote that he believes that Brandeis is only one of many universities that will have to make cuts in the coming months. By acting quickly, he believes, Brandeis has faced the brunt of the media attention, but will “prosper” in the long run.

Suderow also wrote that other institutions with slower reactions to the economy will have to pay the price.

“There are hard lessons learned in business from surviving a severe economic downturn, and most of those lessons apply equally to all institutions,” he wrote. “Whatever action you have to take, do them early, do them quick, and do them deep. The earlier you face the facts, the better chance an institution has to manage the new fiscal reality, survive, and even prosper…That’s what our leadership at Brandeis is doing.”

He also wrote that while both he and his wife, who met as students at Brandeis and graduated in 1973 are patrons of the arts, he believes that selling the Rose’s collection is necessary in order for the university to survive.

“The economy is in extremely bad shape,” he warned his fellow faculty members. “You may not feel it directly right now, but it will likely get a lot worse before it gets better. Remember the old adage, ‘if your neighbor loses their job it is a recession, but if you lose your job, it is a depression.’ Brandeis’ survival is your job too.”

Laura Velez ’11 said that while she is sad about the possibility of the Rose closing, she feels as though her opinions are misrepresented in the media.

The extreme voices are always going to get heard,” she said, “but that’s not how most of us feel. The administration needs to know that even though we are upset, most of us understand the decision.”

Velez also said that while she believes no member of the student body “took the decision lightly,” many unheard students understand why closing the Rose may be necessary.

Velez continued to say that while many students are upset that they were not first consulted about the Board’s voting to close the Rose, she believes that their “up in arms” reactions only confirm any fears the administration may have had about students misunderstanding the need to close the Rose.

“The administration needs to know that students are reasonable. If they had explained the decision to us before, they would know that, but student reaction isn’t proving it to them either,” she said.

Velez also said that she is worried about the impression the media’s coverage of student reaction will make on “the world outside Brandeis.”

“Students need to let the media know that the university is not falling apart,” she said. “It might look that way, but it’s not.”