Obama drops cautious arts policy

WASHINGTON—Still far less than arts advocates contend is needed, they have high hopes that President Barack Obama, still in his first year, could transform cultural policy, funding and arts education for years to come.

“I think and feel he’s very much in the John F. Kennedy tradition — he embodies the humanities, essentially,” said Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman from Iowa whom Obama named chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

There is $100 million in new funding for the arts, including a one-time $50 million infusion from the economic stimulus package to preserve arts jobs. There were sizable increases as well in the annual appropriations for the arts and humanities endowments. Both agencies will receive $167.5 million in 2010, their largest allocations in 16 years.

But Obama’s efforts in the arts ran afoul of critics in August when a National Endowment for the Arts official asked artists to coordinate with the Corporation for Public Service on ways to help bolster Obama’s public service agenda.

“I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment — you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service,” the NEA’s Yosi\ Sergant told artists on the call. He was reassigned after the call became public and later left the agency.

At a dinner during last weekend’s Kennedy Center Honors, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said improving arts education will be a key element of his proposed changes in former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law.

“I’m convinced when students are engaged in the arts, graduation rates go up, dropout rates go down,” Duncan said.

The Obamas presided over the Kennedy Center Honors, but they also have been frequent guests at Kennedy Center performances and at New York’s museums and theaters.

“Both the president and the first lady have demonstrated an interest in the arts that is more active than most of their predecessors,” said George Stevens Jr., who has produced the Kennedy Center Honors as a national celebration of the arts for the past 32 years. “They’re young and connected to what’s going on in the world, and a part of that is the performing arts.”

Stevens has been enlisted to co-chair the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. The Obamas also have quietly recruited “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker, acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and actors Forest Whitaker and Alfre Woodard are among 25 members appointed to the committee.

Leach said arts and humanities programs are most essential in difficult times. As the nation is faced with two wars, a weak economy and a polarizing debate over health care, Leach is conducting a 50-state “civility tour” to promote respectful discourse.

“I’d point out in a historical way that during the Great Depression we were spending vastly higher percentages of federal resources on the arts and humanities than we do today,” he said. “The public coalesced around the notion that it was important to bring perspective to issues of the day.”