Ensure your future and the future of America's Art & The Artist Who Create It!
Sign Q's Petition Today!
Petition for arts Cabinet post is gaining steam One of the best ways to promote
and preserve the cultural health of this country would be to give the arts
Cabinet-level status. After Quincy Jones (left) was quoted in a recent interview
saying that he would lobby for the creation of a Secretary of the Arts position
when he next chats with the new president, a petition quickly emerged and is
making its way across the cyberscape. It has attracted more than 10,000
signatures already, including the likes of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music
director Marin Alsop and composer John Corigliano.
It's easy to imagine a cabinet post that oversees the NEA and other exisiting
cultural organizations in the government and that uses the office to push for a
renassiance of arts education in schools and the shoring up of cultural
institutions across the country. Other countries, including the UK, have
secretaries of culture or the equivalent. There are strong reasons for the US to
have one, too. William Ferris of the Center for the Study of the American South
at the University of North Carolina outlined those reasons in a recent New York
Times op-ed.
You never know how petitions will fare in attracting attention and generating
results, but the one inpired by Quincy Jones looks well worth signing and
passing along. At least there's some change in the air right now, so the timing
is certainly right.
Secretary of the Arts Petition
