While in DC [sic] this past weekend, I learned that the MFA program I graduated from almost two years ago has been cut. It’s been very sobering for me to see the sights in DC and realize most of them are available to us because of the talent of those in the arts and humanities. The Capitol is essentially a historical office building if not for the sculptors, painters, and architects that have made it extraordinary. The monuments on the mall would not be there without the talents of artists. The Gutenberg bible in the Library of Congress spurred the power of literacy that pulled humanity out of the dark ages. The poignancy of the Holocaust museum is magnified by how the evidence of the atrocities are displayed: photographs hung from floor too ceiling, a display of thousands of victim’s discarded shoes piled on top of each other, much like the bodies would have been. A few lines from poets that are so chilling you will never forget them. The arts and humanities are so powerful because they speak to every individual in some way and stir something in our souls in a way nothing else could. The arts are powerful. Leaders of countries know this. They cultivate it or destroy it because they know the influential power of it. It’s so disheartening to me that in our education system, at every level, it is the first thing to be cut.

Sarah Beck
MSUM Alum 2012