The backlash over Brandeis University’s plan to shutter its Rose Art Museum continued yesterday, with an apology from the university’s president and a promise that the museum will remain open, but as a gallery and teaching site.

Brandeis faces a $10-million deficit and was hit indirectly by the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme. Citing those financial problems, the university’s Board of Trustees voted last week to authorize the museum’s closing and the sale of its more than 7,000 works of art, which are worth an estimated $350-million.

The decision sparked outrage among faculty members, students, and donors. In an attempt to calm the anger, the university’s president, Jehuda Reinharz, yesterday issued a written statement of apology.

“In retrospect, I wish I had handled the initial statements I made in a far more direct way,” Mr. Reinharz wrote, according to a copy of the letter available on The Boston Globe’s Web site. “To quote President Obama, ‘I screwed up.’”

Mr. Reinharz told the Globe that the museum would become “more fully integrated into the university’s central educational mission,” operating as a teaching center with more exhibits from students and faculty members. He also said Brandeis would sell a “minute number” of the museum’s artworks only if financially necessary. Critics have noted that a weak art market is not an ideal time to sell off a museum’s collection.

The apology came a day after 60 faculty members signed a letter of rebuke, urging Mr. Reinharz to suspend final decisions on the museum’s fate. To cope with the uproar, Brandeis has hired Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, a public-relations firm specializing in crisis management, according to the Globe.

While a leading faculty critic praised Mr. Reinharz’s letter, the museum’s director, Michael Rush, told the newspaper that the apology “does not change the future of the Rose Art Museum, as far as I can see.” —Paul Fain