This thread continues the discussion inspired by an article in Chronicle of Higher Education (https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Humanities-as-We-Know-Them/243769). The title always brings me back because I know the answer is no, but I want to see how the puzzle will be solved.
It was started by Wahoo last summer:
Link (https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,262223.msg3622044.html#msg3622044)
Quote from: wahoo on July 09, 2018, 11:46:37 AM
There have been a series of articles in the CHE about this (editorials about marketing and job placement, even one with this very title), some behind paywalls. This has also been discussed elsewhere and for various reasons.
I'm just wondering what peeps think.
Are the humanities doomed?
(PS---now's the time to vent, Polly)
The accompanying poll gave the following response:
Question: Are the Humanities Doomed?
Yes. Order the flowers. - | 18 (23.1%) |
No. I'm girding for battle. Now where's my shield of rhetoric...? | 31 (39.7%) |
Maybe. If they would only (insert below) | 12 (15.4%) |
I don't care. The humanities were never important in the first place. | 4 (5.1%) |
Impossible to tell. My crystal ball went offline. | 13 (16.7%) |
[/font]Total Voters: 78
The most recent contribution was from Tanit
Link (https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,262223.msg3645487.html#msg3645487)
Quote from: tanit on May 16, 2019, 11:48:23 AM
Quote from: janewales on May 16, 2019, 10:08:36 AM
Quote from: goaswerfraiejen on May 15, 2019, 08:54:11 PM
I imagine the other humanities would change to look more like mine, which is not a book field. Books get published, of course, and lots of people on the TT at R1s publish one towards the end of their tenure clock, but they're neither necessary nor expected for tenure. ....
It would be different, but I don't think it would be such a big deal. Then again, there's probably loads I'm not thinking about.
I think that a book, ideally, allows for the development of a longer argument, a deeper archive, a more far-reaching arc, than an article would. That is, in my field, people publish articles, and they also publish books, not (just) because books are required for advancement, but because these two forms do two different things. There are bad books that are simply a few articles stitched together, but they're bad precisely because they don't do the kind of work that a book, at its best, allows.
Some presses are experimenting with open-access electronic books - Cambridge, which is the top press in my field, has done so, for example. But as others have pointed out, e-books aren't free.
A good press adds value to a book, through activities that cost money, from things like editorial interventions, copy-editing, design... There are plenty of bad presses, and it may be that the model of the good university press is going to be harder and harder to sustain financially, but it's important to recognize what we'd lose, as well as what we might gain, when thinking about moving away from current traditional modes of publication.
Exactly this.
Related note: some top university presses are doing less and less of the value-added work.
CHE now has a series on the humanities crisis. The latest installment (https://www.chronicle.com/article/Fanning-the-Flames-While-the/246339?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_2b) criticizes an earlier piece (https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Humanities-Without/246323)that suggests infighting is the solution to the crisis. The original article (https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190510-academes-extinction-event?)criticized humanities faculty for excessive navel gazing in the face of extinction.
Engaging with the public (or a segment thereof) on its own terms does not seem to be part of the plan. I know many individual humanists who get that, so the idea's absence from the internal debate is conspicuous.
I'm at a loss for how to counteract the public perception that humanities majors are left jobless and in despair. I see humanities majors with excellent jobs all around me, and our university websites are bristling with pages about all the career paths humanities majors choose. And yet just today I read on a public forum, "But if you're an English major, you're stuck with teaching high school English, and there aren't enough jobs even for those people." It's like a juggernaut of overly narrow and inaccurate perceptions. Dunno how to combat it more effectively.
Quote from: Hegemony on May 21, 2019, 12:49:36 PM
I'm at a loss for how to counteract the public perception that humanities majors are left jobless and in despair. I see humanities majors with excellent jobs all around me, and our university websites are bristling with pages about all the career paths humanities majors choose. And yet just today I read on a public forum, "But if you're an English major, you're stuck with teaching high school English, and there aren't enough jobs even for those people." It's like a juggernaut of overly narrow and inaccurate perceptions. Dunno how to combat it more effectively.
Yeah, me too. That kind of talk is so pervasive that it's hard to know where to even start. I can think of plenty of things that might make small, local differences (among current students) but I can't see those measures resonating much more broadly. Even if we all implemented them, I'm not optimistic.
It's really frustrating. The pressure on high school students to go STEM is ridiculous, and from where I sit, it looks like at least some with little aptitude for math and science are heading that direction because they are getting a firehose of information that this is The Way to successful, lucrative careers.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 21, 2019, 02:54:50 PM
Quote from: Hegemony on May 21, 2019, 12:49:36 PM
I'm at a loss for how to counteract the public perception that humanities majors are left jobless and in despair. I see humanities majors with excellent jobs all around me, and our university websites are bristling with pages about all the career paths humanities majors choose. And yet just today I read on a public forum, "But if you're an English major, you're stuck with teaching high school English, and there aren't enough jobs even for those people." It's like a juggernaut of overly narrow and inaccurate perceptions. Dunno how to combat it more effectively.
Yeah, me too. That kind of talk is so pervasive that it's hard to know where to even start. I can think of plenty of things that might make small, local differences (among current students) but I can't see those measures resonating much more broadly. Even if we all implemented them, I'm not optimistic.
Well, countering "adjunct porn" would be a start. If the public hear of (apparently) lots of people with
PhDs in English living out of their cars, then it's natural to assume that people with only BAs in English must be worse off.
So if good career
choices are readily available they need to be pointed out and
contrasted with the bad ones that the public hears about.
The pressure to go STEM has had a definite effect on recruiting in my field, as there are fewer parents wanting their students to major in music versus something they "can make a living doing." At my research university, we get more and more requests for double majors or minors. In the minds of parents, this will allow students to pursue what they love on the side while being trained for a career that will allow them to make a living. Our graduates with music degrees do not become homeless street musicians! Will they all land a plum job in professional performing organizations? No, of course not. Many will (I'm at a good music school), about half will become teachers in public schools (having been music education majors, for which our placement rate is near perfect), many others will set up their own private teaching studios while being "gig" musicians, others will land in music industry or other business jobs, others will become church musicians, others will pursue graduate degrees and fight the tough academic job market to become professors themselves, and not a few graduates from my school have gone on to law or medical school. It has always been thus, but perceptions have changed.
I blame Drug Discovery (lab science, not street drugs) for this.
The money supports those dedicated lab rats diligently searching for the means to combat this or that disease, or find the DNA transport mechanism for fixing this or that congenital condition (CF was a poster child for this...).
A dramatic narrative that has supplanted the Elixir of Youth with the OneTrue Cure has taken over, leading to funding pipelines with huge boluses of private as well as public money throbbing through them.
(However, parents should also be reminded, thst, as I saw, after working in several labs as an EA, the one consistent theme was, "Don't get too settled in, within three years there'll be lay-offs" so the steady income thing only works if you figure on living on half that income and saving the rest for the next job search...)
Instead of improving the quality of life as it is lived, with excellent music, well-constructed plays, absorbing visual arts and film, and motivating dance, the focus has skittered off to simply lengthening it (or, maybe we won't even all die, anyway?)
The parental drive to discourage musicians and keep them making steadier, more "honest" money has long been around (Plato saw us as "illiberal" because we have to practice to keep our careers alive...Leonard Bernstein's dad wanted him to take over the family mercantile business...) but it's become more pronounced of late, I think.
After years of lessons, majoring in independent programs focused on the arts, and playing jobs once out of high school, my dad, when asked a few years later what he'd thought I should do, still said, "I always thought you'd end up working in a lab somwwhere..."
M.
Quote from: Tenured_Feminist on May 22, 2019, 05:10:09 AM
It's really frustrating. The pressure on high school students to go STEM is ridiculous, and from where I sit, it looks like at least some with little aptitude for math and science are heading that direction because they are getting a firehose of information that this is The Way to successful, lucrative careers.
This is exactly what I've seen happen since 2009: cultural, familial, and peer pressures have combined to convince too many 17-year-olds that a STEM major is the only way to avoid poverty, which is both patently ridiculous and a gross misdirection of the interests and talents of a great many students. I frequently teach in our first year seminar program so am advising incoming students each fall...close to 2/3 now start out as pre-med or pre-engineering or comp sci, only to find 4-6 weeks in that they hate math, or can't grasp college-level chemistry, or that programming is not all about playing games, or are bored with biology, etc. Then they have these mini-crises about what to do with their lives, feel like they can't tell their parents, and almost reflexively decide to become business majors-- because that's the only other field they can imagine that will "guarantee" an income.
Meanwhile, several of our humanities departments have 99-100% placement in real jobs or graduate programs within three months of graduation, and if you look at the data on mid-career median salaries there are a lot of STEM fields that lag well below several humanities/SS disciplines (philosophy and economics, for example, are way above biology). But it's very hard to counter the combined lack of awareness and cultural pressure to follow the limited number of paths the general public assumes to be safe, which sets students up for failure or at least positions them to slog through a degree rather than pursuing something that actually interests them on a personal level (and might have better outcomes to boot).
Quote from: SLAC_Prof on May 22, 2019, 08:08:30 AM
This is exactly what I've seen happen since 2009: cultural, familial, and peer pressures have combined to convince too many 17-year-olds that a STEM major is the only way to avoid poverty, which is both patently ridiculous and a gross misdirection of the interests and talents of a great many students.
Honest question: Are the media stories about humanities graduates being baristas and UBER drivers part of the
problem, for perpetuating the poverty myth, or are they part of the
solution for suggesting employment options that don't directly depend on a specific degree? Since most journalists probably have some sort of humanities background, they ought to be sympathetic.
Quote from: SLAC_Prof on May 22, 2019, 08:08:30 AM
Quote from: Tenured_Feminist on May 22, 2019, 05:10:09 AM
It's really frustrating. The pressure on high school students to go STEM is ridiculous, and from where I sit, it looks like at least some with little aptitude for math and science are heading that direction because they are getting a firehose of information that this is The Way to successful, lucrative careers.
This is exactly what I've seen happen since 2009: cultural, familial, and peer pressures have combined to convince too many 17-year-olds that a STEM major is the only way to avoid poverty, which is both patently ridiculous and a gross misdirection of the interests and talents of a great many students. I frequently teach in our first year seminar program so am advising incoming students each fall...close to 2/3 now start out as pre-med or pre-engineering or comp sci, only to find 4-6 weeks in that they hate math, or can't grasp college-level chemistry, or that programming is not all about playing games, or are bored with biology, etc. Then they have these mini-crises about what to do with their lives, feel like they can't tell their parents, and almost reflexively decide to become business majors-- because that's the only other field they can imagine that will "guarantee" an income.
Meanwhile, several of our humanities departments have 99-100% placement in real jobs or graduate programs within three months of graduation, and if you look at the data on mid-career median salaries there are a lot of STEM fields that lag well below several humanities/SS disciplines (philosophy and economics, for example, are way above biology). But it's very hard to counter the combined lack of awareness and cultural pressure to follow the limited number of paths the general public assumes to be safe, which sets students up for failure or at least positions them to slog through a degree rather than pursuing something that actually interests them on a personal level (and might have better outcomes to boot).
That first semester provides such a rich opportunity to make a sale. You have put your finger right on the solution. Students come in with a limited understanding of their options, they find that they are mismatched with with their first guess, and they now have some autonomy in deciding about their lives. That's when to market your program.
I'm in a field that grabs those who realize they are not going to be doctors. They usually have a great biology background and can do math. But they want to do something more creative and be among more humane people that the leading pre-meds. Having our student club do demonstrations in the quad about mid-semester gets them dreaming how cool it would be to major in our field. A couple intro courses that pander to non-majors (or would-be-majors) also brings in a good number.
This is also a field where there is a lot of low-pay work, so the median salary is in the barista range, but our alumni do very well because they are not filling the below-median slots.
I bet a lot of the comp sci majors are not that interested in programming theory. They like the games, or the structure, or being able to be your nerdy self among friends. Ripe for the picking!
What is cool about what's covered in philosophy or history or English to a reasonably smart 18-year old? From their perspective! Forget what the faculty thinks is cool. Show a huge mind-expanding contrast between what humanists actually do and what they know: memorizing dates and figuring out where to put a comma.
The response to the third question in this author interview is relevant: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education). I have not read the book, and reader comments imply that the authors are ignorant of much of the research on higher ed, but on the ground I can tell you that requiring students to take an adjunct-taught, 100-level, lecture-based section of American History (for example) only reinforces the notion among U.S. undergrads that humanities are a nothing but a series of boxes to check.
Quote from: spork on May 26, 2019, 03:09:02 AM
The response to the third question in this author interview is relevant: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education). I have not read the book, and reader comments imply that the authors are ignorant of much of the research on higher ed, but on the ground I can tell you that requiring students to take an adjunct-taught, 100-level, lecture-based section of American History (for example) only reinforces the notion among U.S. undergrads that humanities are a nothing but a series of boxes to check.
Yup. We have tenured faculty do our 100s that count for gen ed. Our small number of adjuncts, mostly our own grad students, teach mostly at the 300 level and never gen ed. Every few years, we get crap from the admin because our faculty-per-student cost ratio is worse than our comparators, and we dust off the "yo, dudes, get a f*cking clue" memo.
Quote from: Tenured_Feminist on May 26, 2019, 07:31:33 AM
Quote from: spork on May 26, 2019, 03:09:02 AM
The response to the third question in this author interview is relevant: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education). I have not read the book, and reader comments imply that the authors are ignorant of much of the research on higher ed, but on the ground I can tell you that requiring students to take an adjunct-taught, 100-level, lecture-based section of American History (for example) only reinforces the notion among U.S. undergrads that humanities are a nothing but a series of boxes to check.
Yup. We have tenured faculty do our 100s that count for gen ed. Our small number of adjuncts, mostly our own grad students, teach mostly at the 300 level and never gen ed. Every few years, we get crap from the admin because our faculty-per-student cost ratio is worse than our comparators, and we dust off the "yo, dudes, get a f*cking clue" memo.
This is something I still do not understand. Putting highly-paid tenure-stream faculty in front of huge lecture sections and the lowly paid adjuncts in classes with enrollments of one to two dozen students creates a lower average compensation per instructor per student cost ratio than the reverse.
Quote from: spork on May 26, 2019, 02:21:14 PM
Quote from: Tenured_Feminist on May 26, 2019, 07:31:33 AM
Quote from: spork on May 26, 2019, 03:09:02 AM
The response to the third question in this author interview is relevant: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/24/authors-discuss-their-new-book-moral-mess-higher-education). I have not read the book, and reader comments imply that the authors are ignorant of much of the research on higher ed, but on the ground I can tell you that requiring students to take an adjunct-taught, 100-level, lecture-based section of American History (for example) only reinforces the notion among U.S. undergrads that humanities are a nothing but a series of boxes to check.
Yup. We have tenured faculty do our 100s that count for gen ed. Our small number of adjuncts, mostly our own grad students, teach mostly at the 300 level and never gen ed. Every few years, we get crap from the admin because our faculty-per-student cost ratio is worse than our comparators, and we dust off the "yo, dudes, get a f*cking clue" memo.
This is something I still do not understand. Putting highly-paid tenure-stream faculty in front of huge lecture sections and the lowly paid adjuncts in classes with enrollments of one to two dozen students creates a lower average compensation per instructor per student cost ratio than the reverse.
I don't get it. If I were an upper-division or grad student I would be very annoyed if I were being taught by an adjunct. For my Master's I wasn't paying much attention, but for my EdD I was searching for dissertation advisors mentors.
Quote from: ciao_yall on May 26, 2019, 03:41:16 PM
I don't get it. If I were an upper-division or grad student I would be very annoyed if I were being taught by an adjunct. For my Master's I wasn't paying much attention, but for my EdD I was searching for dissertation advisors mentors.
When I was an undergrad, they put the tenured faculty member with the most complaints teaching only upper-level and grad courses where there was a captive audience and where they didn't have to face hundreds of complaining students. So basically assigning less competent teachers to upper level courses is probably kind of universal. (And sadly it rewards bad teaching by confining the worst teachers to small classes in their own narrow areas of interest.)
Unless you're in Poli Sci or an MPP program and the "adjunct" is the former governor of your state...or the deposed last king of a place on a different continent...
M.
But if operational costs at tiny, struggling colleges are so gosh darn important, why does this still happen?
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 27, 2019, 05:39:30 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on May 26, 2019, 03:41:16 PM
I don't get it. If I were an upper-division or grad student I would be very annoyed if I were being taught by an adjunct. For my Master's I wasn't paying much attention, but for my EdD I was searching for dissertation advisors mentors.
When I was an undergrad, they put the tenured faculty member with the most complaints teaching only upper-level and grad courses where there was a captive audience and where they didn't have to face hundreds of complaining students. So basically assigning less competent teachers to upper level courses is probably kind of universal. (And sadly it rewards bad teaching by confining the worst teachers to small classes in their own narrow areas of interest.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 22, 2019, 08:38:33 AM
Quote from: SLAC_Prof on May 22, 2019, 08:08:30 AM
This is exactly what I've seen happen since 2009: cultural, familial, and peer pressures have combined to convince too many 17-year-olds that a STEM major is the only way to avoid poverty, which is both patently ridiculous and a gross misdirection of the interests and talents of a great many students.
Honest question: Are the media stories about humanities graduates being baristas and UBER drivers part of the problem, for perpetuating the poverty myth, or are they part of the solution for suggesting employment options that don't directly depend on a specific degree? Since most journalists probably have some sort of humanities background, they ought to be sympathetic.
Those media stories are definitely part of the problem. Far more useful as part of the solution would be steady streams of stories of people doing interesting and useful things in careers that many of us don't know exist and that require a college education, but not a specific degree.
On a discussion somewhere in the past yearish, someone pointed out that the impression from many sources is only a handful of jobs exist in the US: teacher, lawyer, doctor, police officer, social worker, nurse, wait staff/barista, and scientist. Aspiring college students with minimal social capital will pick one of those jobs and choose the closely associated major. Some students are picking based on interest, but often that's most interesting or appealing from that short list instead of starting from knowledge areas that are intrinsically interesting and then figuring out what the options are for paid employment in those areas or how to get a paid employment job that will mesh nicely with an interest area.
Having minimal social capital is often corollated with a strong sense of moving away from a well-known situation* and a vague sense of moving towards something else**. That was definitely my experience doing advising and interacting with the Career Services Office as we tried to get students with minimal social capital to have their college experience pay off in terms of launching into a good next step. The students would state lofty goals, but be shocked at what was required to meet those goals and were more willing to drop out of college than change major to something better in line with what they wanted to do all day.
I spent a lot of time convincing students that a completed degree in English, philosophy, art, music, or history is worth more to their lives and future job prospects than an uncompleted STEM degree. I then had to role-play with those students so they could convince their parents. The role-play often involving looking at the real jobs available in the area and pointing out that many middle-class jobs just required a college degree and that the, say, technician job one can get with a BS in chemistry likely involves moving across country, doing math every day, and pays the same $35k right out of school that many of the jobs they didn't even know existed do. Being able to show them how to get paid internships for the summer to try out some of these previously-unknown jobs was often a key selling point.
To return to the media stories, a common complaint in the comments for
Slate -- and
The Atlantic when it still had comments -- was how narrow a worldview the writers had and how little awareness of the wide world of work available in the US trickled into their articles. The journalists may have studied the humanities, but their personal experience tends to have been at elite institutions so their friends and families are still heavy on teacher/professor/dean/principal/superintendent, doctor, and lawyer with the addition of writer and entrepreneur.
As the demographics at the non-elite institutions continue to shift with more of the student body having very little social capital, the problems will continue of having a significant fraction of students who are a combination of academically underprepared, personally undermotivated for the academic college experience, and very likely with complicated lives where working to support themselves and their families is a higher priority than studying hard in classes. People who see college as a ticket punch tend to not be looking for education, even in their majors.
More disheartening is that the more the individual lived experience in K-12 was a ticket punch that didn't pay off in a noticeably better life in any fashion, the harder the sell is that college will pay off in a better life, even though those are the people most likely to benefit from a college education. Overcoming the steady stream of evidence with periodic infusions of good information is an uphill battle for all of us. Almost no one has the neighborhood cautionary tale of the BS in engineering coming back to the neighborhood and taking the same job that Uncle said he could get the new HS grad right out of high school. However, most neighborhoods have at least one of those personal examples of someone who went to college, majored in something that doesn't lead to a particular career, and is now at Uncle's job working next to others in the HS class who have several years experience and are then making more money.
No one remembers the handful of people who went off to college and did other interesting things unless they really did become doctors or high-priced lawyers, but "everyone" sees Shawn working that HS-degree-only job with that BA.
* Mental dialogue: I don't want to working that string of minimum wage jobs like all the adults in my family where you work hard every single day and yet money is still so tight. I don't want to be tied to the one factory/mine/company in town and then get laid off like the other adults in my family and then just be screwed and unable to move or get another job.
** Mental dialogue: I'll be a teacher and help the old neighborhood just like my favorite teacher who helped me get on the college path; I'm not greedy like the lawyers; I'll have a nice middle class wage and a pension in my old age.
I am tired of being poor. I will go to law school and work 80+h weeks to retire at 35. I won't do anything criminal to get ahead, but I will work my ass off to avoid being poor. I'll go back to school after I retire and take some of the interesting classes.
Polly, this is very helpful. I am just starting to work with students on the subject of careers, and this describes many of the students to a T.
I spent several years where nearly all my advising load was entering first-year students who were majoring in pre-med/pre-physical therapy or some other one-off STEM who were deemed likely to need advising into a different major as those students encountered the realities that Hibush mentions. The ones who made it through that first year tended to be handed off to my colleagues who were actually in the relevant STEM fields to shepherd the remaining students through the process.
Part of that reality was talking with students and getting them to change to something that aligned with their interests and was a good path forward. The hard part was to get students to own their interests and believe that good lives can be had on many paths. That often meant pointing out that a 2.01 average for a grudgingly-earned business degree from an undistinguished college while working a minimum wage job with no advancement possibilities is far less useful than a 3.5 in English with a couple paid-at-more-than-minimum-wage internships in local businesses to try out jobs, get some experience on the resume, and start a network of people who want people they know to succeed. Don't tell my previous employer, but more than once, I pulled up offerings from community colleges and vo-tech institutions to help students see they could have a middle-class life in the rural area with a one-year certificate or an apprenticeship in the trades and leave college entirely as non-academic-minded folks at this point in their lives.
I also did a lot of pointing out that a happy English/philosophy/art/history major who has the energy left to engage with student groups and do interesting research papers will a) have something to put on a resume that will make employers notice and b) have interesting things to talk about during interviews in addition to having a much more pleasant college experience. A compelling argument that often took multiple visits to sink in was that competition for the good jobs isn't the people from the old neighborhood who only have high school degrees; the competition for the good jobs is the people who have a college degree, relevant experience, and an established network of people willing to recommend/hire/place new graduates into entry-level jobs without advertising the jobs. An additional often-repeated argument was most people will have to move elsewhere in the state to have their college degree pay off in terms of an interesting job that pays middle-class income because the dying rural area and the inner-most inner city don't have significant numbers of middle-class jobs that require a college degree of some sort, but are pretty flexible in what that degree is. On the plus side, having a middle-class job often means having enough money, free time, and reliable transportation to go the hour or two home frequently.
I also pointed out the realities that the "easiest" STEM major someone could possibly slide through with minimal effort was very unlikely to pay good money. Students were often stunned to learn, as was mentioned upthread, that the average entry-level salaries in those fields are mid-20k to low-30k and actually require you to spend all day doing the repetitive, boring tasks that a BS holder can do while the graduate degree holders do the interesting parts. The STEM fields where we're short on people and thus pay pretty well right out of college tend to be the ones that require a very specified curriculum taken in a specific order with almost no electives because of all that math that has to be taken before taking years of classes that use all that math. Choosing something where one wants to do the work and therefore has a good shot at being above average tends to lead to better outcomes than hoping that the barest minimal checkbox will magically become big enough money to allow for an absurdly early retirement.
I still remember the student who was in my office for calculus help and was crying about even the effort to get the book. When I asked her about her plans, she wanted to be a librarian, but was majoring in pre-med as the hardest thing she could imagine to make her application to grad school stand out. It took all afternoon and a visit to the chair of the English department, but eventually we convinced that person who read Shakespeare and wrote poetry for fun that she very likely could become a librarian by earning an English degree, continuing her work in libraries, and writing a fabulous essay to get into a good master's program. She graduated with highest honors and went to work in a library before applying to grad school.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 29, 2019, 05:18:08 AM
I spent several years where nearly all my advising load was entering first-year students who were majoring in pre-med/pre-physical therapy or some other one-off STEM who were deemed likely to need advising into a different major as those students encountered the realities that Hibush mentions. The ones who made it through that first year tended to be handed off to my colleagues who were actually in the relevant STEM fields to shepherd the remaining students through the process.
Part of that reality was talking with students and getting them to change to something that aligned with their interests and was a good path forward. The hard part was to get students to own their interests and believe that good lives can be had on many paths. That often meant pointing out that a 2.01 average for a grudgingly-earned business degree from an undistinguished college while working a minimum wage job with no advancement possibilities is far less useful than a 3.5 in English with a couple paid-at-more-than-minimum-wage internships in local businesses to try out jobs, get some experience on the resume, and start a network of people who want people they know to succeed. Don't tell my previous employer, but more than once, I pulled up offerings from community colleges and vo-tech institutions to help students see they could have a middle-class life in the rural area with a one-year certificate or an apprenticeship in the trades and leave college entirely as non-academic-minded folks at this point in their lives.
I also did a lot of pointing out that a happy English/philosophy/art/history major who has the energy left to engage with student groups and do interesting research papers will a) have something to put on a resume that will make employers notice and b) have interesting things to talk about during interviews in addition to having a much more pleasant college experience. A compelling argument that often took multiple visits to sink in was that competition for the good jobs isn't the people from the old neighborhood who only have high school degrees; the competition for the good jobs is the people who have a college degree, relevant experience, and an established network of people willing to recommend/hire/place new graduates into entry-level jobs without advertising the jobs. An additional often-repeated argument was most people will have to move elsewhere in the state to have their college degree pay off in terms of an interesting job that pays middle-class income because the dying rural area and the inner-most inner city don't have significant numbers of middle-class jobs that require a college degree of some sort, but are pretty flexible in what that degree is. On the plus side, having a middle-class job often means having enough money, free time, and reliable transportation to go the hour or two home frequently.
I also pointed out the realities that the "easiest" STEM major someone could possibly slide through with minimal effort was very unlikely to pay good money. Students were often stunned to learn, as was mentioned upthread, that the average entry-level salaries in those fields are mid-20k to low-30k and actually require you to spend all day doing the repetitive, boring tasks that a BS holder can do while the graduate degree holders do the interesting parts. The STEM fields where we're short on people and thus pay pretty well right out of college tend to be the ones that require a very specified curriculum taken in a specific order with almost no electives because of all that math that has to be taken before taking years of classes that use all that math. Choosing something where one wants to do the work and therefore has a good shot at being above average tends to lead to better outcomes than hoping that the barest minimal checkbox will magically become big enough money to allow for an absurdly early retirement.
That sounds very much like the kind of advising that many rural youth need. I've been trying to tell young people that they need to major in something that they actually are interested in, because it will motivate them study harder and learn more. THAT is the object of higher education, after all. The skills that make one more employable are a by-product. It matters less what one majors in than that one works as hard as possible to do as well as possible in school.
In our area they also need support for going into vocational trades that are still quite viable locally, but which need more qualifications than just a pair of hands and a willingness to show up. I've heard of a number of would-be tradesmen who struggled or foundered because their math and basic literacy skills just weren't up to it. Of the first three or four students in an apprenticeship program at a local employer, only one got all the way through. That she was a young single mother probably made the guys who washed out feel all the more humiliated. Her status gave her the motivation to succeed, I suppose. A lot of young males around here need to pull their heads out of their rear ends and their gaming screens and get down to business.
Quote from: apl68 on May 29, 2019, 12:51:32 PM
In our area they also need support for going into vocational trades that are still quite viable locally, but which need more qualifications than just a pair of hands and a willingness to show up. I've heard of a number of would-be tradesmen who struggled or foundered because their math and basic literacy skills just weren't up to it. Of the first three or four students in an apprenticeship program at a local employer, only one got all the way through. That she was a young single mother probably made the guys who washed out feel all the more humiliated. Her status gave her the motivation to succeed, I suppose. A lot of young males around here need to pull their heads out of their rear ends and their gaming screens and get down to business.
In many smallish cities and towns, the wealthiest residents are often general contractors. They need to be good at math, among many other things one can learn in college, as well as knowing the trades.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 29, 2019, 05:18:08 AM
I still remember the student who was in my office for calculus help and was crying about even the effort to get the book. When I asked her about her plans, she wanted to be a librarian, but was majoring in pre-med as the hardest thing she could imagine to make her application to grad school stand out. It took all afternoon and a visit to the chair of the English department, but eventually we convinced that person who read Shakespeare and wrote poetry for fun that she very likely could become a librarian by earning an English degree, continuing her work in libraries, and writing a fabulous essay to get into a good master's program. She graduated with highest honors and went to work in a library before applying to grad school.
Your student followed a very common path into the library profession. Few people dream of being a librarian when they grow up. Most of us got into the business as a Plan B. That seems to have been changing in recent years, however. "Librarian" is starting to gain a reputation as one of that handful of middle-class jobs that the average person can understand and recognize. A LOT of people are going into library school now.
When I was working on my Masters of Library Science a few years ago, I noticed a division between those of us who had already been working in the field for years and were going to school to upgrade our credentials, and students with no library experience who went into the field because they had heard that libraries were a good place to work. The latter did not impress me as having a very bright future in the profession. Some of them seemed very poorly prepared for graduate-level work. Library school may not be rocket science or law school, but it DOES require solid research and writing skills of a sort that many BA holders don't seem to have acquired in Grades 13-16 (If you've been through a PhD program, though, it feels very doable, even if you're already working full-time). Once again, if higher ed is to do students any good in the long term, they must commit to actually getting an education, not just barely acquiring a diploma.
Also, professional-level library posts require a degree AND experience. If you're a freshly-minted MLS with no actual library experience, you're going to have to spend a few years as a circulation clerk or other paraprofessional to pay your dues before you can get hired at a professional level. Your student did the right thing by working at a library before starting on her professional degree. It put her in a position to make the most of her formal classes, and gave her a leg up on getting that all-important practical experience. I tell anybody who's interested in library work to start work at a library first and THEN go for the degree if it looks like the work is a good fit.
In our state the State Library grants scholarships to working public library employees who have already taken a certain number of hours toward their degree to show they are serious. In the long run you'll get MOST of your degree paid for if you go that route. I took advantage of the opportunity myself, and am grateful for it. Over the years this program has done a lot to professionalize librarianship in our state. Would that more industries did something like this.
On last thought is that the growth in the number of library students--and the number of library programs that will take anybody, no matter how poorly prepared for masters'-level work--has resulted in an oversupply of degree-holding librarians in some urban areas. I've known of a number of new MLS holders who can only find circulation-clerk work. They'll improve their chances of finding professional-level work if they consent to working in less "desirable" areas where the need for library pros is under-served.
Quote from: Hibush on May 29, 2019, 01:15:57 PM
Quote from: apl68 on May 29, 2019, 12:51:32 PM
In our area they also need support for going into vocational trades that are still quite viable locally, but which need more qualifications than just a pair of hands and a willingness to show up. I've heard of a number of would-be tradesmen who struggled or foundered because their math and basic literacy skills just weren't up to it. Of the first three or four students in an apprenticeship program at a local employer, only one got all the way through. That she was a young single mother probably made the guys who washed out feel all the more humiliated. Her status gave her the motivation to succeed, I suppose. A lot of young males around here need to pull their heads out of their rear ends and their gaming screens and get down to business.
In many smallish cities and towns, the wealthiest residents are often general contractors. They need to be good at math, among many other things one can learn in college, as well as knowing the trades.
And guess what makes a student interested enough in school to stick around long enough to learn (and learn how to use) math and English? The humanities!
I've been debating a lot, but I can't let this go without comment.
Quote from: ciao_yall on May 30, 2019, 08:27:44 AM
And guess what makes a student interested enough in school to stick around long enough to learn (and learn how to use) math and English? The humanities!
If that's true, then the humanities are really doomed because we then have large numbers of people who should be majoring in the humanities who are not. Full stop.
If one wants/needs to learn math for personal and/or professional reasons, then it's unclear to me how joyfully studying the humanities gets one there. These are very different activities. I understand joyfully studying the humanities. <Go ahead and remember many happy/rewarding/satisfying hours in study. We'll wait.>
I understand less joyfully studying a particular math course because one can see the value of acquiring the tools, even if the process is less than fabulous. For example, calculus classes were unpleasant for me, but being able to solve much more interesting problems has been worth the effort required to learn. The analogy is like being able to use a hammer: I almost never sing, "Today's the day I get to use a hammer!", but situations arise when I need a hammer, so having one on hand and being proficient is handy.
What I don't understand is the blanket assertion of the humanities making students interested enough in school to stick around to major in other subjects. People who love the humanities and are having a good experience will tend to stick around and jump the hoops for the other requirements so they can stay enrolled in their humanities major program. I understand how one might be much more interested in one's humanities major, be interested enough in other humanities courses to engage, and somehow be a good sport about the math and science requirements (often very minimal compared to other general education requirements).
However, one of the recurring discussions in places I frequent is how a system of required humanities courses can be off-putting to those who are in college for other reasons (e.g., great love of math, but little interest in other areas; acquiring skills for one particular job category; unclear on the next step, so in college hoping to acquire a ticket punch). Why aren't the humanities better appreciated by government officials and the general public? Sometimes, that's the result of direct experiences in college with required humanities classes that are treated as a box-checking exercise by everyone involved.
As long as many people can write (https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,264128.msg3643063.html#msg3643063)
Quote from: wahoo on April 16, 2019, 06:43:43 AM
25 FT faculty / 80 PT faculty.
If we were at a healthy little SLAC or even a Div III-sized school, 25 would be a more-than-robust number of faculty to provide the main focus of the institution, teaching. But we are an institution of 15+K students, most of whom come from lower-income households, many of whom are 1st generation, and all of whom must cycle through the glut of (almost entirely) poorly trained adjunct instructors. And again, I'll mention the terrible reputation of these folks among students and faculty. The "deprofessionalization" comes from hiring people with minimal qualifications (sometimes without the appropriate advanced degree even) and then paying them a well-below-living wage to perform, once again, the primary function of the university on a piecemeal basis.
then the humanities are going to have an uphill battle convincing people that their direct experience was somehow wrong. Higher ed systems outside the US tend to not have heavy-on-the-humanities general education requirements; instead, university is a time to focus on one particular field in depth. My colleagues from those systems who immigrate to the US tend to have much more positive associations with the humanities and fine arts as well as being very civic minded*.
Thus, while some people are absolutely in college because they are enjoying their humanities courses, SPADFY applies and people may wish to rethink their premises underlying curriculum requirements that might actually be doing more harm to certain goals than good.
* It's likely that I will see sampling bias because I tend to work at places where only people who are extremely civic minded will jump all the hoops as a foreign national to become a US citizen.
I think we also need to remember the unrealistic parents/relatives/guidance counselors who remember how relatively easy it was to find a job with a college degree--hell, even with just a high school degree--back in their day.
Well, for white middle-class people. I do have to qualify my statements, at this point.
According to these well-meaning advisers, any college degree and any resulting (white-collar) career would provide a "decent living" for a person who was the head of a family (yes, usually a man). That was True(tm) because it had always been the case.
These well-meaning advisers didn't foresee the downsides to globalization--for example, the loss of outsource-able factory jobs--or the corporate-izing of so many career fields--for example, the mind-numbing check-boxing of K-12, or the adjunctification of higher education. They didn't foresee the many ways in which wealth would be shifted in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s from those who earn money from working to those who make money from using money.
Interestingly, I know a lot of humanities-focused people who went to college in the 1980s and early 1990s who either "sold out" and are now making extremely large money in the business, finance, IT, or technology-led economic development arenas or "stuck to their principles" and are lower-middle-class at best while doing what they love.
Unfortunately, "doing what they love" won't necessarily bring home a good salary, cover the household budget as well as unexpected expenses like health crises, etc. Nor will "living the life of the mind." Not any more. Not unless you experience a good bit of luck in the opportunities that come your way--and the insight to take advantage of those moments.
___
Curiously, many in the STEM fields have begun to realize that communication, and reading, and writing, and other such "soft skills" are essential to success in most careers, particularly as team-based and inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches are crucial for solving really difficult, large-scale problems.
Could it be that the value of the humanities will again be recognized? I wonder.
Quote from: paultuttle on June 03, 2019, 03:18:02 PM
According to these well-meaning advisers, any college degree and any resulting (white-collar) career would provide a "decent living" for a person who was the head of a family (yes, usually a man). That was True(tm) because it had always been the case.
These well-meaning advisers didn't foresee the downsides to globalization--for example, the loss of outsource-able factory jobs--or the corporate-izing of so many career fields--for example, the mind-numbing check-boxing of K-12, or the adjunctification of higher education. They didn't foresee the many ways in which wealth would be shifted in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s from those who earn money from working to those who make money from using money.
As I've pointed out many times, when post-secondary education was primarily for the sons (typically) of the rich who were going to work in their dads' businesses after graduation, the content didn't matter greatly; it was kind of cultural education. However, as it became expected that basically
everyone would attempt it, the standards in high school
had to go down in order to make everyone eligible. And that's without asking whether the "education" suitable for wealthy kids with career paths already set out for them is what makes sense for
everyone.
Quote
Curiously, many in the STEM fields have begun to realize that communication, and reading, and writing, and other such "soft skills" are essential to success in most careers, particularly as team-based and inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches are crucial for solving really difficult, large-scale problems.
Could it be that the value of the humanities will again be recognized? I wonder.
I have never
once in about 4 decades heard anyone in STEM say that reading, writing, and communication were unimportant. However, I have heard
many people in the humanities who seem to think that the only way students can learn those skills is through the humanities. And I have also heard some people in the humanities take pride in their complete inability to handle any quantitative analysis whatsoever, because math is beneath them.
[Fixed the quote function -- Polly]
Quote from: paultuttle on June 03, 2019, 03:18:02 PM
Curiously, many in the STEM fields have begun to realize that communication, and reading, and writing, and other such "soft skills" are essential to success in most careers, particularly as team-based and inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches are crucial for solving really difficult, large-scale problems.
Could it be that the value of the humanities will again be recognized? I wonder.
I disagree with "have begun" to realize other skills are essential. C. P. Snow's ideas of the Two Cultures is somewhat dated in specifics, but the anecdotes still ring true enough in the places I frequent.
The value in studying the humanities at college is the special knowledge one obtains regarding humans in all their messy, irrational, peculiarities that isn't available by simply extrapolating up from humans being complex, biological systems obeying chemistry and other physical laws. That means, as historians correctly point out, not just what knowing what happened on what date in history, but why humans took specific actions, what we can see in patterns for why actions were taken by large groups of humans, and what ripples we're still experiencing today because humans have long memories and listen to narratives from other humans.
Literature helps us understand individuals and their relationships to the broader world. The place where many people fail in their professional lives is not truly believing that M(ost)PADFY and that diversity at its heart means letting people be different in meaningful ways, not just clothes and favorite foods. Arts often help us explore the human experience in other ways while philosophy continues to help people reflect on what a good life means and what the trade-offs may be to have a good enough life.
Yes, communication, reading, and writing are extremely important. However, one must have something to communicate and one must have some idea of how the target audience will react before building the case and choosing the exact words/figures/tables/graphs/examples. That means knowing the subject matter inside out and sideways, not just having excellent grammar. Building a compelling logical case means knowing what other humans accept as valid evidence and what will most strongly support the case. As Marshwiggle wrote, the frustration on this side is some folks in the humanities seeming to insist that only the humanities teach communication skills and those skills are sufficient for most situations outside of school, even while often neglecting to teach communication skills related to using quantitative evidence including charts, tables, and graphs.
One big way that management and administration fail is deciding what the valid evidence is and completely ignoring other valid evidence that people being reached by the communiques already have. Recruiting to particular college programs can fail similarly by ignoring the fact that potential students, even as teenagers and especially as returning adults, have experiences, models of how the world works, and access to other information. Reducing the study of the humanities at the college level to mere job skill acquisition in areas where people are certain they are already proficient enough contributes to devaluing the humanities for society at large.
It's good to see a defense of the humanities by somebody who can bring an outside perspective, Polly.
I suspect one reason why many academics in humanities fields don't do a very good job of making their case is that they're just too close to the situation, too threatened and too under siege by those who question their fields' very right to existence in today's world. It's not surprising that they're sometimes going to get emotional and not think through what they're saying. Although as academics, they really ought to be able to step back and think things through.
I've said before that in the library field we've been in the same boat as far as having our usefulness and our right to exist increasingly questioned in recent years. Most of us--at least those who aren't at a point where they're just trying to last out their final years to retirement--understand that we've got to work hard to convince the communities that support us that we're still relevant.
Does that mean we circle back to what does "Are the humanities doomed" mean?
I worry about statements like
Quote from: apl68 on June 04, 2019, 10:29:12 AM
too under siege by those who question their fields' very right to existence in today's world.
because that's not what I see playing out in the media. What I see playing out in the media is a series of questions like:
How many people do we, as a society, need to support doing research/theory/exploration in each area of knowledge? For example, when we're short on nurses in the community to provide good care in a timely manner, how many more theoretical physicists do we need discussing loop quantum gravity versus string theory as esoteric, academic problems? We need some theoretical physicists because many of us remember the lessons of quantum theory--also a very esoteric topic that eventually became hugely important to new technology after decades of people playing with academic puzzles. But do we need everyone who could be a theoretical physicist to become one or can we encourage people who have other interests and talents to try out those other areas? A related question is: what are the trade-offs in letting everyone focus on their first discovered choice instead of continuing to explore until perhaps they get to a good-for-them choice where we are short on people? Substitute "theoretical physicist" with your favorite humanities equivalent and the argument is the same.
What is the most efficient way to get more people farther along a lengthy path of inflexible prerequisites for human knowledge areas where we are short on people? This gets back to the discussion months ago that some fields think of cohorts going together through a standard process and some fields are much more flexible once basic minima are met so students have a more individualized education. People who haven't spent significant time with curricula outside their field may not appreciate how inflexible the prerequisites are in some fields and why the idea of exploring many options to declare a major at the end of sophomore year is unworkable if the goal is a four-year BS.
For purposes of concreteness, I point readers to the nifty interactive curriculum map at https://grainger.illinois.edu/academics/undergraduate/majors-and-minors/matse-non-biomaterials-map. The nifty part is being able to hover over a box and see the prerequisite chain; the courses themselves are pretty typical for materials engineering.
For example, MSE 402: Kinetic Processes in Materials (recommended for Spring Junior Year) has prerequisites:
Fall, First Year: CHEM 102, MATH 221, MSE 182 (note that MATH 221 is Calculus I; anyone who is starting in college at math lower than that has a very high hill to climb.)
Spring, First Year: CHEM 104, MATH 231, PHYS 211
Fall, Second Year: MATH 241, MSE 201
Spring, Second Year: MATH 285
Fall, Third Year: MSE 401
These are not arbitrarily chosen prerequisites; one must have enough math to learn the physics and enough chemistry and physics to learn the thermodynamics before one can learn the kinetics.
This is not one unusual course in the curriculum; even the boxes that appear disconnected like Technical Elective will have a prerequisite chain including math, physics, and very likely chemistry or computer programming.
Thus, when one looks at some of those prerequisite chains and the course load per term while knowing the needs of the broadly educated engineer, the trade-offs are more pressing for issues related to what one can learn in a one-off course in even the most important humanity area versus having more time/energy/attention to devote to courses that pull together content knowledge from multiple STEM fields as well as soft skills related to interacting with other humans like those group projects and practice on how to communicate with various stakeholders.
What is the purpose of college? The frequently mentioned talking points from some in the humanities ignore some inconvenient evidence that others outside of card-carrying humanities folks experience on a daily basis.
*Assertion: A college education is to prepare knowledgeable citizens for participation in civic life.
Counter evidence: Only 30% of US residents over the age of 25 have bachelor's degrees. Thus, a first-generation college student very likely knows people who are solid members of the community who regularly vote and yet don't have that college education.
*Assertion: A college education is to help one live a more interesting life.
Counter evidence: Again, the first-generation college student likely knows adults who have pretty good lives and also likely can read about the student debt crisis as well as the death-marching adjunct situation.
*Assertion: A college education is not for mere job preparation. The college experience of is more important than the particular major.
Counter evidence: A person without personal networks to middle-class jobs has much more difficulty getting that middle-class job without a college degree. Yet, not all college degrees are equal because many jobs are not advertised, but are instead filled by personal network. Majoring in education, social work, engineering, criminal justice, or similar majors that lead to at least one specific job type that is usually advertised will work out better in terms of getting a middle-class job. Thus, if it's true that the college experience is more important than any particular major, picking a major that has a clear path instead of having to forge a path while starting at a disadvantage is the better choice.
Quote from: polly_mer on June 05, 2019, 07:09:46 AM
For purposes of concreteness, I point readers to the nifty interactive curriculum map at https://grainger.illinois.edu/academics/undergraduate/majors-and-minors/matse-non-biomaterials-map. The nifty part is being able to hover over a box and see the prerequisite chain; the courses themselves are pretty typical for materials engineering.
That map is freaking awesome! Every program should have one.
Quote
*Assertion: A college education is not for mere job preparation. The college experience of is more important than the particular major.
Counter evidence: A person without personal networks to middle-class jobs has much more difficulty getting that middle-class job without a college degree. Yet, not all college degrees are equal because many jobs are not advertised, but are instead filled by personal network. Majoring in education, social work, engineering, criminal justice, or similar majors that lead to at least one specific job type that is usually advertised will work out better in terms of getting a middle-class job. Thus, if it's true that the college experience is more important than any particular major, picking a major that has a clear path instead of having to forge a path while starting at a disadvantage is the better choice.
My illustration of that is this: Suppose you have three job options.
- A: 100 positions, 1000 applicants for each position
- B: 10 positions, 100 applicants for each position
- C: 1position, 100 applicants
Even though all three have a theoretical chance of getting a job of 10%, it's virtually impossible to stand out among 1000 resumes, whereas every one of the 10 applicants for C will be able to point out individual strengths of theirs.
"Hard skills" are useful because they identify jobs where everyone and his/her dog aren't potential competition.
In a new (paywalled) CHE Article (https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190602-smith?), a professor of philosophy argues that the humanities are doomed because social media inhibit scholarship. The tweet of death!
I am hopeful that the humanities are robust enough that abundant social interaction, including recognition and mindless chatter, don't wipe out the scholarly activity. Some humanists might even find social media fertile ground for scholarly activity.
What seems to have gotten his goat is that one of these aggregation sites created a profile of him based on miscellany found around the web. It was different from what he would have created himself.
The supposed past that he mourns is one where "discernment, hard-won expertise, and glacial, scrupulous scholarship read by only a small cabal of peers carried real weight." I don't know where an ivory tower that isolated exists. Perhaps in some medieval network of monasteries? Does anyone have more recent examples? Now, we have seen pathological isolation, such as in the NYU German department, but that doesn't count.
The danger is the temptation to express your findings in language those outside your small cabal might read, and to get positive feedback. Or as he writes, "What is to fear is that the good people who produce these facts will be increasingly exploited and exhausted, their dopamine mechanisms will be played upon by technologies that function like drugs, they will be rewarded for their unhealthy labors according to irrelevant machine-based quantitative measures that are an impediment rather than a motor of real discovery, and all of this will occur in an increasingly precarious institutional setting."
One sign of the end is if scholars eschew scholarly publication in favor of becoming wikipedians.
Real scholars must immediately erase their profiles from academia.edu and stop sending PDFs of their works to who-knows-who.
The finale is "My discipline, philosophy, can exist only where there are free human subjects saying what they actually think....Other disciplines might mesh more easily with the new algorithmic technologies that now shape our social life, but I doubt they can do so without extinguishing the humanistic spirit that has long animated them. But humanistic inquiry cannot survive within a university swallowed up and denatured by the Gargantua of social media. "
It is perhaps unfair of me to criticize this argument here on social media, but I'll do it anyway.
How widespread is the attitude of this author? Is it being kept alive in particular corners of academe, or of the world (the author is in France)? Does it represent the crochety old guys who can safely be ignored, or is the attitude, which leads to irrelevance, the real cause of doom?
Quote from: polly_mer on June 05, 2019, 07:09:46 AM
What is the most efficient way to get more people farther along a lengthy path of inflexible prerequisites for human knowledge areas where we are short on people? This gets back to the discussion months ago that some fields think of cohorts going together through a standard process and some fields are much more flexible once basic minima are met so students have a more individualized education. People who haven't spent significant time with curricula outside their field may not appreciate how inflexible the prerequisites are in some fields and why the idea of exploring many options to declare a major at the end of sophomore year is unworkable if the goal is a four-year BS.
For purposes of concreteness, I point readers to the nifty interactive curriculum map at https://grainger.illinois.edu/academics/undergraduate/majors-and-minors/matse-non-biomaterials-map. The nifty part is being able to hover over a box and see the prerequisite chain; the courses themselves are pretty typical for materials engineering.
Thus, when one looks at some of those prerequisite chains and the course load per term while knowing the needs of the broadly educated engineer, the trade-offs are more pressing for issues related to what one can learn in a one-off course in even the most important humanity area versus [engineering practice]
This isolation of humanites, even when the course are required is a good point.
When looking at the flow of courses and interaction among them (which is great by the way) the LEE (liberal education elective) stands out exactly as a one-off. That part of the education has no structure (engineer tend not to like that) and has no evident connection to what they are learning elsewhere.
Would it be possible to show a sample series of LEE course that constitute a similar matrix of developing an understanding of humanity? Perhaps a group of courses that has been effective with previous engineering majors?
Quote from: Hibush on June 05, 2019, 07:50:14 AM
The supposed past that he mourns is one where "discernment, hard-won expertise, and glacial, scrupulous scholarship read by only a small cabal of peers carried real weight."
Translation: "Why people who think governments spend too much money on education have reasons to feel that way".
Quote from: Hibush on June 05, 2019, 08:08:22 AM
Would it be possible to show a sample series of LEE course that constitute a similar matrix of developing an understanding of humanity? Perhaps a group of courses that has been effective with previous engineering majors?
Unless lots of courses are
required prerequisites of others, no such matrix exists. The fact that all kinds of knowledge are interrelated is not specific to any area of knowledge. The point about the "matrix" of knowledge is that certain things
must be understood before other things can be studied. For instance, if American history can be studied without a previous knowledge of European and specifically British history, then any discussion of the political system will be lack context. (Same for political science, for the same reason.) Is that order
required in many/most places?
Quote from: Hibush on June 05, 2019, 07:50:14 AM
In a new (paywalled) CHE Article (https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190602-smith?), a professor of philosophy argues that the humanities are doomed because social media inhibit scholarship. The tweet of death!
I have to say, that was a pretty dull read. Looks to me like the griping of an ageing historian of philosophy, and one who's already very well-established to boot--especially since it was precipitated by the launch of PhilPeople as part of the hugely important PhilPapers platform (a totally free searchable article database and repository by and for philosophers, which has been combined with the academic job listings for the discipline and was instrumental in undoing the APA's stranglehold on the job market and on conference interviews).
PhilPeople isn't just any old aggregation site. It's a powerful tool that aims to combine with the existing PhilPapers infrastructure to give philosophers access to a powerful new search engine (allowing you to seek people out based on interests, demographics, etc.), a directory of departments and relevant statistics, a social networking system, the means to find people travelling to locations/conferences near you, the ability to start discussions, etc. Some of these features exist elsewhere--e.g. Facebook and Twitter--but they're not open to everyone in the discipline. PhilPeople (and the PhilPapers foundation in general) is, and it's free, has no ads, doesn't monetize your data, etc. The PhilPapers foundation has been the driving force behind some huge (and hugely important) changes in the discipline, and is clearly a force for good. It seems to me that the reasons people are uncomfortable with other social media platforms are exactly the reasons why they should be excited about the launch of PhilPeople.
Quote
The supposed past that he mourns is one where "discernment, hard-won expertise, and glacial, scrupulous scholarship read by only a small cabal of peers carried real weight." I don't know where an ivory tower that isolated exists. Perhaps in some medieval network of monasteries? Does anyone have more recent examples? Now, we have seen pathological isolation, such as in the NYU German department, but that doesn't count.
I think it's fair to say that the history of philosophy can be like this, and some areas within that history are especially prone to it. There's a fair bit of top-down gatekeeping in a lot of the different areas of the history of philosophy (although to be fair, there's a fair bit of gatekeeping in the discipline more generally). Continental philosophy, too, and since he now works in France, that's what most of his colleagues work on.
In this post, I address the specific questions being asked regarding engineering curriculum. I'm telling you now that I will double post to circle back to helping more people select humanities majors as better personal fits with minimal or no time in the poor fit of an engineering major.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 05, 2019, 09:09:25 AM
Quote from: Hibush on June 05, 2019, 08:08:22 AM
Would it be possible to show a sample series of LEE course that constitute a similar matrix of developing an understanding of humanity? Perhaps a group of courses that has been effective with previous engineering majors?
Unless lots of courses are required prerequisites of others, no such matrix exists. The fact that all kinds of knowledge are interrelated is not specific to any area of knowledge. The point about the "matrix" of knowledge is that certain things must be understood before other things can be studied. For instance, if American history can be studied without a previous knowledge of European and specifically British history, then any discussion of the political system will be lack context. (Same for political science, for the same reason.) Is that order required in many/most places?
Can one create sample series of LEE courses with a similar matrix that would appeal to various groups of engineering students? Absolutely. I'll give a couple examples (again, I have no connection with UIUC, but I can click on lists and count) and then let's continue the discussion.
The note from below the table is "Students must take 18 hours total of Liberal Education Electives (Lib Ed Elect), of which 6 hours should be from campus General Education Social and Behavioral Sciences list, 6 hours from campus General Education Humanities and the Arts list, and 6 hours from a list approved by the college or from the campus General Education lists for Social and Behavioral Sciences or Humanities and the Arts."
Sample series A:
AAS 100: Intro Asian American Studies (SS)
AAS 297: Asian American Families in America (SS)
AAS 283: Asian American History (HP)
AAS 286: Asian American Literature (LA)
ASST 286: Southeast Asian Civilizations (HP)
CWL 307: Classic Chineses Lit (LA)
Sample series B:
AFRO 132: African American Music (LA)
AFRO 340: Dancing Black Popular Culture (HP)
ARTH 260: Graffiti and Murals (LA)
DANC 340: Dancing Black Popular Culture (HP)
AFST 243: Pan Africanism (SS)
AFST 254: Economic Systems in Africa (SS)
Sample series C:
AGED 230: Leadership Communications (SS)
AGED 260: Introduction to Leadership Studies (SS)
ECE 316: Ethics and Engineering (HP)
EDUC 202: Social Justice, School, and Society (HP)
ENGL 220: Literature and Science (LA)
ESE 202: American Environmental History (HP)
Based upon many, many, many hours of discussion regarding general education electives, their purposes, and why engineers need a good dollop of the humanities, my bet is none of these series are really what humanities folks have in mind.
A problem is we're talking only 6 courses and only 2 of them have to be in arts and humanities. Yet, with 132 credits already required, adding more credits is a non-starter. Getting the humanities folks to agree to even 4 specific courses that all engineers will take and that the engineering faculty agree are the correct four is a big lift. The next problem then becomes how to teach all those sections of those specific courses using humanities faculty with all excellent teachers who ensure either students demonstrate the knowledge we're hoping they get by this experience or fail those students to require a second try because we're serious about quality.
A larger question, perhaps also not yet addressed, is 'Are institutional structures the best or only places for learning some/much/all of what the humanities teach?
Much of my learning, in dance, music, theater and the visual arts, was in one-on-one lessons, in private dance classes, in participating in theatre groups, and visiting museums. At age nine, I fell in love with Feininger's "Bird Cloud" after seeing it once on the way to the coat check room after a children's program at the Columbus GFA. Ushering for the symphony to earn high school band "concert credits," I 'got' Beethoven's sixth symphony without knowing any of the background beside what the program notes said (pre- "Immortal, Beloved").
Transmission of certain elements made more sense and could be made more rigorously within classes (Italian 6th, for example, never came up in my private lessons..) but one wants to be careful not to associate a too-dire view of human life as succumbing to base animal instincts with no enlightenment to uplift us, just because our primary teaching structures don't necessarily convey content or context for some fields as completely as they might others.
I'm partly playing devil's advocate here, since I do a lot of thinking and teaching in just such structured ways...but not entirely.
Maybe just trying to look at the question by turning it on one of its dodecahedral ends and looking at it sideways (like Feininger...?)
M.
One of my original points in posting about engineering curriculum was to help bring attention to the very different way that engineering majors experience university compared to a liberal arts education or general education requirements in a liberal arts tradition.
To summarize, engineering majors are usually taking one or fewer humanities courses per term during their entire college career (the requirement may be only 2 humanities classes + 1 freshman comp course total), even during the first two years when curriculum plans for other majors tend to have a much more even split between major courses, general education requirements, and free electives. High-achieving entering engineering majors tend to work hard to either transfer in credit for humanities courses taken elsewhere as summer/dual enrollment or use AP/IB/CLEP credit to reduce even further their number of humanities courses being taken during their undergrad years.
Thus, the opportunities to use fabulous electives to pick up folks who find themselves in the wrong major is much lower than one might think, even though the statistics on transferring out of engineering majors indicate a very healthy stream of people needing new majors even in their first term. Someone upthread mentioned purposely having tables to help recruit soon after folks start that first semester and realize they aren't not engineers in their hearts.
A second point was to help provide some perspective on possible useful differentiating points on why study the humanities in college. At the risk of being accused again of pointing out the obvious, the value of the humanities is in their uniqueness in learning about the human condition. Studying history has a different purpose from studying literature or studying philosophy. Overlap exists, but clumping everything under a motto of "the humanities teach critical thinking, communication, and other very useful transferrable skills" is much like trying to sell cars by pointing out that the ones on our lot have four wheels, a radio, and anti-lock brakes. That's a useful distinction between selling bus passes that are very limited in where one can go (e.g., obtaining a one-year certificate in welding; taking an apprenticeship as an electrician) and owning a car that can go many places (e.g., getting a bachelor's degree where one obtains an education that will help cope with a rapidly changing world as a professional who can see a bigger picture).
I don't know all the answers in helping everyone see the value in the humanities. I can, though, say that as someone on the outside seeing the messages that the contrast between something like https://www.engineergirl.org/8463/Why-Be-an-Engineer and https://history.case.edu/undergraduate/what-do-history-degree/ or http://www.bu.edu/history/undergraduate-program/why-study-history/ or https://www.roosevelt.edu/academics/programs/bachelors-in-english-ba/career-guide are very stark.
Compare the rhetorical messages of:
Engineers do interesting things that help make the world a better place while making great money and working with people.
to
It's not as bad as you think. People don't live on grates or just teach in history/English/philosophy. You can do lots of things like go to law school or maybe work in publishing as a writer or other careers. Those publishing jobs are hard to get, but you'll be really competitive with an English degree.
Quote from: mamselle on June 06, 2019, 06:15:45 AM
A larger question, perhaps also not yet addressed, is 'Are institutional structures the best or only places for learning some/much/all of what the humanities teach?
I have to go to work now, but I agree that's a very important question related to the topic of "Are the Humanities Doomed?"
The short answer I'll give now is: No, mandatory, formal institutional structures targeted at only 4 years very early in a human's life are often counterproductive in achieving the stated outcomes of study in the humanities.
Quote from: polly_mer on June 06, 2019, 06:24:43 AM
I don't know all the answers in helping everyone see the value in the humanities. I can, though, say that as someone on the outside seeing the messages that the contrast between something like https://www.engineergirl.org/8463/Why-Be-an-Engineer and https://history.case.edu/undergraduate/what-do-history-degree/ or http://www.bu.edu/history/undergraduate-program/why-study-history/ or https://www.roosevelt.edu/academics/programs/bachelors-in-english-ba/career-guide are very stark.
Compare the rhetorical messages of:
Engineers do interesting things that help make the world a better place while making great money and working with people.
to
It's not as bad as you think. People don't live on grates or just teach in history/English/philosophy. You can do lots of things like go to law school or maybe work in publishing as a writer or other careers. Those publishing jobs are hard to get, but you'll be really competitive with an English degree.
One quote which illustrates a certain attitude:
Quote
You have to ask yourself what will serve you best in the rapidly changing world and economy in which you're going to work for 40 years after graduation: A fixed body of facts, or the ability to think for yourself critically, to write about what you think clearly, to read with a critical eye, and to express yourself orally very well. If you tend toward the latter answer, History, and Case, is the subject and place for you!
Oh, now I get it! Anyone who doesn't take history only gets a "fixed body of facts" that will have to do them for 50 years with no ability to think for themselves! So glad that got cleared up.
In reference to the above, I've found the written, oral, and visual communication abilities of academic scientists and engineers to usually be superior to those of academic humanists (probably not the correct word, but you know what I mean). The latter are not walking the walk. And just like one semester of technical writing in engineering does not make one a good writer, the same is true of one semester of history or philosophy or English -- which is how humanities requirements are structured at the vast majority of post-secondary institutions.
Quote from: polly_mer on June 06, 2019, 05:46:50 AM
Quote from: Hibush on June 05, 2019, 08:08:22 AM
Would it be possible to show a sample series of LEE course that constitute a similar matrix of developing an understanding of humanity? Perhaps a group of courses that has been effective with previous engineering majors?
Can one create sample series of LEE courses with a similar matrix that would appeal to various groups of engineering students? Absolutely. I'll give a couple examples (again, I have no connection with UIUC, but I can click on lists and count) and then let's continue the discussion.
That's tremendous! Even I want to take those sequences.
This is exactly the kind of promotion that ought to be effective in getting strong enrollment and engagement by non-humanities majors in vigorous humanities courses.
Quote from: spork on June 06, 2019, 09:37:42 AM
In reference to the above, I've found the written, oral, and visual communication abilities of academic scientists and engineers to usually be superior to those of academic humanists (probably not the correct word, but you know what I mean). The latter are not walking the walk. And just like one semester of technical writing in engineering does not make one a good writer, the same is true of one semester of history or philosophy or English -- which is how humanities requirements are structured at the vast majority of post-secondary institutions.
As a case in point, Prof. Smith's communication ability got a failing grade from Parasaurolophus (http://thefora.org/index.php?topic=24.msg1469#msg1469)above. I didn't want to pile on in the initial post on his article, but that
was a lot of words to say not very much.
However, I have met philosophers who are really engaging. It is not a requirement to use turgid prose, probably just a cultural norm.
The other issue that will confound with Polly's fabulous humanities sequences is the push for AP/IB/dual enrollment in HS. We are seeing more and more students arriving on campus with most of the Gen Ed courses already completed. If you are some sort of STEM major, those Gen Eds ARE your opportunity to explore the humanities. So these students lose out on that opportunity because they "completed" the Gen Eds before arriving. And of course today's financial aid won't let you take an extra class "for fun".
As an FYI, this also causes downstream problems as well. These STEM students can't space out humanities courses among their science courses. Which is how we end up with first year students enrolled simultaneously in Intro Chem, Intro Bio, Intro Physics, and Calculus all in the same semester. I've seen it happen.
Quote from: mythbuster on June 06, 2019, 01:06:13 PM
The other issue that will confound with Polly's fabulous humanities sequences is the push for AP/IB/dual enrollment in HS. We are seeing more and more students arriving on campus with most of the Gen Ed courses already completed. If you are some sort of STEM major, those Gen Eds ARE your opportunity to explore the humanities. So these students lose out on that opportunity because they "completed" the Gen Eds before arriving. And of course today's financial aid won't let you take an extra class "for fun".
As an FYI, this also causes downstream problems as well. These STEM students can't space out humanities courses among their science courses. Which is how we end up with first year students enrolled simultaneously in Intro Chem, Intro Bio, Intro Physics, and Calculus all in the same semester. I've seen it happen.
That was my first-term schedule exactly. I loved it. Spring term, I signed up for a poetry class. The first day the TA read a poem...while leaping about and using some really odd meter. I dropped it immediately out of fear, and signed up for something where I could just sit safely and take notes.
Having to get at least a couple breadth requirement in, I realized that the interesting liberal-arts classes were all full of liberal arts majors. There was no way I was going to be able to compete against them gradewise. I couldn't take that kind of risk with my GPA! (Thank you community college summer classes for getting me out of that one.)
My wish for current students is that they don't need to follow the line of reasoning I used as an undergrad.
Quote from: Hibush on June 06, 2019, 02:07:37 PM
Having to get at least a couple breadth requirement in, I realized that the interesting liberal-arts classes were all full of liberal arts majors. There was no way I was going to be able to compete against them gradewise. I couldn't take that kind of risk with my GPA! (Thank you community college summer classes for getting me out of that one.)
My wish for current students is that they don't need to follow the line of reasoning I used as an undergrad.
That can be a real problem, yeah. I think it's especially important for those of us teaching in discovery majors to realize that they're discovery majors, and that we shouldn't be chasing students away. The goal of these courses is to drive interest, not to keep the barbarians behind the gates. Besides, at least in my field, nobody does especially well at first. The liberal arts majors don't do appreciably better than the science majors.
To my mind, we should be rethinking the structure of our assignments to reflect the fact that so many of our students come to us very differently prepared. So, e.g., for classes I teach where I can expect significant non-major enrollment, one thing I do is offer scaffolded assignments that build up to one longer term paper, and I allow my students to rewrite their work for a better grade. The result, in those classes, has been overwhelmingly positive. Even in very large classes, it hasn't actually translated to much more work for me, either.
But we also need to do a better job advertising our offerings to students who might otherwise be intimidated. For pretty much any X, there's a philosophy of X course which the philosophy department could be teaching to students majoring in X; for those who are afraid of writing but are mathematically inclined and need the humanities credit, logic could be a real option. But nobody is going to take those classes if they don't know about them. Just putting up posters in the relevant departments can make a huge difference, as can preparing a departmental cheat sheet for academic advisors.
Quote from: mythbuster on June 06, 2019, 01:06:13 PM
The other issue that will confound with Polly's fabulous humanities sequences is the push for AP/IB/dual enrollment in HS. We are seeing more and more students arriving on campus with most of the Gen Ed courses already completed. If you are some sort of STEM major, those Gen Eds ARE your opportunity to explore the humanities. So these students lose out on that opportunity because they "completed" the Gen Eds before arriving. And of course today's financial aid won't let you take an extra class "for fun".
As an FYI, this also causes downstream problems as well. These STEM students can't space out humanities courses among their science courses. Which is how we end up with first year students enrolled simultaneously in Intro Chem, Intro Bio, Intro Physics, and Calculus all in the same semester. I've seen it happen.
This reminds me of what happened to me when I was an undergrad in the 1980s. Only there it was the other way around--I tested out of all of our school's (evidently rather limited) math and science GED requirements and never took a STEM course in college. Something I've regretted since. That said, I COULD have taken a couple of such courses for fun if I'd chosen to. I just didn't think at the time that any of that looked like fun.
I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.
Quote from: apl68 on June 07, 2019, 08:02:49 AM
I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.
Actually, we have a very frustrating recruitment problem in that people who are very curious and capable often will settle on a humanities major very early in life and say nice things about science fan activities, but not then continue on the path to be, say, highly specialized engineers or engineering faculty. Many of the people who could do very well in those areas are also very capable people in many other areas. Even the very capable people who pick the broad category of STEM often go the medical route instead of an engineering route.
Instead, we have droves of folks who like the idea of a lot of money right out of college, but don't have either the passion to do something interesting or the diligence to plod along. Thus, the retention problem we have at the college level isn't trying to keep people who never should have been in certain majors in the first place through graduation. After all, even with huge attritions, we graduate many engineers every year.
The biggest retention problem discussed in areas I frequent is the women who complete an engineering BS and then go do something completely unrelated to engineering for their entire careers. After all, if college major doesn't matter to the job, then someone who has a solid math background, some computer skills, and some work experience (not just a good GPA) is a great candidate for all kinds of jobs that rely more on personal interest, diligence, and willing to learn new things that often have liberal arts majors, but don't rely on in-depth specific knowledge.
One very readable article: https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engineering-leave-the-field
Quote from: polly_mer on June 07, 2019, 10:35:00 AM
Quote from: apl68 on June 07, 2019, 08:02:49 AM
I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.
The biggest retention problem discussed in areas I frequent is the women who complete an engineering BS and then go do something completely unrelated to engineering for their entire careers. After all, if college major doesn't matter to the job, then someone who has a solid math background, some computer skills, and some work experience (not just a good GPA) is a great candidate for all kinds of jobs that rely more on personal interest, diligence, and willing to learn new things that often have liberal arts majors, but don't rely on in-depth specific knowledge.
This phenomenon may yet be good for society. Having women with engineering training in many pursuits makes a lot of things work better.
I run into former engineers in many places, and really enjoy working with them. For instance, I am on a civic board on which the chair has an engineering BS, and worked for an engineering firm for some time. Now she's in finance (where they could use more engineers, BTW.) I find that the engineering mindset and training are helpful in thinking through problems of all kinds logically, gathering relevant data, and being relatively predictable. Those attributes result in good policy, as well as power and influence.
In thinking about the effectiveness of an engineering program, it could be worthwhile to investigate the value of the training for the "no longer in engineering" demographic.
I'm interested in the question of whether the humanities are doomed and what needs to be done partly because we have some similar aspects in engineering and the parts of STEM that are highly dependent on people spending years learning the math, then learning the textbook parts that rely on the math, and then tackling the real-world problems that require teams of diverse people where the solutions can't be found in textbooks and won't be found in just one discipline.
A huge similarity is having people who had a life plan and are now significantly off that plan along with whether being off that plan is a joyful contribution to society or a very painful retreat upon being crushed by parts of an uncaring system.
Quote from: Hibush on June 08, 2019, 04:08:02 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on June 07, 2019, 10:35:00 AM
Quote from: apl68 on June 07, 2019, 08:02:49 AM
I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.
The biggest retention problem discussed in areas I frequent is the women who complete an engineering BS and then go do something completely unrelated to engineering for their entire careers. After all, if college major doesn't matter to the job, then someone who has a solid math background, some computer skills, and some work experience (not just a good GPA) is a great candidate for all kinds of jobs that rely more on personal interest, diligence, and willing to learn new things that often have liberal arts majors, but don't rely on in-depth specific knowledge.
This phenomenon may yet be good for society. Having women with engineering training in many pursuits makes a lot of things work better.
I run into former engineers in many places, and really enjoy working with them. For instance, I am on a civic board on which the chair has an engineering BS, and worked for an engineering firm for some time. Now she's in finance (where they could use more engineers, BTW.) I find that the engineering mindset and training are helpful in thinking through problems of all kinds logically, gathering relevant data, and being relatively predictable. Those attributes result in good policy, as well as power and influence.
In thinking about the effectiveness of an engineering program, it could be worthwhile to investigate the value of the training for the "no longer in engineering" demographic.
I agree as long as:
a) the individual situation is such that the person making the individual choice is going towards something good instead of away from something bad.
b) we're still left with enough engineers doing engineering things in depth instead of only having novices passing through on their way to something else good in society.
In my tiny area of employment, we're really, really, really worried about situation b as the Baby Boomers start retiring in droves and it turns out we don't have enough Gen Xers or enough front-wave Millennials in mid-career positions ready to step up and replace. We're also really worried about a lack of diversity in people who stay as engineers because a good technological solution that will be adopted by large numbers of people is better than the absolute best technological solution that is adopted by practically no one for humanistic reasons. SPADFY is huge and a handful of humanities, fine arts, and social science college classes is no substitute from different lived experiences as perspective on what should be done with what is in accord with physical reality and feasibleness with resources.
For decades, we had diversity of lived experience through international students and now that's changing as well. In some STEM specialties including CS and computational engineering/physical science, we're short on graduate degree holders period, but very worrying is the shortage who want to teach. In some instances, we're even short on graduate degree holders who want to do research in academic settings and are willing to teach. Again, we used to have international students who came and stayed so they often took academic jobs, but that's changing and we're now short.
Thus, while we have a lot of bachelor degrees awarded, we don't have a lot of practitioners nor are we doing great at moving folks from initial interest through to deep knowledge that only comes after decades invested in study.
Quote from: mamselle on June 06, 2019, 06:15:45 AM
A larger question, perhaps also not yet addressed, is 'Are institutional structures the best or only places for learning some/much/all of what the humanities teach?
I just read "The Anti-College is on the Rise" (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/college-anti-college-mainstream-universities.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage) and wondered if that's a viable path or if the demand for that kind of education is so small that a handful of programs will cover it.
Quote from: polly_mer on June 07, 2019, 10:35:00 AM
One very readable article: https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engineering-leave-the-field
One very interesting point from the article:
Quote
Women were also much more likely to look to others—teaching assistants, professors, and advisors—to affirm, and reaffirm, their confidence. Men did talk about doubting themselves, but they did not necessarily seek reassurance from others. We found that this search for positive cues carried over into expectations for feedback from supervisors in internships and jobs.
This raises an interesting paradox: if women have more of a need to be affirmed, in order to build their confidence, then putting programs in place to provide them that sort of affirmation
confirms and continues the situation. (I say this as someone with a daughter in engineering, and as someone who encourages all kinds of female students in STEM.) The only way around this I can see is if programs equally provide affirmation for both men and women, so that the differences are not perpetuated.
The article about the closing of Newbury College that Polly linked to on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread had an interesting couple of paragraphs about history and the other liberal arts disciplines. They're good at training students for leadership. And access to them is now increasingly being limited to children of rich families at Ivy League schools.
Quote from: apl68 on June 13, 2019, 08:17:55 AM
The article about the closing of Newbury College that Polly linked to on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread had an interesting couple of paragraphs about history and the other liberal arts disciplines. They're good at training students for leadership. And access to them is now increasingly being limited to children of rich families at Ivy League schools.
I think your last sentence is the key. Whenever I see this thread, I think, "No: we're ALL doomed." I believe we will look back on the latter half of the 20th century as an aberration. Used to be that only the rich received education, and soon that may once again be the case.
I'm an engineer, and as stated elsewhere, engineering curricula are weird. Until my son went to an Ivy, I didn't realize how weird. I suspect, though, that other disciplines will start to resemble engineering in structure. "Guided pathways," that sort of thing.
Quote from: Hibush on June 08, 2019, 04:08:02 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on June 07, 2019, 10:35:00 AM
Quote from: apl68 on June 07, 2019, 08:02:49 AM
I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.
The biggest retention problem discussed in areas I frequent is the women who complete an engineering BS and then go do something completely unrelated to engineering for their entire careers. After all, if college major doesn't matter to the job, then someone who has a solid math background, some computer skills, and some work experience (not just a good GPA) is a great candidate for all kinds of jobs that rely more on personal interest, diligence, and willing to learn new things that often have liberal arts majors, but don't rely on in-depth specific knowledge.
This phenomenon may yet be good for society. Having women with engineering training in many pursuits makes a lot of things work better.
I run into former engineers in many places, and really enjoy working with them. For instance, I am on a civic board on which the chair has an engineering BS, and worked for an engineering firm for some time. Now she's in finance (where they could use more engineers, BTW.) I find that the engineering mindset and training are helpful in thinking through problems of all kinds logically, gathering relevant data, and being relatively predictable. Those attributes result in good policy, as well as power and influence.
In thinking about the effectiveness of an engineering program, it could be worthwhile to investigate the value of the training for the "no longer in engineering" demographic.
For some years the president of our library's Board of Trustees was a retired engineer. He was instrumental in getting our current library facility (An uncommonly good one for a town our size) built, and was in charge of the committee that hired me. He had such a commanding role on the Board that I spent years thinking of him personally, rather than the Board as a whole, as my boss.
His detail-oriented engineering mindset was indeed a great asset to us, especially in the earlier years of my tenure when I was learning my job on the job (I was seriously underqualified for my job when hired--our town is so small and isolated that I was the best hire they could manage! They patiently let me take a few years to grow into the role). Though he was a good guy, I found him intimidating and challenging to work for. He had some blind spots when it came to working with the public, and especially with younger patrons. At the same time, he recognized the limitations of his area of expertise, and trusted others to know best in their fields, once he felt they had earned his trust. He was sometimes needlessly inflexible on certain matters. For example, today is the first day we're offering coffee at the library--something other libraries have been doing for years, but which was impossible for us even to suggest while this Trustee was still living! The inflexibility may have been due more to age than to his engineering background.
His role in getting the library built was somewhat mixed. On the one hand, his skills were probably the number one factor in getting the project successfully approved by voters and ramrodded through on time and on budget. On the other hand, the building ended up with some seriously over-engineered HVAC systems that have been a money pit to maintain ever since. There was also insufficient consultation with library professionals on aspects of the library's layout. Despite the building's size, we lack sufficient programming space for childrens' and youth activities.
Overall, I believe he was a great example of the sort of former-engineer-benefiting-society you're talking about. He always seemed to have a strong appreciation of the value of "softer" subjects in the humanities. Of course, he came of age when humanities education at the high school and undergrad levels was much stronger than it usually is now.
Quote from: apl68 on June 13, 2019, 08:17:55 AM
The article about the closing of Newbury College that Polly linked to on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread had an interesting couple of paragraphs about history and the other liberal arts disciplines. They're good at training students for leadership. And access to them is now increasingly being limited to children of rich families at Ivy League schools.
Where is the evidence that humanities subjects are good for training students for leadership (and are better say than science/engineering/....)? I am not saying that I don't regard the humanities as important - I have been supportive of the need for my own subject to cross-subsidise some areas of the humanities to ensure that they are retained as part of ScotiaU - but no-one I have challenged has yet been able to provide me with any evidence that of the superior leadership skills of humanities graduates. We have a lot of really poor leadership in the political classes in the UK at the moment, and too many of them have a humanities or liberal arts background for me to blindly accept that there is something inherently superior about the training for leadership of those who study these subjects.
Quote from: Scotia on June 18, 2019, 09:37:58 AM
Quote from: apl68 on June 13, 2019, 08:17:55 AM
The article about the closing of Newbury College that Polly linked to on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread had an interesting couple of paragraphs about history and the other liberal arts disciplines. They're good at training students for leadership. And access to them is now increasingly being limited to children of rich families at Ivy League schools.
Where is the evidence that humanities subjects are good for training students for leadership (and are better say than science/engineering/....)? I am not saying that I don't regard the humanities as important - I have been supportive of the need for my own subject to cross-subsidise some areas of the humanities to ensure that they are retained as part of ScotiaU - but no-one I have challenged has yet been able to provide me with any evidence that of the superior leadership skills of humanities graduates. We have a lot of really poor leadership in the political classes in the UK at the moment, and too many of them have a humanities or liberal arts background for me to blindly accept that there is something inherently superior about the training for leadership of those who study these subjects.
I'd be glad to see such evidence as well.
Quote from: Scotia on June 18, 2019, 09:37:58 AM
Quote from: apl68 on June 13, 2019, 08:17:55 AM
The article about the closing of Newbury College that Polly linked to on the "Dire Financial Straits" thread had an interesting couple of paragraphs about history and the other liberal arts disciplines. They're good at training students for leadership. And access to them is now increasingly being limited to children of rich families at Ivy League schools.
Where is the evidence that humanities subjects are good for training students for leadership (and are better say than science/engineering/....)? I am not saying that I don't regard the humanities as important - I have been supportive of the need for my own subject to cross-subsidise some areas of the humanities to ensure that they are retained as part of ScotiaU - but no-one I have challenged has yet been able to provide me with any evidence that of the superior leadership skills of humanities graduates. We have a lot of really poor leadership in the political classes in the UK at the moment, and too many of them have a humanities or liberal arts background for me to blindly accept that there is something inherently superior about the training for leadership of those who study these subjects.
I think of the counter evidence: people who have zero appreciation for humans as humans tend to be very poor leaders.
The question again comes back to the distinction between the value of all areas of human knowledge versus taking specific courses in a formal educational setting. For example, history is important and my current job goes much more smoothly with a solid background in a very specific era with knowledge that includes all sides of the countries involved from the mid-1800s to now. However, my one college history class (the history of Spain in North America) did not prepare me for the history that I need for my current job; a lifetime of reading non-fiction and the relevant literature from countries that aren't the US as well as hanging out with someone who happens to have a hobby in that area have been much more useful. I am not a historian and I can't play one on TV, but I absolutely use perspective of what happened, the various why's of what happened (doesn't matter if they are true if current political classes are acting as though they are true), and what all that means for current actions now to help with ongoing discussions of what we should be planning to have best effect.
Likewise, knowing multiple languages to the point that thinking is shaped by the language chosen can be very useful. However, a couple semesters of a college language is much less useful than having lived in various places and having enough substantive interactions that one can think in multiple ways. I read some reports from the MLA and sigh heavily about missing the point of what would be valuable in the current world instead of focusing so heavily on the past.
Thus, I again answer: no, the humanities are not doomed. However, it's entirely possible that some humanities subjects will continue be reduced at the university level through demonstrating that required classes are not leading to the desired education, even if we leave the first-job-after-college metric off the table. We can add leadership to the list of critical thinking, communication, and other soft skills that are helped by a solid university education, but aren't limited to the humanities-version of a university education.
Quote from: polly_mer on June 18, 2019, 11:23:18 AM
However, it's entirely possible that some humanities subjects will continue be reduced at the university level through demonstrating that required classes are not leading to the desired education, even if we leave the first-job-after-college metric off the table. We can add leadership to the list of critical thinking, communication, and other soft skills that are helped by a solid university education, but aren't limited to the humanities-version of a university education.
This is where I sense a difference in attitude; for instance, in STEM subjects it is much more common to acknowledge to students that the classes themselves are not essential to learning the material. If they can pick up the knowledge on their own, then it's perfectly fine. However, it seems in many humanities disciplines there is a strong feeling that
participation in the class itself is vital. It's not uncommon for 20 or 30% of the final grade to be based on it, which would be
extremely unusual in STEM. If one starts with the assumption that participation in the class is assumed fundamental to learning, then it's a simple step to concluding that only
those specific classes can produce an "'educated" person.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 19, 2019, 07:13:42 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on June 18, 2019, 11:23:18 AM
However, it's entirely possible that some humanities subjects will continue be reduced at the university level through demonstrating that required classes are not leading to the desired education, even if we leave the first-job-after-college metric off the table. We can add leadership to the list of critical thinking, communication, and other soft skills that are helped by a solid university education, but aren't limited to the humanities-version of a university education.
This is where I sense a difference in attitude; for instance, in STEM subjects it is much more common to acknowledge to students that the classes themselves are not essential to learning the material. If they can pick up the knowledge on their own, then it's perfectly fine. However, it seems in many humanities disciplines there is a strong feeling that participation in the class itself is vital. It's not uncommon for 20 or 30% of the final grade to be based on it, which would be extremely unusual in STEM. If one starts with the assumption that participation in the class is assumed fundamental to learning, then it's a simple step to concluding that only those specific classes can produce an "'educated" person.
Some of this is a difference in feedback mechanisms to students.
For something that has a mathematical solution or other one right answer, I can look up the answer or feed the answer back in to get a gauge on how I'm doing.
However, for something that has a range of correct enough answers and a whole slew of wrong enough answers, one needs a different type of feedback. That's why peer review in scientific research is important in a way that simply doing textbook problems or lab exercises is not. Running humanities classes that do a lot of discussion functions as teaching people to do the exploration of ideas and peer review that helps develop ways of looking at things and forces examination of evidence.
Yes, learning the plot to one novel can be done in isolation alone--that's like working a textbook problem in physics. However, discussing what that plot means and examining how characters were constrained by social conventions and legal requirements at the time/place is more like a design problem in engineering--you don't get nearly as much out of it if you do it alone instead of having many meetings with people discussing options, choices, and exploring possible consequences.
Out in the world, where we need engineers are the situations where we need many people with different backgrounds willing to engage in the lengthy discussions that are supported by calculation, but generally the hard part isn't the calculation.
The same is true of the humanities application of knowledge; we need people willing to do the extra reading and bouncing around ideas in a group. The handful of facts is often far less useful than the ability to pull together various different ways of thinking to examine the topic from multiple sides while listening carefully to people who bring in even more different ways of thinking with different emphasis on desired outcomes.
Part of the problem here is the way in which humanities are presented in K-12, a message that is often reinforced in the "take a 100-level course in each of these X subjects" standard gen ed curriculum of distribution requirements. E.g., art history translates to students as "tell me which painters/paintings to memorize and the symbolic meanings contained therein so I can pass the exam." Philosophy becomes "tell me why Aristotle is famous so I can write a term paper the night before it's due, that only the instructor will ever see, in a format not used anywhere but in college." There is little to no actual application of ideas to problem solving, and the whole exercise is correctly regarded as irrelevant.
Quote from: spork on June 20, 2019, 06:52:11 AM
Part of the problem here is the way in which humanities are presented in K-12, a message that is often reinforced in the "take a 100-level course in each of these X subjects" standard gen ed curriculum of distribution requirements. E.g., art history translates to students as "tell me which painters/paintings to memorize and the symbolic meanings contained therein so I can pass the exam." Philosophy becomes "tell me why Aristotle is famous so I can write a term paper the night before it's due, that only the instructor will ever see, in a format not used anywhere but in college." There is little to no actual application of ideas to problem solving, and the whole exercise is correctly regarded as irrelevant.
Then, where are the college faculty in this? Are they...
- ... presenting the material as Scantron-able factoids, or as part of a broader history/context/meaning?
- ... relating it to current events and influences?
- ... learning the demographic/social backgrounds of different student groups and showing how the subject relates to thought and tradition in different cultures?
Or are they dragging out their old lecture notes from college and blabbing on, same old same old, semester after semester?
Yeah, yeah, busy adjuncts, research requirements, blah blah blah.
I review the syllabi for the wide range of courses in my program, and I don't see anyone drily droning on about factoids and dates, or recycling decades-old material, or any of the old clichés. I do think some of the material is challenging, and requires students to dig in to the subject -- ethical questions, and historical questions, and a lot of it presented without fancy PowerPoint with animated graphics and stuff. A lot of professors are still teaching as if entertainment culture had not subsumed most of what our students experience outside the classroom. Is that good or bad? Opinions differ.
Quote from: Hegemony on June 20, 2019, 03:44:19 PM
I review the syllabi for the wide range of courses in my program, and I don't see anyone drily droning on about factoids and dates, or recycling decades-old material, or any of the old clichés.
You've mentioned being at an R1.
How many class sessions have you observed with minimal to no notice for intro classes that are being covered by the warm-bodies-obtained-from-who-knows-where, as Wahoo described?
How many of those sessions have been at places where the average ACT score is below college ready and, if the institution is not officially open enrollment, then the bar for enrollment is generally not very high as long as the check clears?
I ask because Wahoo is not the only one with stories of the in-class situation being very different from what's advertised. I've observed classes at various times in various places (regional comprehensives, community colleges, tiny rural college on the ground and online, and specialized STEM institutions). The discrepancies between the syllabus, the written description of how the class will be taught to get approved by the curriculum committee, and the reality in the classroom can be huge. That discrepancy is not limited to humanities courses, but it turns out not to be that hard to write a great syllabus (or be assigned one for a shared class) and then default to covering the basic facts of the material through lecture because actual discussion and exploration can be very time-consuming, especially with underprepared, undermotivated students with complicated lives.
Having substantial experience at an elite institution with students who can do college work really isn't the same perspective as having been places that "covering the required gen ed course to check the box" is an administrative practice of which no one is proud, but isn't all that rare at places where the humanities courses are mostly required gen eds that are championed by no one, but are kept from some vague sense of broader education. That situation is one contributing factor to low enrollment in humanities majors (why would anyone want to take more of those check-the-box classes?) and then eventual discontinuation of the major at many institutions.
Yes, many people are doing wonderful things in the humanities. The problem is that's not everyone everywhere. Good teachers can be found at all types of schools, but check-the-box for students and for overwhelmed adjuncts is not a rare situation at institutions where college-level material is more an aspiration than an accurate description.
Well, I'm at an alleged R1 (barely hanging on to its status by its fingernails), but it's a state university in a state that funds its higher education badly, so I'd say we're far from elite. Our students are very definitely far from elite. It's basically open enrollment here for applicants from out of state. One was so illiterate that I looked up his record to see how he could possibly have been admitted; he had a D high school average, but he's a foreign student. And not from a place where a D is a respectable grade. In fact we scoop up the foreign students that other universities won't admit, by the trick of requiring a lower TOEFL score than all the other places. The in-state students are a mixed bunch, but on average their level of preparation is dismaying.
So I can vouch for the fact that it's not the case that our students are prepared to do college work. Maybe 5 or 6 of them per 50-student class. It's a challenge for us, all right. Nevertheless the instructors I've seen, at all levels, are almost all trying to do their best, with the usual handicaps: classes too large, students underprepared, distracted, and often unmotivated, and all the usual challenges. But the job market has been so tight for so long: when 400 people apply for the same job, how do these dull, uninspiring, and repetitious instructors you mention win out over the other applicants? I haven't seen much of it in my time.
Quote from: Hegemony on June 20, 2019, 10:35:23 PM
[. . . ]
how do these dull, uninspiring, and repetitious instructors you mention win out over the other applicants? I haven't seen much of it in my time.
When two weeks before the semester begins, one adjunct backs out because of a better-paying, more convenient gig elsewhere, then a second, and you're left just trying to find an available warm body the weekend before classes start.
Or, just as likely, the instructor was tenured long ago despite never obtaining a terminal degree or producing any form of scholarship (because that's the kind of people who were hired back then), uses the Scantron-able factoid method of teaching mentioned upthread, and thinks, despite evidence to the contrary, that he/she does an excellent job. And the administrative powers that be refuse to institute post-tenure review or an incentivized voluntary separation program.
Quote from: spork on June 21, 2019, 02:42:05 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on June 20, 2019, 10:35:23 PM
[. . . ]
how do these dull, uninspiring, and repetitious instructors you mention win out over the other applicants? I haven't seen much of it in my time.
When two weeks before the semester begins, one adjunct backs out because of a better-paying, more convenient gig elsewhere, then a second, and you're left just trying to find an available warm body the weekend before classes start.
Or, just as likely, the instructor was tenured long ago despite never obtaining a terminal degree or producing any form of scholarship (because that's the kind of people who were hired back then), uses the Scantron-able factoid method of teaching mentioned upthread, and thinks, despite evidence to the contrary, that he/she does an excellent job. And the administrative powers that be refuse to institute post-tenure review or an incentivized voluntary separation program.
There's also the problem of pay and location.
If we actually put in the job ad that the pay is $32k per nine months for a 5/5 load, then we don't get 400 highly qualified applicants willing to relocate to the remote cornfields, Appalachia, or the reservation. Full-time hires in the humanities tend to end up being pretty good, but we've had failed searches because the top N people turned us down or were already off-the-market by the time we made an offer. We've also been burned several times by hiring people who could talk a good game, but came to us, focused on research productivity to go to a better job, and let teaching be mostly a fabulous lecture hour in the classroom with essentially no grading except the one midterm exam and one final paper. That's a problem in a class that was supposed to be writing intensive for general education requirements with a lot of feedback to students, especially when it turns out the midterm exam was testing mostly on footnotes in the reading. The syllabus looked great, though, and we only discovered some of this by unannounced classroom observations upon several reports by good students who were annoyed at the discrepancy between the reality in the classroom and the message of "a liberal arts education teaches you to think critically".
In terms of adjuncts, even if we're not looking to hire someone to start on Tuesday, every time we try to hire new, we get a crapshoot on quality because the local adjunct pool is so small. The long-established part-time folks teaching one or two specific courses for us tend to be very good, sometimes better than some of the tenured, full folks who were hired decades ago and have been lowering their expectations to the point that the essentially open-enrollment students with only a ninth-grade education can meet the expectations. However, every time we have to get a new adjunct, we cross our fingers and hope really, really hard for someone who will put their heart and soul into a course to enhance their CV and teaching experience as a trailing spouse, stay-at-home parent, or new degree recipient instead of someone who has done the calculation that $1800 per term is $20/hour for 3 hours of classroom time and 3 hours of prep/grading time per week so that's all the time they will put into it.
Even in places that have a decent size adjunct pool because they're in a major city, when the institution needs to cover enough general education courses for thousands, possibly tens of thousands of students, at $2k per instructor, my bet is quality is not the primary hiring characteristic. For example, https://splinternews.com/the-revenge-of-the-poverty-stricken-college-professors-1835381061 states that Miami Dade College has 165 000 students with 2800 adjuncts with the whole point of the article being those adjuncts do not make a living wage at a couple thousand dollars per course and no benefits. When one is looking at hiring literally hundreds of people every term willing to work for $2k/section, my bet is that the bar is pretty high for non-renewal based on student complaints and "boring" from non-majors taking a required course is not going to clear that bar.
Full-time folks are probably excellent; it's that army of adjuncts that probably have much more variability in teaching because 6 or 8 sections per term spread over a couple three institutions is a huge amount of time and effort to even be OK, let alone excellent.
It's a terrible paradox that we have so many highly qualified people who can't seem to find work teaching, and yet so much work being done by under-qualified and under-supported instructors. Our institutions of higher learning appear, for whatever reasons, to have created an awfully wasteful system here.
We see some of that in other professions as well. Small, rural libraries like ours have long had trouble recruiting degree-holding librarians. I didn't have a degree when I was hired here, and I came from an academic library background that made my experience a poor fit for a public library setting. But I was still the most qualified applicant they got, and I indicated that, due to my origins in a very similar community, I understood the region's culture and was prepared to stay and grow into the job. I finally finished my degree and became fully qualified eight years or so after my original hire.
Meanwhile, I know of urban library systems in more trendy areas where many of the circulation clerks have degrees or are working on them. They're going to face a real challenge working their way into a professional-level position where they are, because the region is now saturated with qualified people. They keep at it because they don't want to live somewhere less trendy, and because the rural places don't pay well (I'm still, despite some improvements in recent years, one of the lowest-paid librarians in the state with my level of qualifications and experience. And believe it or not, as City Librarian I'm actually now our highest-paid city department head! That's how low pay scales are in this town.). The low pay is largely compensated by lower cost of living. The cultural fit issue is a more challenging matter, though speaking as someone with many years of experience in both urban and rural settings I have not found that rural people have any monopoly on unwillingness to try taking a chance on something outside their comfort zones.
And so we have this problem of too many qualified people chasing too few jobs in some places, and too few qualified people to go around elsewhere. I will say this--it is possible to do something about redressing the imbalance if there is some willingness to redistribute resources. In order to receive state aid to public libraries in our state, a library must be headed by a professional, degree-holding librarian. A small town that stops treating library leadership as a glorified clerical position and recruits a qualified professional can receive a small but meaningful amount of per capita state aid, AND an $18,000 a year MLS grant meant to go toward the professional librarian's salary. This means that even though I make somewhat more than the Chief of Police, I'm actually costing the city less.
This use of state aid as a carrot incentive to hire professional librarians has done a lot to increase the number of rural libraries in our state with professionally-qualified leaders over the years. If academia and its funders could somehow address its resource-distribution issues, it might help some of these problems. Beats me how that could be done, absent somebody willing and able to spend a lot of money on it. But it's surely not impossible in principle.
Am I also correct that there aren't very many MLS programs that are easy to get to?
My sister is a librarian--had to go back to live with our folks for 2 years to attend the only program in a 3-state area for her degree.
I looked into the idea a long time ago, and there were two in my area; since then one has died and the other is a fair bit away (over an hour's drive each way from me, for example) which, along with other factors, made me look at other options.
When these discussions come up, I'm reminded of the teaching/learning model that launched the Sorbonne--students attending lectures in small private spaces by those who set up shop in a nearby area along, say, the Left Bank/St. Andre, and gradually coalesced from that.
I wonder if some of the things I work on, which don't really fit into the boxes offered in many of the more established places (or which did, until those established places started dying out--three in the past 5 years, here, for example), need to be taught like that--I already do private music teaching, maybe a private interfaith liturgical arts program would be grantworthy, but...ooof, the work to put it together would be daunting, I know.
So...onwards we go...excelsior.
M.
Quote from: mamselle on June 21, 2019, 01:13:01 PM
Am I also correct that there aren't very many MLS programs that are easy to get to?
M.
That is correct. Many states, including ours, don't have a single accredited MLS program. Which is why in recent years most of us have been doing online-only degrees. It helps that MLS programs usually seem to offer in-state tuition to students from neighboring states.
I'm very grateful for online education and the way it made it possible for me to get my needed professional degree. But I have to say, I'm skeptical whether too many traditional-age students would have the necessary self-discipline to thrive in an online-only educational environment.
Incidentally, our state has also worked to remedy the librarian shortage by giving scholarships to library staffers who need to upgrade their credentials. If you're working for a public library in-state, and pledge to continue to do so, and have already completed two semesters toward the degree at your own expense, you can put in for reimbursement of your later semesters. It's a huge boon for rural libraries that are trying to grow the kind of degree-holding librarian they may have trouble attracting from out of town. The state has been known to let a library continue collecting state aid while the new librarian was in school. Although the MLS grant part has to wait until the degree is actually completed.
Does library science actually count as "humanities"? It sounds to me uncomfortably close to <shudder>"job training"</shudder>. I was of the impression that the humanities purists valued the unfettered life of the mind above pedestrian vocational education.
Umm....clearly you don't know some of the librarians I do....
M.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 21, 2019, 01:59:33 PM
Does library science actually count as "humanities"? It sounds to me uncomfortably close to <shudder>"job training"</shudder>. I was of the impression that the humanities purists valued the unfettered life of the mind above pedestrian vocational education.
I'd be curious to know what you think we study in library science. My library science education included courses in fields like literature and ethics. I found the library ethics class as intellectually stimulating as most of what I studied in my PhD program in history.
Then there were the more STEM-y fields involving database evaluation, IT, and web design. I made considerable use of my training as an historian in my major collection development assignment--which I used to actual collection development at our library. We even had a management class, though that proved mostly a waste of time due to a slacker instructor.
Quote from: apl68 on June 21, 2019, 04:31:20 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 21, 2019, 01:59:33 PM
Does library science actually count as "humanities"? It sounds to me uncomfortably close to <shudder>"job training"</shudder>. I was of the impression that the humanities purists valued the unfettered life of the mind above pedestrian vocational education.
I'd be curious to know what you think we study in library science. My library science education included courses in fields like literature and ethics. I found the library ethics class as intellectually stimulating as most of what I studied in my PhD program in history.
Then there were the more STEM-y fields involving database evaluation, IT, and web design. I made considerable use of my training as an historian in my major collection development assignment--which I used to actual collection development at our library. We even had a management class, though that proved mostly a waste of time due to a slacker instructor.
My point was that it's pretty common to hear humanities faculty get defensive about the value of "soft skills" versus "hard skills" on the basis that a humanities education is not
job training, with the implication that such an education is somewhat inferior. I'm truly curious about how something like library science is viewed since, as you point out, it includes developing actual "hard skills" in the service of a specific kind of
job. To people from STEM and professional programs, it makes total sense.
Does the fact that library science is typically a graduate program somehow make its incorporation of "hard skills" for a specific job more acceptable?
I don't really know how "humanities faculty" view library science. It's been my experience that faculty of all fields tend to regard library staff, including the professionally-trained research librarians, as hired help. The library pros are sometimes sensitive about it. They consider themselves educated professionals who should be regarded more as peers than as support staff. After all, some of them also have degrees--even terminal degrees--in their fields. The members of my old PhD department with whom I continued to interact after joining the library staff seemed to feel I had come down in the world (Frankly I did too, for a long time. Years of lurking at the fora among all the unhappy people here have since convinced me that NOT becoming a professional academic was one of the best things that ever happened to me!). But I think that was because they felt sorry for me for washing out of the PhD program, not because they thought doing applied practical work made me inferior. Some of them actually invited me to come back and try to finish my dissertation after my advisor left. Apparently they still thought I had what it took. I refused, and they didn't push it.
The thing is, library school isn't just "job training." Our actual job training is on the job. That's why professional-level library positions always call for years of experience in addition to the formal degree. That's why so many of the people you meet in library school are experienced library staff trying to take their skills and credentials to a new level. We didn't spend our time in school learning how to put barcodes on books and type up shelf labels. We were getting a legitimate, masters' level education, with masters'-level research and everything. Librarians aren't just jumped-up clerical staff. We're professionals.
And a good humanities education is usually a key part of preparing us for that. I have found, and continue to find, my humanities education tremendously relevant to my work. Libraries are about information, and information is about much more than just IT. I don't think it's any coincidence that most librarians I know have a humanities background.
I've ended up reading some interesting things recently so I want to go back to:
Quote from: Hegemony on June 20, 2019, 03:44:19 PM
I review the syllabi for the wide range of courses in my program, and I don't see anyone drily droning on about factoids and dates, or recycling decades-old material, or any of the old clichés. I do think some of the material is challenging, and requires students to dig in to the subject -- ethical questions, and historical questions, and a lot of it presented without fancy PowerPoint with animated graphics and stuff. A lot of professors are still teaching as if entertainment culture had not subsumed most of what our students experience outside the classroom. Is that good or bad? Opinions differ.
Another possibility for why people devalue the humanities is that freshman take classes and are expected to be able to make some original-enough contributions in the good classes where the goal is indeed digging in and doing real critical thinking. For example, a thread on the old fora (https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,264300) started with:
Quote from: MProust on April 20, 2019, 10:39:42 AM
I just read a paper that largely repeats what I said in class. It is an articulate paper by one of my better students, so I guess he was paying close attention, but with some exceptions I am reading my own observations. What to do? I felt like marking every place where he repeated what I said, but I held back on that. This guy is bright and contributes to class. I don't want to savage him, but can't let this slide either. What would be an appropriate grade and what would be an appropriate comment?
The subsequent discussion indicated that whether the best solution was a B, C, or redo to incorporate more original thought or at least a wider literature review to bring together more ideas depended strongly on the institution expectations. However, the point was clear that the student should be bringing original thought to this paper.
The idea that everyone capable of a college education can do humanities is explicit in the general education requirements. The list of classes meeting general education requirements seldom have 300-level chemistry classes, but may have 300-level literature classes. Indeed, at one point, Super Tiny College was redoing the general education requirements and one question was "where is the upper-division humanities elective requirement?"*
If it's true that a primary reason for a college education is to be an informed citizen and general education requirements reflect the needs of being an informed citizen, then the value of expert judgment in the humanities is lessened in many ways because so many non-experts have had enough of a taste to think we can do something useful and productive. Few people think that taking an intro class in physics followed by watching The Science Channel for a few years makes them anything like a real physicist. However, one of the clear messages of a college education is that reading some books, thinking, and then discussing with others are valuable activities that informed citizens should be doing and you don't need to be the absolute expert in the field to be having these discussions.
One possibility that I'll throw out for consideration is perhaps the humanities are victims of their own success if the true situation is most humanities faculty doing great things in their required classes so that random college-goers think they have learned enough to disregard most expert judgement as merely being one of many equally good options.
Thus, the net effect the general public is the same for exposure to the best teachers as to the worst teachers: some exposure to the humanities in college results in a devaluing of someone else's expertise in humanities subjects because it feels like something anyone can do.
* The answer came back that we can't possibly staff a wide array of upper-division humanities electives so go find out what "electives" we can get the big departments to agree are valuable to them to put as their recommended course in junior/senior year. We can offer one history elective, one English elective, and one philosophy/religion elective each term and they each have to be full at 20-30 students. The "tiny" college part is that the entire number of people declared as juniors is indeed between 60 and 120 students.
Quote from: apl68 on June 22, 2019, 08:10:37 AM
I don't really know how "humanities faculty" view library science. It's been my experience that faculty of all fields tend to regard library staff, including the professionally-trained research librarians, as hired help. The library pros are sometimes sensitive about it. They consider themselves educated professionals who should be regarded more as peers than as support staff. After all, some of them also have degrees--even terminal degrees--in their fields. The members of my old PhD department with whom I continued to interact after joining the library staff seemed to feel I had come down in the world (Frankly I did too, for a long time. Years of lurking at the fora among all the unhappy people here have since convinced me that NOT becoming a professional academic was one of the best things that ever happened to me!). But I think that was because they felt sorry for me for washing out of the PhD program, not because they thought doing applied practical work made me inferior. Some of them actually invited me to come back and try to finish my dissertation after my advisor left. Apparently they still thought I had what it took. I refused, and they didn't push it.
The thing is, library school isn't just "job training." Our actual job training is on the job. That's why professional-level library positions always call for years of experience in addition to the formal degree. That's why so many of the people you meet in library school are experienced library staff trying to take their skills and credentials to a new level. We didn't spend our time in school learning how to put barcodes on books and type up shelf labels. We were getting a legitimate, masters' level education, with masters'-level research and everything. Librarians aren't just jumped-up clerical staff. We're professionals.
And a good humanities education is usually a key part of preparing us for that. I have found, and continue to find, my humanities education tremendously relevant to my work. Libraries are about information, and information is about much more than just IT. I don't think it's any coincidence that most librarians I know have a humanities background.
This is both at the crux of one part of the issues feeding into the perception of a loss of rigor or dimensional tensile strength in the humanities, and a symptom of the exchange in values between "information" and " knowledge."
I ran into a situation based on this problem at the BnF in February. The Reference desk in Manuscripts used to have two or three highly skilled, eminently qualified people working there who were both published scholars in their fields AND librarians who located books and exchanged green and orange plastic placards for manuscripts.
Now, there's one person, staring at the computer, clearly IT savvy but with no understanding of the need to see a physical book when the digital pages were there for all to consult. The collapse of the force field lines running between or among perception, study, knowledge, interpretive depth and comparative background, down to single threads that say, "Data." "Picture." "Text." etc. take the whole enterprise to a flat plain of "ho-hum, yeah, info" because it makes more sense to put a computer guy there instead of a fully-aware, well-trained 《bibliothecaire》or 《archiviste》whose degrees match what apl68 has described, along with the experience and background required.
I'm wondering if this needs a thread of it's own, or if it serves the greater good by being a significant 5opic within this thread, in fact.
But in my world, librarians are definitely more than factota in search of a desk to file their nails at....
M.
We have not discussed doom since last summer, but if history is our guide this thread will never die.
There is good news in the form of a new opportunity. There have been various news reports lately about how artificial intelligence is studying how we use written language, and coming up with all kinds of bias in the resulting predictions. That's not exactly surprising, except to the computer scientists at Google et al.
This has created a substantial business opportunity for humanists who study how we use language.
From a NY Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/technology/artificial-intelligence-bias.html)(soft paywall):
One executive said, "vetting the behavior of this new technology would become so important, it will spawn a whole new industry, where companies pay specialists to audit their algorithms for all kinds of bias and other unexpected behavior. This is probably a billion-dollar industry."
All one needs to do to get some of that action is to learn to speak like a disrupting startup techie.
Quote from: Hibush on November 23, 2019, 05:32:36 AM
We have not discussed doom since last summer, but if history is our guide this thread will never die.
There is good news in the form of a new opportunity. There have been various news reports lately about how artificial intelligence is studying how we use written language, and coming up with all kinds of bias in the resulting predictions. That's not exactly surprising, except to the computer scientists at Google et al.
Just to clarify: if algorithms produce "biased" predictions, the problem is unlikely to be with the algorithms themselves. If the
data which the algorithms process are
non-representative, then the results will indeed be biased.
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 23, 2019, 07:28:21 AM
Quote from: Hibush on November 23, 2019, 05:32:36 AM
We have not discussed doom since last summer, but if history is our guide this thread will never die.
There is good news in the form of a new opportunity. There have been various news reports lately about how artificial intelligence is studying how we use written language, and coming up with all kinds of bias in the resulting predictions. That's not exactly surprising, except to the computer scientists at Google et al.
Just to clarify: if algorithms produce "biased" predictions, the problem is unlikely to be with the algorithms themselves. If the data which the algorithms process are non-representative, then the results will indeed be biased.
Or perhaps, the algorithms replicate and even exaggerate our human biases.
Two points:
- Regarding apl68's "I don't really know how 'humanities faculty' view library science": it's been my experience that faculty of all stripes are quite ignorant about how to effectively teach information literacy and research-based writing skills to undergraduates, whereas librarians are often pros at it, and faculty remain willfully ignorant that librarians possess this expertise.
- Regarding polly's response to hegemony,"freshman take classes and are expected to be able to make some original-enough contributions in the good classes where the goal is indeed digging in and doing real critical thinking": I doubt this is a realistically-achievable outcome for the vast majority of first-year college students. For a substantial number it barely happens even in the senior year, via some kind of thesis or other culminating research project. For example (speaking from the standpoint of my wife, whose academic specialty involves analyzing texts, especially those in a language other than English), making even a minimally-original contribution requires multilingualism and quite a bit of familiarity with a whole corpus of literature, and these are skills that just don't get developed in the typical undergraduate. The default then becomes assignments that ask for a synthesis or reaction to a few previously-published, easy-to-understand works on the subject at hand. And then that devolves for the instructor into identifying plagiarism because a large portion of undergrads think purchasing a paper and getting an A is what best serves their interests. Put more simply: it's difficult to teach literature or history that even superficially touches upon contemporary Iraq when students are completely ignorant of the 2003 U.S. invasion, subsequent occupation, and rise of ISIS. Trying to use a specific example to illustrate broader themes becomes a tortuous, frustrating process.
Quote from: spork on November 25, 2019, 09:45:01 AM
Two points:
- Regarding apl68's "I don't really know how 'humanities faculty' view library science": it's been my experience that faculty of all stripes are quite ignorant about how to effectively teach information literacy
- Regarding polly's response to hegemony,"freshman take classes and are expected to be able to make some original-enough contributions in the good classes where the goal is indeed digging in and doing real critical thinking": I doubt this is a realistically-achievable outcome for the vast majority of first-year college students. .
You people must teach in some weird places certainly different from the places I teach at. Personally I've never been at a school which disrespected their librarians.
And then there's this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns).
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 27, 2019, 08:47:12 AM
Quote from: spork on November 25, 2019, 09:45:01 AM
Two points:
- Regarding apl68's "I don't really know how 'humanities faculty' view library science": it's been my experience that faculty of all stripes are quite ignorant about how to effectively teach information literacy
- Regarding polly's response to hegemony,"freshman take classes and are expected to be able to make some original-enough contributions in the good classes where the goal is indeed digging in and doing real critical thinking": I doubt this is a realistically-achievable outcome for the vast majority of first-year college students. .
You people must teach in some weird places certainly different from the places I teach at. Personally I've never been at a school which disrespected their librarians.
When I worked in a university library I don't recall faculty being disrespectful, but I do recall an awful lot of cluelessness. Stuff like putting seven copies of an audio cassette on reserve in a media center with only three listening stations...expecting physical books from ILL in just two or three days...trying to ILL items that had only just been published...submitting repeated ILL requests that were all going to the same few libraries, because the requester apparently didn't realize that simply submitting more requests for a rare item didn't necessarily increase one's chances of getting it (We kept getting requests for the same issues of an obscure 19th-century periodical for months on end. The handful of libraries that had the item had only the same handful of microfilmed surviving issues--what the faculty member wanted clearly no longer existed).
There was the prof who shut down the whole circulation desk for about an hour when he trucked in a whole office full of materials that he'd had checked out for the past year and had to renew all at once. And the one who accidentally turned out the lights on the whole circ area, but in fairness how was he supposed to know that isolated switch would turn off everything?
Now and then librarians and staff would try to suggest collaborative ways to help faculty improve an assignment from a pedagogical or logistics perspective. Sometimes the faculty member would work with us, sometimes they wouldn't. Some of the degree-holding librarians would feel that they weren't getting due respect as colleagues. In fact that seems to be something of a perennial complaint among academic librarians. I recall our librarians getting upset at a suggestion to make all library staff wear name tags. They felt that having to wear tags would stigmatize them as hired help or something. I was only a paraprofessional library assistant back then myself, so I didn't feel that entitled to respect in the first place.
Librarians who publish get a certain degree of respect but it's due to the publications, I think, more than anything else.
Having time to do that has to be difficult, but I've known a few who do it.
M.
CHE today has a paywalled op ed from Charlie Tyson, (https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Rise-of-Reassurance-Lit/248145) a Harvard English graduate student arguing that the humanities are terribly harmed by an intense focus on self-reassurance. He does not say "doomed", but encourages critically thinking about the nature of the problem and getting out there (e.g. outside the MLA community) and doing something productive about the situation.
Here are some salient points Twitter link (https://twitter.com/CharlieTyson1/status/1233525190983897093)
QuoteThe best arguments on behalf of the humanities articulate ideals that allow us to measure our own efforts at teaching and research in relation to a set of standards. Reassurance lit, by contrast, is indiscriminate, assuring each of us of our value, often in grandiose terms. Several problems follow.
The most basic is that a realistic appraisal is always more convincing than an inflated one.
Second, the habit of indiscriminate reassurance makes it more difficult to address weaknesses in the field.
Third, the defensive posture of mandatory reassurance has begun to shape research agendas.
That is a pretty tough critique! Especially for someone about to go on the job market, though likely with some success.
What is missing from the essay is an indication of what would be productive for making the field thrive. (Is that because he is an expert on indolence, or an editor cutting the essay short?) A return to rigorous scholarship is a tacit prerequisite, but what is the nature of engagement with society?
Perhaps the essay stimulates forumites to provide some specifics.
Item #1 on my list for making humanities thrive: learn to communicate the way the non-academic world communicates, to reach a non-academic audience and possibly become more influential. E.g., Tyson's essay needs to be cut in half, express an argument that non-academics find relevant, and be published somewhere other than The Chronicle.
Writing for journalism will do that for you.
M.
Quote from: mamselle on March 02, 2020, 05:03:51 PM
Writing for journalism will do that for you.
M.
+1 When I started as a faculty member, we has a former newspaper editor doing communications. She drilled into me "don't bury the lede". (Scientists bury it just as well as humanists, just differently.) That admonishment has helped my academic writing tremendously. If someone wants to know what point I want to make, they should be able to find it right at the beginning.
Yes. And a column-inch limit focuses the mind marvelously.
M.
The humanities are not doomed. I heard that long ago. The name humanities is not very descriptive or apt nowadays, though historically it was accepted. General Studies is not good either. The name should be dropped.
I totally agree with this analysis of the librarians. Undervalued, unappreciated, underpaid and treated with apathy at so many places. I have a M.L.S. so I know. However, librarians who also teach classes online or in class are looked at more as faculty. Teaching library "science". Of course, it is and never was a science by any stretch. Librarians who think that know nothing about real science. Most academic librarians that I know of are ignored by the faculty and considered staff. They don't use the library themselves nor do they send their students there. English, history and humanities departments usually use the collection more than others. Since the internet and all the journal-book databases developed, librarians are expected to know how to use them efficiently and with speed. Immediately. So many professors, even at teaching universities are not aware of the skills needed to do this. Everyone seems to think that librarians read books on the job.
No that it matters, but the situation is worse in public libraries.
Quote from: mamselle on March 02, 2020, 05:03:51 PM
Writing for journalism will do that for you.
M.
Well and good, but this training is scarce to nonexistent in doctoral humanities programs -- because the faculty running those programs are themselves terrible writers.
Agreed.
I edit some of them.
;--}
M.
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 05, 2020, 08:11:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:47:06 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 05, 2020, 08:11:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-to methods for raising it.
(on edit) Putting it another way, more money for higher ed will not mean adjunct jobs pay better. The money will go to people who there who are already good at getting money.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 05:51:45 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:47:06 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 05, 2020, 08:11:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.
The article offers no solutions.
Perhaps. Money will always be an issue.
But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out. Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers? My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes. I believe parents will too. Is the way academia hires "the American way"? Etc.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:55:40 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 05:51:45 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:47:06 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 05, 2020, 08:11:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.
The article offers no solutions.
Perhaps. Money will always be an issue.
But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out. Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers? My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes. I believe parents will too. Is the way academia hires "the American way"? Etc.
I don't know. Good questions. What do people want to pay for? Expensive full time positions so professors can teach a little and publish research? What is the benefit of that research, then? And please, I already know that someone can point to a breakthrough in some field that happened because a tenured professor had the opportunity to find it. Because the question should be not be 'what have the most dazzling academically -employed researchers accomplished' but 'what is the bang for the buck.' As long as money will always be an issue.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:55:40 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 05:51:45 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:47:06 AM
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.
The article offers no solutions.
Perhaps. Money will always be an issue.
But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out. Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers? My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes. I believe parents will too. Is the way academia hires "the American way"? Etc.
One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.
The metric I would propose as being
closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.
To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 06:01:14 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:55:40 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 05:51:45 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:47:06 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 05, 2020, 08:11:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.
The article offers no solutions.
Perhaps. Money will always be an issue.
But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out. Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers? My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes. I believe parents will too. Is the way academia hires "the American way"? Etc.
I don't know. Good questions. What do people want to pay for? Expensive full time positions so professors can teach a little and publish research? What is the benefit of that research, then? And please, I already know that someone can point to a breakthrough in some field that happened because a tenured professor had the opportunity to find it. Because the question should be not be 'what have the most dazzling academically -employed researchers accomplished' but 'what is the bang for the buck.' As long as money will always be an issue.
The benefit of the research is advancing thought in various fields. Rhetorically, one might point out that the American Revolution was nearly 250 years ago, so what is the point of continuing to study it? What we know as modern social science was established in Germany in the 19th century, so why don't we all just memorize those ideas and not bother questioning or challenging these ideas?
The point of college (besides learning the norms, dispositions and culture of the professional class) is (also) to participate in a vibrant intellectual community. Being surrounded by professors, graduate students and other undergraduates who have depth in various fields teaches one to listen, learn, exchange complex ideas and challenge one's assumptions.
I work at a community college with no research at all. It's cheaper than our local State Universities because we don't have research overhead. Still, we can really only teach introductory topics. That said, our profs do make the effort to stay current in their fields as part of class prep. They publish textbooks and articles from time to time on their own.
Still, I can't say the students are having the same first and second year experiences they would be having at an institution with active research programs, or with a bunch of adjuncts teaching the survey courses. It could even be the same textbook. It's about the discussion and the learning experience outside of the textbook.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 06:41:57 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:55:40 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 05:51:45 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 05:47:06 AM
It is old news for those of us in the biz.
However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic. This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know). And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.
Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree. Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum. This is what we should be thinking about.
Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.
The article offers no solutions.
Perhaps. Money will always be an issue.
But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out. Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers? My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes. I believe parents will too. Is the way academia hires "the American way"? Etc.
One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.
The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.
To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.
It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 06:41:57 AM
One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.
The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.
To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.
It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
Sure, and that's why I think Polly's use of the term "professional fellows" makes a clear distinction there. The courses they teach will often be somewhat more applied than the typical courses, and from my example above one of those sorts of "applied" courses a term would probably be viewed by most as a good thing.
One thing which I didn't mention is that this will be much more the case in fine arts disciplines. Visual arts, music, dance, and theatre all typically have lots of courses taught by professionals in the field without PhDs and, in that case, I think most would view it as positive.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 07:32:01 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 06:41:57 AM
One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.
The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.
To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.
It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
Sure, and that's why I think Polly's use of the term "professional fellows" makes a clear distinction there. The courses they teach will often be somewhat more applied than the typical courses, and from my example above one of those sorts of "applied" courses a term would probably be viewed by most as a good thing.
One thing which I didn't mention is that this will be much more the case in fine arts disciplines. Visual arts, music, dance, and theatre all typically have lots of courses taught by professionals in the field without PhDs and, in that case, I think most would view it as positive.
I don't know why Polly uses the examples she does in context of the "adjunct death march." Polly generally posts examples of professionals who are also teaching on the side----the way adjuncting is supposed to work----which is the not the big issue facing universities in regard to adjuncts. There is no point in comparing the situations between English, foreign language, music, etc. and a local sheriff teaching a criminal justice class.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 06:01:14 AM
Good questions. What do people want to pay for? Expensive full time positions so professors can teach a little and publish research? What is the benefit of that research, then? And please, I already know that someone can point to a breakthrough in some field that happened because a tenured professor had the opportunity to find it. Because the question should be not be 'what have the most dazzling academically -employed researchers accomplished' but 'what is the bang for the buck.' As long as money will always be an issue.
My father suffered through two types of cancer. One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison. The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists. This is just one example.
Talk about vaccinations, global warming, green energy, vet science, English literature, music, etc. etc.
Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors. Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science. We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:26:06 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 07:32:01 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 06:41:57 AM
One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.
The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.
To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.
It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
Sure, and that's why I think Polly's use of the term "professional fellows" makes a clear distinction there. The courses they teach will often be somewhat more applied than the typical courses, and from my example above one of those sorts of "applied" courses a term would probably be viewed by most as a good thing.
One thing which I didn't mention is that this will be much more the case in fine arts disciplines. Visual arts, music, dance, and theatre all typically have lots of courses taught by professionals in the field without PhDs and, in that case, I think most would view it as positive.
I don't know why Polly uses the examples she does in context of the "adjunct death march." Polly generally posts examples of professionals who are also teaching on the side----the way adjuncting is supposed to work----which is the not the big issue facing universities in regard to adjuncts. There is no point in comparing the situations between English, foreign language, music, etc. and a local sheriff teaching a criminal justice class.
Isn't that Polly's point; that those situations
aren't the problem? The problem with English, foreign language, etc*. is that the
only employment market for PhDs is academia, and (using stats from the article) the number of PhDs being produced is
way above what could ever be employed as full-time,
even if all adjunct positions were replaced by full-time ones.
(*As I said, music is a bit different, in my experience, since lots of studio courses are taught by professional musicians, most of whom don't have PhDs, but that's not the source of the "adjunct problem" either.)
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 06:01:14 AM
Good questions. What do people want to pay for? Expensive full time positions so professors can teach a little and publish research? What is the benefit of that research, then? And please, I already know that someone can point to a breakthrough in some field that happened because a tenured professor had the opportunity to find it. Because the question should be not be 'what have the most dazzling academically -employed researchers accomplished' but 'what is the bang for the buck.' As long as money will always be an issue.
My father suffered through two types of cancer. One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison. The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists. This is just one example.
Talk about vaccinations, global warming, green energy, vet science, English literature, music, etc. etc.
Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors. Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science. We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.
While my research is by no means as dramatic as new cancer treatments and such, since starting my TT position about 5 years ago I have had two students launch companies to commercialize products/technologies developed through my research. One case in particular is a technology that would likely never be developed by a company due to the large upfront R&D costs and potential risk, yet it could have a significant benefit in the field. Likewise, many of my colleagues work in niche areas that are important to our country but not profitable enough for a company to invest in, especially at the early stages. Some of these have led nowhere, others have established whole new industries. These are simply the economic sides of things, completely ignoring the advances in human understanding and knowledge...
I also disagree with the assessment that TT professors are necessarily expensive. I bring in far more money through government research grants and industry funds than I cost the university, and I teach for them as well. So, it is far more complex than simply comparing my salary/costs to an instructor and declaring that I am more expensive.
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
How are they different? You can't just throw a statement like that in here. While you're answering, it may interest you to know that I am both, and I've probably been an academic longer than you and am probably older. But go ahead please. Details would be good.
BTW everyone,
don't tell me what the value of research is. I didn't ask. I've read the answers hundreds of times already. The questions were 'what does the public want to pay for.' And what effect will the NYT article have, if any? I fully expect the intent of the NYT writer is to generate sympathy for adjunct faculty themselves and then harness that sentiment to more funding for higher education, which would continue in the model of the business partnership between (1) TT special-people-with-special-wonderful-minds-and-lives and (2) temporary non-invested-in anonymous dead end job faculty who 'misuse the system' by holding multiple part time jobs concurrently, limp along with union organizing and generally get blocked any way they turn.
And I recommend that when you talk to the public about why every little college needs to morph into another hub of research, don't talk down to them. They won't like it.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:35:06 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
How are they different? You can't just throw a statement like that in here. While you're answering, it may interest you to know that I am both, and I've probably been an academic longer than you and am probably older. But go ahead please. Details would be good.
One distinction I see is based on what one is being hired
for; specifically, if you're being hired because you are expected to bring something unique (experience, perspective, etc.) to the course, versus if you will ideally be indistinguishable from anyone else teaching the course (such as being hired to teach the Nth section of Basketweaving 101 with a fixed syllabus, text, etc.)
Quote from: Kron3007 on March 06, 2020, 10:00:53 AM
I also disagree with the assessment that TT professors are necessarily expensive. I bring in far more money through government research grants and industry funds than I cost the university, and I teach for them as well. So, it is far more complex than simply comparing my salary/costs to an instructor and declaring that I am more expensive.
But life long employment of a tenure track professor that doesn't go as planned can be extremely costly to a department. Can even put them under. You're hoping that discussion never comes up. But remember, the people who read the NYT are paying and borrowing a lot.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors. Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science. We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.
You should see some of the dynamite my field has been producing while on sabbatical (eyeroll).
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
My father suffered through two types of cancer. One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison. The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists. This is just one example.
sorry about your Dad, bro, but that is one obviously-we-know-this-already answer. Are you channelling Marshy and Polly?
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 08:59:09 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:26:06 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 07:32:01 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 06:41:57 AM
One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.
The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.
To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.
It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
Sure, and that's why I think Polly's use of the term "professional fellows" makes a clear distinction there. The courses they teach will often be somewhat more applied than the typical courses, and from my example above one of those sorts of "applied" courses a term would probably be viewed by most as a good thing.
One thing which I didn't mention is that this will be much more the case in fine arts disciplines. Visual arts, music, dance, and theatre all typically have lots of courses taught by professionals in the field without PhDs and, in that case, I think most would view it as positive.
I don't know why Polly uses the examples she does in context of the "adjunct death march." Polly generally posts examples of professionals who are also teaching on the side----the way adjuncting is supposed to work----which is the not the big issue facing universities in regard to adjuncts. There is no point in comparing the situations between English, foreign language, music, etc. and a local sheriff teaching a criminal justice class.
Isn't that Polly's point; that those situations aren't the problem? The problem with English, foreign language, etc*. is that the only employment market for PhDs is academia, and (using stats from the article) the number of PhDs being produced is way above what could ever be employed as full-time, even if all adjunct positions were replaced by full-time ones.
(*As I said, music is a bit different, in my experience, since lots of studio courses are taught by professional musicians, most of whom don't have PhDs, but that's not the source of the "adjunct problem" either.)
Yes.
It's a good point.
But as I posted earlier, it is old news if one is in the biz. It's a point that one really need not make anymore: we know.
What I suspect will happen, what I hope will happen, is that we will begin hiring as many FT instructors as we can given the new constraints facing academia, bring back tenure, and quit relying on adjunct under-employment. This will mean fewer jobs but more quality jobs.
This will also mean that the competition will get tighter, and I suspect that unless one has a doctorate from a first or maybe second tier university, a bunch of publications, and wide teaching, one will be SOL.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:51:13 AM
But life long employment of a tenure track professor that doesn't go as planned can be extremely costly to a department. Can even put them under. You're hoping that discussion never comes up. But remember, the people who read the NYT are paying and borrowing a lot.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors. Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science. We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.
You should see some of the dynamite my field has been producing while on sabbatical (eyeroll).
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
My father suffered through two types of cancer. One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison. The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists. This is just one example.
sorry about your Dad, bro, but that is one obviously-we-know-this-already answer. Are you channelling Marshy and Polly?
Then why question the validity of tenure research?
You, my friend, are a little like Polly in that your own bitterness seems to cloud what you say.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 05, 2020, 08:11:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 05, 2020, 11:24:53 AM
Quote from: spork on March 05, 2020, 09:46:14 AM
Adjunctopia (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html)
How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?
It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.
Yes, you sure do. We have covered every nuance in that article and more on these fora.
There is another perspective at IHE today. Dan Kubis, director of Humanities at Pitt offers a column titled How the Humanities Sound (https://insidehighered.com/views/2020/03/06/scholars-humanities-are-engaging-world-important-ways-opinion).
Props to IHE for a witty and relevant headline by the way.
Kubis emphasizes talking with general audiences about ideas that humanists grapple with as a means of maintaining a positive perception of their value among the populace. And it must be a continuous effort, not a one-shot deal. "It involves a constant effort to introduce complexity and imagination into our lives, particularly in settings where these qualities are undervalued or unwelcome."
I can imagine that idea being threatening to the stereotypical history professor who can't imagine having common conversational ground with a philosopher, never mind the folks across campus. And also difficult to implement for those who like their jargon.
Kubis' admonition is helpful. What makes the article effective is that he gives concrete examples of how he does it. That makes the prospect less scary, and gives an idea of the impact it has on the audience.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 11:39:48 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:51:13 AM
But life long employment of a tenure track professor that doesn't go as planned can be extremely costly to a department. Can even put them under. You're hoping that discussion never comes up. But remember, the people who read the NYT are paying and borrowing a lot.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors. Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science. We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.
You should see some of the dynamite my field has been producing while on sabbatical (eyeroll).
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
My father suffered through two types of cancer. One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison. The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists. This is just one example.
sorry about your Dad, bro, but that is one obviously-we-know-this-already answer. Are you channelling Marshy and Polly?
Then why question the validity of tenure research?
You, my friend, are a little like Polly in that your own bitterness seems to cloud what you say.
It's not that
I question the validity. It's that the NYT is probably hoping people will read the article and react with 'OMG, what a terrible, neglected situation! We need to "restore funding" [as if higher ed doesn't already have lots of money flowing through it] to that we can once again have that vibrant community'.
Quote
The point of college (besides learning the norms, dispositions and culture of the professional class) is (also) to participate in a vibrant intellectual community. Being surrounded by professors, graduate students and other undergraduates who have depth in various fields teaches one to listen, learn, exchange complex ideas and challenge one's assumptions.
...but I doubt that there will be as much of that reaction as they hope. You could run the same article in a newspaper in Dayton OH and the reader might go 'oh, the colleges are making everyone part-time and temporary to save money, so that others can have better jobs. They're assholes, like my boss. What else is new? And they want more of our money.' And that reader is as realistic.
And the Times has been losing readers and considered by many to be inching left.
And mentioning your father's cancer is relevant, but it's also a little bit like saying 'who wants to give money so we can save the spotted owl?' When it comes to coughing up, people are apt to think things like 'what are the odds me or my family will ever get that type of cancer' or 'what are the chances I'll ever see a spotted owl.'
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 12:23:03 PM
It's not that I question the validity. It's that the NYT is probably hoping people will read the article and react with 'OMG, what a terrible, neglected situation! We need to "restore funding" [as if higher ed doesn't already have lots of money flowing through it] to that we can once again have that vibrant community'.
...but I doubt that there will be as much of that reaction as they hope. You could run the same article in a newspaper in Dayton OH and the reader might go 'oh, the colleges are making everyone part-time and temporary to save money, so that others can have better jobs. They're assholes, like my boss. What else is new? And they want more of our money.' And that reader is as realistic.
And the Times has been losing readers and considered by many to be inching left.
And mentioning your father's cancer is relevant, but it's also a little bit like saying 'who wants to give money so we can save the spotted owl?' When it comes to coughing up, people are apt to think things like 'what are the odds me or my family will ever get that type of cancer' or 'what are the chances I'll ever see a spotted owl.'
Respectfully disagree.
This is more of the "snap your fingers" type of response that I would not have expected from you.
Yes, I think people will react in exactly the way you suggest---just not as hysterically as you suggest. They will not run screaming into the streets to find a professor to hug and then immediately throw a check in the mail----and this is exactly the frustrated kind of response that people give to these issues----but I think as the consciousness is raised, so will things begin to change.
I grew up in spotted owl territory. You are wrong. The spotted owl shut down logging all over the PNW. Some people who made their living from logging were furious, of course, but the rest of the culture responded with concern and empathy for the endangered animal.
Have you seen the literally billions of donated dollars pouring into cancer research?
This is what I think will happen over the long-run with academia if we continue to forward the plight of our colleges.
If we simply stand on frustration and defeatism (which for some reason so many academics are prone to do) then things will get worse. I simply don't understand a great many of the posters here...
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 06, 2020, 10:44:01 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:35:06 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
How are they different? You can't just throw a statement like that in here. While you're answering, it may interest you to know that I am both, and I've probably been an academic longer than you and am probably older. But go ahead please. Details would be good.
One distinction I see is based on what one is being hired for; specifically, if you're being hired because you are expected to bring something unique (experience, perspective, etc.) to the course, versus if you will ideally be indistinguishable from anyone else teaching the course (such as being hired to teach the Nth section of Basketweaving 101 with a fixed syllabus, text, etc.)
So a student sitting in the basketweaving course is having his learning outcome compromised because the instructor is similar in many ways to others? Why would that matter to a student when the content and assignments are a new experience for him?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 01:13:53 PM
Have you seen the literally billions of donated dollars pouring into cancer research?
That's exciting and I have been close to cancer in the family, lethal and beaten. I wonder how long people will live when there's no more cancer fatality, and how we will house them in their 90's and beyond. Of course this is my reaction, one of them. And we're only speculating about how the NYT readers think.
QuoteIf we simply stand on frustration and defeatism (which for some reason so many academics are prone to do) then things will get worse. I simply don't understand a great many of the posters here...
It's not defeatism for people like me to abstain while others campaign for more money for higher ed. It might be apathy. Whatever it is, the system has earned it. When things get worse, I get work.
The point is that things can be changed, and yes, people will pay to change them.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 01:13:53 PM
If we simply stand on frustration and defeatism (which for some reason so many academics are prone to do) then things will get worse. I simply don't understand a great many of the posters here...
It can easily be that they don't want/expect change. They are on the winning team now, and adjunctification is minor annoyance. Might make their service load higher. But by sounding frustrated, they are able to shift the attention from their own complicity. 'Look over there' as Ed Asner would say.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:35:06 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
BTW everyone, don't tell me what the value of research is. I didn't ask. I've read the answers hundreds of times already.
Well, you literally posed the question " What is the benefit of that research, then?", so don't be surprised when people answer that question.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:51:13 AM
Quote from: Kron3007 on March 06, 2020, 10:00:53 AM
I also disagree with the assessment that TT professors are necessarily expensive. I bring in far more money through government research grants and industry funds than I cost the university, and I teach for them as well. So, it is far more complex than simply comparing my salary/costs to an instructor and declaring that I am more expensive.
But life long employment of a tenure track professor that doesn't go as planned can be extremely costly to a department. Can even put them under. You're hoping that discussion never comes up. But remember, the people who read the NYT are paying and borrowing a lot.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors. Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science. We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.
You should see some of the dynamite my field has been producing while on sabbatical (eyeroll).
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 06, 2020, 08:30:12 AM
My father suffered through two types of cancer. One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison. The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists. This is just one example.
sorry about your Dad, bro, but that is one obviously-we-know-this-already answer. Are you channelling Marshy and Polly?
Sure, not every TT position leads to great discoveries, but others do. This is similar to investments, some stocks do well, others bomb, which is why most people use mutual funds to diversify their investment. In much the same way. I can provide breakthroughs from TT researchers and you can provide examples of dead wood. What really matters is the overall impact to society.
Personally, I think that the benefits of higher education to a society s pretty clear and , at least in my field, teaching at the advanced level benefits greatly from people actively engaged in the newset technologies through research. So, you can look at research from the economic impacts, but it is also important for teaching so you would miss the point.
Quote from: Kron3007 on March 07, 2020, 05:37:41 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 06, 2020, 10:35:06 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 06, 2020, 07:25:55 AM
Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.
BTW everyone, don't tell me what the value of research is. I didn't ask. I've read the answers hundreds of times already.
Well, you literally posed the question " What is the benefit of that research, then?", so don't be surprised when people answer that question.
And don't be surprised when people ask if the investment has worked out as hoped, and what happens when the answer in not 'absolutely, yes'. Particularly when the money used to run a TT line could be put to other use. For example, let's pick a number as an estimate, say, 50 or 60 persons who have jobs designated as 'part time' could be provided with funding for professional development opportunities, which could change their work dramatically and bring benefit to the student experience, paid for department meetings, provided with TA's, etc. Since we're talking about that vibrant community and environment we all value.
i find it striking that some tenured faculty have so much difficulty acknowledging that the widespread neglect and isolation of part time faculty are now longstanding, accepted standard practice of higher ed. You keep reading things like 'use of contingents has been growing lately' which is like saying 'hey have you heard they can make a car that uses electricity?' It's almost like psychological denial.
QuoteSure, not every TT position leads to great discoveries, but others do. This is similar to investments, some stocks do well, others bomb, which is why most people use mutual funds to diversify their investment. In much the same way. I can provide breakthroughs from TT researchers and you can provide examples of dead wood. What really matters is the overall impact to society.
It isn't just a matter of 'deadwood' as in someone who's gamed the system. Some tenured professors are involuntary deadwood. The demand for what they teach has decreased or the department's focus has shifted or there's department infighting and feuds, or more than one of these things together, so that a professor is relegated to working at the fringes.
Impact to society = dollar cost.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 07, 2020, 07:01:28 AM
i find it striking that some tenured faculty have so much difficulty acknowledging that the widespread neglect and isolation of part time faculty are now longstanding, accepted standard practice of higher ed. You keep reading things like 'use of contingents has been growing lately' which is like saying 'hey have you heard they can make a car that uses electricity?' It's almost like psychological denial.
Impact to society = dollar cost.
Mahagonny, my friend, I think your frustration is misplaced. No one person or institution or job category is responsible for the dysfunctional system we have now. It simply evolved (devolved?) over a number of decades across the country----we all let it happen and allow it to happen now, including you if you are willing to take adjunct employment and adjunct pay.
I have never known TT faculty to be dismissive of adjunctification, and more are taking it seriously now. Sure, you have your presumptive divas and prima donnas and pigfaced swollen heads from time to time, but by and large most TT faculty are perfectly descent middle-class peeps who simply succeeded in getting a job in a bad job market.
Yes, you get good bang for the buck from the TT contingent.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 08:30:54 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 07, 2020, 07:01:28 AM
i find it striking that some tenured faculty have so much difficulty acknowledging that the widespread neglect and isolation of part time faculty are now longstanding, accepted standard practice of higher ed. You keep reading things like 'use of contingents has been growing lately' which is like saying 'hey have you heard they can make a car that uses electricity?' It's almost like psychological denial.
Impact to society = dollar cost.
Mahagonny, my friend, I think your frustration is misplaced. No one person or institution or job category is responsible for the dysfunctional system we have now. It simply evolved (devolved?) over a number of decades across the country----we all let it happen and allow it to happen now, including you if you are willing to take adjunct employment and adjunct pay.
I have never known TT faculty to be dismissive of adjunctification, and more are taking it seriously now. Sure, you have your presumptive divas and prima donnas and pigfaced swollen heads from time to time, but by and large most TT faculty are perfectly descent middle-class peeps who simply succeeded in getting a job in a bad job market.
Yes, you get good bang for the buck from the TT contingent.
Why I couldn't possibly disagree more, as it relates to my many years of experience:
I am willing to take the work and the pay, but I fight for desperately needed improvement to the system through the union. Our tenured faculty sides with the administration , i.e. 'adjunct faculty already have health insurance through their employer, so their proposal to get access to health insurance at the university should be rejected.' It's online. We can read about it.
It's true, some of us have health insurance through another employer, in my case, another academic employer. As a result, my class cancellation rate today is 1/3 what it used to be. Stable health insurance for the instructor clearly benefits the student experience.
Why they are taking adjunctification seriously, if they are: they can use sympathy for adjunct faculty to increase hiring of a very few full time lecturers who will then lighten their service load, giving them more time for field-related creative ventures which tend to be depressingly mediocre and ordinary, yet touted by the department.
We can argue, speculate and try to glean what we can from data, about what's happening in the wider world, but my experience with tenured 'colleagues' over many years is what it is, and it makes me less and less of a fan.
Fair enough, I guess. Still seems a little reactionary to me.
Some of the things that have frustrated me about these boards are the sarcastic, condescending comments by people who seem to think that wanting to change the system equates to ignorance about how the system works. I think a lot of this, however, comes from people feeling attacked----feeling attacked for simply being TT employees. One of the other things that frustrated and frustrates me still is that the comment "stand with the adjuncts" seems to get such a negative reaction----which again, I think, comes from people feeling attacked. There are a few professors out there who enjoy looking down their noses at anyone not tenurble, but they are few and far between and not an unusual personality type for any profession. Most profs are sympathetic.
At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves. The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything. The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible. I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus. Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs. They do no activism on their own behalf at all----and a lot are pissed about their situation and often openly hostile when I do see them. I'm willing to stand with the part-timers but they have be standing there in the first place, not just bitching about it.
Go union! Our union while I was PT did not represent me. They did represent my wife, however, and I really appreciated the union then. Now I'm FT and I really appreciate the union for my own sake.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 04:09:37 PM
At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves. The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything. The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible. I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus. Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs.
How do you determine this? Do you mean they are not well qualified to do their jobs and you believe that you see evidence of this from the learning outcomes of their students, or do you mean they are not both qualified and competitive to have
your job, and you would prefer that their sections were being staffed by full timers?
Because what I have been reading is there is an abundance of qualified people to teach in college, but it is the job
market that is lacking in health. Why would anyone intentionally hire lame instructors when it's a buyer's market? If someone is hiring weak instructors when he doesn't have to, why does he have tenure, and who gave it to him?
If they're not friendly to you, I can see why you have not much of a soft spot for them. But that wouldn't be me. Anyone who wants even a casual acquaintance with me gets courtesy in return. It's when they think their health and lives are more important than mine and they are within their rights to make things up about us and broadcast them over the internet and the media that I'm going to talk about them. They will still get courtesy on campus, of course. But I'll admit that it doesn't bother me too much when, apparently, they don't want a relationship at all until they are doing their term as chair, and even then, as little as possible. We are used to it, and as you've already read, one them had made a broadside on our union.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 07, 2020, 06:55:02 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 04:09:37 PM
At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves. The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything. The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible. I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus. Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs.
How do you determine this? Do you mean they are not well qualified to do their jobs and you believe that you see evidence of this from the learning outcomes of their students, or do you mean they are not both qualified and competitive to have your job, and you would prefer that their sections were being staffed by full timers?
Honestly (and again I know these are some sore spots for you), but yes to all of that.
Many but not all the part-timers have the bare minimum qualifications (degree, experience, aptitude, publication, etc.) to teach in higher ed.
Not all but many of the part-timers have a terrible reputation among students and staff.
No, they do not have the same qualifications I have, at least on paper. I'm no superstar, but I have worked very hard to make myself a good academic and it has paid off in a number of ways.
And yes, I would prefer that college teaching jobs were staffed by well-qualified full-time faculty with an investment in their careers and their campuses.
Realize that I am making no judgments about you or anyone else on these boards, just what I have seen in the places I've worked.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 07, 2020, 06:55:02 PM
Because what I have been reading is there is an abundance of qualified people to teach in college, but it is the market that is lacking in health. Why would anyone intentionally hire lame instructors when it's a buyer's market? If someone is hiring weak instructors when he doesn't have to, why does he have tenure, and who gave it to him?
Polly and I had this debate some time back----it made her very irate.
There are plenty of jobs for people in academia. What you have been reading is that there are not enough
full-time and/or tenure-track jobs for academics. In other words, in a number of disciplines we do not have
careers for people because we've diced the work into a slew of PT jobs.
I've never seen hard numbers, but if we turned all the PT jobs into FT jobs we would have enough to employ maybe not all but a great many more qualified academics than we are now.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 07, 2020, 06:55:02 PM
If they're not friendly to you, I can see why you have not much of a soft spot for them. But that wouldn't be me. Anyone who wants even a casual acquaintance with me gets courtesy in return. It's when they think their health and lives are more important than mine and they are within their rights to make things up about us and broadcast them over the internet and the media that I'm going to talk about them.
They're friendly to me when I see them, which is rarely, and when we know each other, which is also rare (again, these folks are never around). In fact, of the people we hang out with, we have really only two very good friends from the faculty----one is retired, and the other is an adjunct. The part-timers are generally very bitter toward their campus. I don't think my health and life is more important than anyone else's (not actually sure what you are talking about there, my friend) but I do think some of these folks should be replaced with professional academics.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 07:27:24 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 07, 2020, 06:55:02 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 04:09:37 PM
At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves. The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything. The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible. I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus. Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs.
How do you determine this? Do you mean they are not well qualified to do their jobs and you believe that you see evidence of this from the learning outcomes of their students, or do you mean they are not both qualified and competitive to have your job, and you would prefer that their sections were being staffed by full timers?
Honestly (and again I know these are some sore spots for you), but yes to all of that.
Many but not all the part-timers have the bare minimum qualifications (degree, experience, aptitude, publication, etc.) to teach in higher ed.
Not all but many of the part-timers have a terrible reputation among students and staff.
No, they do not have the same qualifications I have, at least on paper. I'm no superstar, but I have worked very hard to make myself a good academic and it has paid off in a number of ways.
And yes, I would prefer that college teaching jobs were staffed by well-qualified full-time faculty with an investment in their careers and their campuses.
My God, don't you get it yet?? You're faulting them for not being qualified to have
your job. They don't have it. You do, and you don't want theirs. It's a drag getting what you pay for when you're cheap isn't it? LOL
There can be other reasons their performance isn't wonderful, too. Beyond their control. It could also be that they suspect their work isn't what it should be and that has caused their deteriorated attitude. Maybe it could be they were given a five minute interview by someone who doesn't expect much, has a poor attitude toward adjunct faculty already, and is looking for something to go poorly so they can be replaced with a full timer.
Not sure what you are saying there.
You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?
As far as "my job" and "their jobs"...we do largely the same thing. I just do more at one institution than the PT-ers do and I am paid better.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 08:24:21 PM
Not sure what you are saying there.
You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?
As far as "my job" and "their jobs"...we do largely the same thing. I just do more at one institution than the PT-ers do and I am paid better.
Our chair obviously doesn't think they have time to do their job, because they're not doing it. Neglects to tell us about all sorts of day to day functioning kind of stuff. This makes us vulnerable to bad reviews from students and other faculty, and makes us uneasy. All of this could be solved by paying us to attend a meeting once or twice a month.
Tenure track people do not want us to succeed, or want us to succeed just enough to have a barely functioning system. It undermines their campaign to add to their ranks.
Huh.
I really can't tell you about your own experiences...doesn't sound like any scenarios I am aware of in academia. Generally speaking, the increased reliance on adjuncts makes it harder for TT folks on the job----less people to do service work, cover classes, or strengthen shared governance.
Maybe you should find a job at a friendlier campus.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 07:27:24 PM
There are plenty of jobs for people in academia. What you have been reading is that there are not enough full-time and/or tenure-track jobs for academics. In other words, in a number of disciplines we do not have careers for people because we've diced the work into a slew of PT jobs.
I've never seen hard numbers, but if we turned all the PT jobs into FT jobs we would have enough to employ maybe not all but a great many more qualified academics than we are now.
From the article referenced above,
- There were about 1.1 million part time faculty in 2018.
- There were about 400000 full time faculty in 2018.
- There were about 55000 PhDs granted in 2018.
So, if there are about 1.5 million faculty, and 55000 new candidates appear each year, that means faculty should be retiring after 1500000/55000=27 years
maximum to keep everyone employed.
A few factors that would make it significantly less than 27 years:
- Many part time faculty only teach a single course, so 1.1 million part time faculty would be replaced by many less than 1.1 million full time positions.
- Some disciplines have markets outside academia, and the ratio of faculty needed in a discipline to PhDs awarded in that discipline is going to vary, so for some disciplines there is more of a surplus.
So only the most idealized breakdown of numbers would indicate that there is anything close to a potential full time position to anyone qualified, even if all part time positions were converted to full time. Academics crying for more fulltime hiring, if they're honest need to be similarly crying to reduce or eliminate their own PhD programs if they want to claim that "someone" is to blame if graduates can't get employment.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 08:54:11 PM
Huh.
I really can't tell you about your own experiences...doesn't sound like any scenarios I am aware of in academia. Generally speaking, the increased reliance on adjuncts makes it harder for TT folks on the job----less people to do service work, cover classes, or strengthen shared governance.
Maybe you should find a job at a friendlier campus.
Increased, as of when, approximately? the chairs I've been working for are ten to fifteen years younger than me. They've been fully aware of what the lay of the land is. Adjunctification was well under way before even i started teaching. Did these tenured faculty make poor life choices, and now that should be our problem?
I am not convinced that chairs do not have the time to manage adjunct staffing, basic housekeeping communications and relationships. They begrudge the time it takes. It takes time away from other pursuits. Things that will get them another promotion, more salary and a bigger pension for those golden years. Many of them resent that adjuncts are present at all. It's been evidenced on these fora and the previous one.
This is not necessarily that they are bad people at all. (Although for those of them who want to take a snooty attitude about us, colleagues of theirs may express disapproval on a pseudonymous forum, but no one's going to get in their way or give them trouble about it. It is condoned.) They are responding to system that hordes opportunities and remuneration for them by depriving others who generally don't even have a voice.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 08:24:21 PM
You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?
You are making excuses for people who are well compensated and in abundant supply.
BTW, I do have a job at a friendlier campus. It is a college that does not award tenure. It's not only that it's friendlier. It is, from my workday experience, better functioning in all regards. Therefore, my comparisons appear on the forum, which I wasn't even going to frequent, but Polly made a point of inviting me. I guess this is diversity. Someone provides the untenurable, solidly professional adjunct perspective, whether they like it or not.
It's not that the tenure-is-God campus is driving me crazy and I can't manage it. I do not come here for advice. Internally, I am a happy, well-enough adjusted person. I have opinions though.
QuoteSo only the most idealized breakdown of numbers would indicate that there is anything close to a potential full time position to anyone qualified, even if all part time positions were converted to full time. Academics crying for more fulltime hiring, if they're honest need to be similarly crying to reduce or eliminate their own PhD programs if they want to claim that "someone" is to blame if graduates can't get employment.
And most likely it's not gonna happen. Only occasionally. PhD programs give your school prestige.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 08, 2020, 06:15:47 AM
From the article referenced above,
- There were about 1.1 million part time faculty in 2018.
- There were about 400000 full time faculty in 2018.
- There were about 55000 PhDs granted in 2018.
So, if there are about 1.5 million faculty, and 55000 new candidates appear each year, that means faculty should be retiring after 1500000/55000=27 years maximum to keep everyone employed.
A few factors that would make it significantly less than 27 years:
- Many part time faculty only teach a single course, so 1.1 million part time faculty would be replaced by many less than 1.1 million full time positions.
- Some disciplines have markets outside academia, and the ratio of faculty needed in a discipline to PhDs awarded in that discipline is going to vary, so for some disciplines there is more of a surplus.
So only the most idealized breakdown of numbers would indicate that there is anything close to a potential full time position to anyone qualified, even if all part time positions were converted to full time. Academics crying for more fulltime hiring, if they're honest need to be similarly crying to reduce or eliminate their own PhD programs if they want to claim that "someone" is to blame if graduates can't get employment.
Oh Marshmellow. These numbers are worthless if we are discussing the adjunct army which really refers to a couple of specific disciplines.
We need the number of PT jobs in English, history, etc. and how many jobs these would create if they were converted to FT jobs.
You've been posting less obnoxious, clueless stuff lately...and then there's this.
This might help you, Marshy:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-We-Hire-in-Now-English/245255
Quote
Of the 3,412 jobs advertised between 1995 and 1998, 2,262, or 66 percent, were for tenure-track assistant professors in North America. Of the 2,611 jobs advertised between 2015 and 2018, 1,261, or 48 percent, fit that description. So, what's going on? It's not that we are hiring more at the associate- or full-professor ranks. There are more teaching jobs overseas now for U.S. Ph.D.s, but not that many more. The truth is simple and already well known: We hire more contingent instructors now than we used to.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 07, 2020, 08:24:21 PM
You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?
The fact they are designated 'part-time and temporary' is a ready made excuse to shake hands, give the new guy a room key, hand him a contract and go back to whatever you were doing. He might be around for many years though. In the back of the chair's mind: the adjunct appointment that doesn't work out can be a useful scenario for requesting a full time hire. People discussed that on the old forum, then stopped after they noticed I was watching and not spinning the story the way they liked.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 09:31:04 AM
This might help you, Marshy:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-We-Hire-in-Now-English/245255
Quote
Of the 3,412 jobs advertised between 1995 and 1998, 2,262, or 66 percent, were for tenure-track assistant professors in North America. Of the 2,611 jobs advertised between 2015 and 2018, 1,261, or 48 percent, fit that description. So, what's going on? It's not that we are hiring more at the associate- or full-professor ranks. There are more teaching jobs overseas now for U.S. Ph.D.s, but not that many more. The truth is simple and already well known: We hire more contingent instructors now than we used to.
Even if
all of those 2611 positions were full time, it wouldn't be enough.
Even the article I quoted from noted the problem:
Quote
Yet at no point did universities seem to consider slowing the flow of students into the Ph.D. pipeline. The opposite happened. In 1988, the number of doctorates in the humanities conferred was estimated to be 3,570, and it increased to 5,145 in 2018.
Blaming everything on hiring is like blaming all of climate change on corporations. Even though my taking the bus to work isn't going to save the planet, if I'm going to claim that it matters then I have to take some personal responsibility. If faculty want to make the prospects less bleak for prospective faculty, one way is to stop overproducing them.
For those who like socialist ideas, here's one that you may have heard of during NAFTA negotiations;
supply management. Trump pointed out that certain things in Canada, like dairy products, cost much more than in the U.S.
The reason is that farmers have to buy
quota, i.e. the right to sell products, and the amount of quota is carefully controlled to keeps prices up. Whether you like the idea or not, the way to make PhDs worth more is to keep them in shorter supply. If the only job for a PhD in some discipline is as a faculty member
in that discipline, then the only way to stabilize things is to effectively only allow faculty members to have one PhD student
over their whole career. That will ensure that there is not glut on the market, and all will have decent prospects.
Certainly the medical profession has long figured out that artificially depressing the number of med school students is a great way of maximizing highly profitable work oops for docs.
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 08, 2020, 05:36:28 PM
Certainly the medical profession has long figured out that artificially depressing the number of med school students is a great way of maximizing highly profitable work oops for docs.
Yeah, I second the motion. What if every profession could do that? What would Kant say? What would Mussolini say?
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 08, 2020, 10:57:58 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 09:31:04 AM
This might help you, Marshy:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-We-Hire-in-Now-English/245255
Quote
Of the 3,412 jobs advertised between 1995 and 1998, 2,262, or 66 percent, were for tenure-track assistant professors in North America. Of the 2,611 jobs advertised between 2015 and 2018, 1,261, or 48 percent, fit that description. So, what's going on? It's not that we are hiring more at the associate- or full-professor ranks. There are more teaching jobs overseas now for U.S. Ph.D.s, but not that many more. The truth is simple and already well known: We hire more contingent instructors now than we used to.
Even if all of those 2611 positions were full time, it wouldn't be enough.
Even the article I quoted from noted the problem:
Quote
Yet at no point did universities seem to consider slowing the flow of students into the Ph.D. pipeline. The opposite happened. In 1988, the number of doctorates in the humanities conferred was estimated to be 3,570, and it increased to 5,145 in 2018.
Blaming everything on hiring is like blaming all of climate change on corporations. Even though my taking the bus to work isn't going to save the planet, if I'm going to claim that it matters then I have to take some personal responsibility. If faculty want to make the prospects less bleak for prospective faculty, one way is to stop overproducing them.
For those who like socialist ideas, here's one that you may have heard of during NAFTA negotiations; supply management. Trump pointed out that certain things in Canada, like dairy products, cost much more than in the U.S.
The reason is that farmers have to buy quota, i.e. the right to sell products, and the amount of quota is carefully controlled to keeps prices up. Whether you like the idea or not, the way to make PhDs worth more is to keep them in shorter supply. If the only job for a PhD in some discipline is as a faculty member in that discipline, then the only way to stabilize things is to effectively only allow faculty members to have one PhD student over their whole career. That will ensure that there is not glut on the market, and all will have decent prospects.
Yet wahoo complains that his school's adjuncts are not properly qualified (no PhD). So apparently even without PhD. the instructor is considered good enough to be hired and the pay is crap. So there's your glut. Of course one may decide they don't care about the people who are not PhD. That would probably blend with a lot of higher ed attitudes. That is, it is having jumped through hoops that entitles one to a plate of beans and a place to sleep, as opposed to just being a qualified enough, reputable worker.
When I began teaching you could find full professors in my field with only Master's. Some of them are now sitting home collecting more pension that the wages of PhD adjuncts thirty years younger.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 08, 2020, 10:57:58 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 09:31:04 AM
This might help you, Marshy:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-We-Hire-in-Now-English/245255
Quote
Of the 3,412 jobs advertised between 1995 and 1998, 2,262, or 66 percent, were for tenure-track assistant professors in North America. Of the 2,611 jobs advertised between 2015 and 2018, 1,261, or 48 percent, fit that description. So, what's going on? It's not that we are hiring more at the associate- or full-professor ranks. There are more teaching jobs overseas now for U.S. Ph.D.s, but not that many more. The truth is simple and already well known: We hire more contingent instructors now than we used to.
Even if all of those 2611 positions were full time, it wouldn't be enough.
Wouldn't be enough for what?
You do understand that we are only talking about English PhDs in the above article.
OMG, Marshy. Okay, I'm going to explain it to you, although I don't know why I bother.
You posted numbers for all PhDs produced in 2018. ALLLLLLL PhDs and AALLLLLLL disciplines, many of whom are going nowhere near academia after they graduate, and most of whom are not going into the disciplines which have been been sliced into adjunct armies.
And only an idiot (and note that I am not calling you "an idiot," just saying idiots think this in the first place) believe that we are going to employ AAAALLLLLLLL PhDs in academia. No one has ever even suggested that!!!!!
What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually. I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs. I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
And then we have many, many more jobs which are already PT which should be converted to FT jobs. My department has nearly 60 invisible adjuncts----some well-qualified and good teachers, most not. My department is not unusual for a state teaching uni the size of ours. I'm not even sure how many sections that is, but we probably have the potential for at least 20 FT jobs there.
Do you understand all this?
If I'm not mistaken, Marshman, you run a lab in a Canadian uni? I think you want to be part of the conversation, but you don't really know very much about the system. Somehow that doesn't stop you from commenting. I should just go back to ignoring you.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 08, 2020, 10:57:58 AM
Yet at no point did universities seem to consider slowing the flow of students into the Ph.D. pipeline. The opposite happened. In 1988, the number of doctorates in the humanities conferred was estimated to be 3,570, and it increased to 5,145 in 2018.
Blaming everything on hiring is like blaming all of climate change on corporations.
[/quote]
WTF? "Blaming everything"? I have no idea what you are talking about in this section. That climate change business is almost gibberish.
I blame the state of employment in academia on a hiring protocol which has gotten out of control. Yeeeeeees, honey, supply and demand. I'm sorry to use the adolescent jab, but "Duh." The thing is, Marshburger, we have the demand. We just don't want to pay for the quality. We have the demand but are willing to lowball hire anyone who is willing to step into the classroom because we don't want to actually pay for the professionals.
Our milk has simply been watered down instead of providing the vast quantity of 2 percent in plain sight on the shelves.
And, BTW, graduate departments have made Yuge cuts all over American academia.
I've got to simply ignore you...
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 07:36:48 PM
And then we have many, many more jobs which are already PT which should be converted to FT jobs. My department has nearly 60 invisible adjuncts----some well-qualified and good teachers, most not. My department is not unusual for a state teaching uni the size of ours. I'm not even sure how many sections that is, but we probably have the potential for at least 20 FT jobs there.
How many of your full time colleagues are lording it over the adjuncts (who are not even needed for research) that they have better degree and publishing credentials than the adjuncts do, as I suspect you do? That could be where you're getting the horrible morale and lack of collegiality problems you've described upthread. Besides, of course, the stingy pay.
Mahagonny, we agree on a great many things but it seems to me that you have some sort of inferiority complex that is ruining any real discussion.
No one I know "lords it over" anyone about anything. I never discuss publishing or credentials with any of the adjuncts. Until a couple of years ago I WAS an adjunct. I suspect the attitude comes from the stingy pay and a dead-end career. These days I discuss the job market with my one friend who is an adjunct and actively looking for a FT position.
It is a simple fact that some folks have terminal degrees and publishing credentials which, generally speaking, qualifies them for faculty positions. Of course, these do not mean they are more effective teachers or better people overall than someone with less lines on the CV, but these do signify someone who is a serious academic in higher ed. Sorry, that's the way of the world. I might respectfully suggest you learn to deal with it.
Perhaps there is no point in these types of discussions.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 09:14:10 PM
Mahagonny, we agree on a great many things but it seems to me that you have some sort of inferiority complex that is ruining any real discussion.
Nothing is ruined. This is a perfectly fine discussion. The benefit of a debate is for the third party reading, not for either of the two debaters to expect to convince one another.
QuoteNo one I know "lords it over" anyone about anything. I never discuss publishing or credentials with any of the adjuncts. Until a couple of years ago I WAS an adjunct. I suspect the attitude comes from the stingy pay and a dead-end career. These days I discuss the job market with my one friend who is an adjunct and actively looking for a FT position.
Great, so out of all the adjuncts present (and who occupy a good deal of your thoughts) there is one with whom you are interested in relating face to face, because he is 'an adjunct who is not like the other adjuncts' as you were. Meaning, he is in a position to be competitive for an academic position that has a research component as part of the day to day tasks. You consider this is appropriate to make him qualified for the job he now holds, which has no research requirement. It is not. I think it's unlikely that these adjunct faculty don't know that you don't welcome them. It's not for you to decide whether they should be welcome. You work for the college, and the college has hired them.
on edit: It's true I was once advised that if I had completed more academic education I might have more respect for myself, by a trusted friend. I didn't argue. But we won't dwell on that. I know how you dislike ad-hominems.
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 08, 2020, 05:36:28 PM
Certainly the medical profession has long figured out that artificially depressing the number of med school students is a great way of maximizing highly profitable work oops for docs.
Suppose academia "artificially" reduced the number of PhD candidates, so that every one on graduating every one would be pretty much guaranteed a full-time position. Would that be a bad thing?
Suppose medical schools threw open their doors so that in a few years you had MDs complaining about not being able to find work, and others living out of their cars because their low-paying part time jobs wouldn't pay the rent. Would that be a good thing?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 07:36:48 PM
What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually. I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs. I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.
Let's do the back-of-the-envelope math again on why converting all the current terrible part-time jobs at state institutions into full-time jobs doesn't work.
On the need side (assuming everything else remains constant):
* 60 adjuncts at 2 sections per semester is 120 sections semester.
* 120 sections * $3000/section is a budget of $360k per semester.
On the supply side (assuming everything else remains constant):
* 120 sections per semester at a 4/4 load means 30 full-time positions each semester.
* $65k in salary + 25% in benefits means each full-time position costs $81.25k per year or $40.625k/semester.
The budget for those 30 full-time positions is then $1.2M/semester or more than 3 times the current budget.
Taking the salary down to $40k per year with 25% in benefits still means a budget of $750k/semester, more than double the current budget.
Changes that can be made:
* Consolidate sections into huge lectures or online experiences. Large classes do not necessarily mean bad teaching (https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/17/nyregion/lining-up-to-get-a-lecture-a-class-with-1600-students-and-one-popular-teacher.html) and live-streamed classes are becoming more common in an effort to not have to build more classrooms (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/02/u-central-florida-increases-class-sizes-live-streamed-lectures).
* Change general education requirements so that not all those seats are needed. AACU published an article in 2003 that discussed the trade-offs between what an ideal general education program would look like and the realities of constraints. (https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/dollars-and-sense-behind-general-education-reform)
I'll again point out that these changes are already underway and probably not in the way that the humanities folks really would like in terms of keeping their teaching jobs.
For example, at Penn State, the general education requirements look pretty solid with 45 credits required (https://bulletins.psu.edu/undergraduate/general-education/baccalaureate-degree-general-education-program/). But dig down just a little bit and it's only 3 credits in, say, the humanities that is absolutely, positively required because people can take interdisciplinary/linked courses to meet the requirements.
The academic plan for a BS in mechanical engineering (one of the largest majors on campus) shows how some of those requirements are met for non-humanities majors. (https://www.me.psu.edu/assets/docs/A-Program-Guide-ME-2019.pdf) The communication slots are specified courses, not free electives. There are exactly 6 slots for Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences "electives" -- 2 from each domain with one each in the category of International Literacy and US to further narrow the possibilities for the students. Those slots are in specific semesters and have to fit around the required courses that are prerequisites for the next courses in the sequence per the flowchart. (https://www.me.psu.edu/assets/docs/A-Flow-Chart.pdf)
Engineering education is in no way a liberal arts education with a lot of flexibility. Of the top 10 fields of study at Penn State by number of annual graduates, there are no humanities fields listed and one has to be pretty broad minded in definition of the liberal arts to see more than one liberal arts field (general biology) listed.
Penn State is not unique in that area nor is engineering the only large major nationally that has very limited flexibility in courses taken. Nursing and education immediately come to mind as having very set curricula that look pretty similar nationally.
Business is about 20% of college graduates nationally and while it seems like students majoring in business would have plenty of flexibility in selecting courses, that's often not the case. Going back to Penn State, a degree in marketing has: (https://rap.psu.edu/recommended-academic-plan-mktg-university-park-program-year-2019)
* 12 credits in foreign language (3 courses) with recommended language minors
* 9 specific credits in communication (3 courses)
* exactly 6 slots for the Arts/Humanities/Social Science combo again with the restrictions on one US designated course/one IL designated course and only one course required in the exact domain.
* 2 free electives that have to fit in around the required courses that term
Administrators who have this information at their fingertips are much more likely to ask why the general education program must be a bunch of sections in the 20-35 person range instead of having a handful of big lecture classes with online participation with far fewer small sections. Sure, languages classes don't work that way and are thus "never" taught that way anywhere. However, big history lectures of several hundred students exist at many places that can fill a classroom that big. Sure, a literature course works much better as a small discussion group, but how many literature courses have to be offered every term to meet demand when literature is lumped in with the broad category of humanities? (https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1896-the-forgotten-value-of-a-literature-course)
On that same budget of $360k/semester with 25% benefits, we can pay 6 people $48k/year. Going from 60 jobs to 6 jobs may not be what anyone wants, particularly those who preferred a part-time job and now have no job.
If you guys wouldn't mind...keeping the adjunctification discussion on this thread specific to the humanities and their prospects of surviving in academe. There is lots happening on that topic, of which adjunctification is a notable part.
The broader adjunctification discussion is at home on two other threads
Academic Jobs Crisis Task Force (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=985.0) and Why do you adjunct? (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=789.0)
Quote from: Hibush on March 09, 2020, 06:25:14 AM
If you guys wouldn't mind...keeping the adjunctification discussion on this thread specific to the humanities and their prospects of surviving in academe.
If this is aimed at me, then the general education piece of the humanities is pretty much the main point if we're talking academic jobs for graduates in the humanities.
Thinking that 30-45 general education credits means a lot of work for humanities professors is seriously misguided when the reality is freshman comp/speech and 1-2 courses in the humanities as required electives that might have additional restrictions. This is especially true with students who will enter college with substantial general education requirements already met through dual credit/AP/transfer from a different institution. Only one of those paths has to involve a college humanities faculty member.
People who don't know how college is experienced by the largest college majors are at a disadvantage so I'm going to keep banging the drum of "it's worse than you think, because there's no financial or even resource management reason to consolidate those piecemeal humanities adjunct jobs into a reasonable number of full-time jobs with decent pay".
Also, the focus on PhD production misses the point when so many more master's degrees are granted in the humanities every year and those folks are hired to teach, even if they wouldn't be hired TT.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 09, 2020, 06:32:45 AM
Quote from: Hibush on March 09, 2020, 06:25:14 AM
If you guys wouldn't mind...keeping the adjunctification discussion on this thread specific to the humanities and their prospects of surviving in academe.
If this is aimed at me, then the general education piece of the humanities is pretty much the main point if we're talking academic jobs for graduates in the humanities.
If it's aimed at me, my point is that adjunctification is a
symptom of the problem the humanities have. Programs that have solid enrollment tend not to have a lot of part-time instructors. And when they do, they are often "professional fellows" who bring something extra, often teaching courses that full-time faculty don't have the interest or expertise for.
In the face of this, the loudest voices from the humanities seem to simply advocate for
more of the same; "humanities are important because they've always been"; "companies are looking for people with soft skills" and so on.
Professional programs, by definition, have to adapt to the times to stay relevant. As technology, law, and society change, courses have to change in content, delivery, end everything else. However, people in the humanities wringing their hands about their future at the same time often refuse to consider even the
idea that they must change to stay relevant. It's an article of faith with many that to even consider such a thing is to give in to the evil "corporatization of higher education" instead of embracing the virtuous "life of the mind".
If students, parents, and society at large don't see enough value in the humanities, is that because they are stupid? Is it because institutions don't do a good enough sales pitch? Or does any of the responsibility rest on humanities programs and faculty to actually consider whether what students need today is the same as 20, 50, or 100 years ago, rather than simply restating the timelessness of their fields?
I believe that if the humanities can actually
establish their value in the public mind, rather than simply
assert it loudly, then solid
voluntary *enrollment will reduce adjunctification. But if enrollment is unstable, why would any sane administrator consider creating positions that may need to be eliminated in the not-too-distant future.
*If a lot of humanities enrollment comes form things like "general education" requirements, so that students are basically
forced into them, that's not nearly as stable as having electives that people from all kinds of humanities programs will
choose to take.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 04:43:39 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 08, 2020, 05:36:28 PM
Certainly the medical profession has long figured out that artificially depressing the number of med school students is a great way of maximizing highly profitable work oops for docs.
Suppose academia "artificially" reduced the number of PhD candidates, so that every one on graduating every one would be pretty much guaranteed a full-time position. Would that be a bad thing?
Suppose medical schools threw open their doors so that in a few years you had MDs complaining about not being able to find work, and others living out of their cars because their low-paying part time jobs wouldn't pay the rent. Would that be a good thing?
This has lead to the increase of jobs such as nurse practitioner and physician's assistant, who handle a lot of the routine care for patients because it is too difficult/expensive to get in to see an MD. So the problem is starting to solve itself.
Meanwhile med school is so expensive that it's difficult to get students to agree to specialize in low-cost general medicine fields such as pediatrics and obstetrics. To pay off those loans, it's cardiology. Or cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 07:36:48 PM
Quote
What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually. I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs. I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.
And.. who would decide "how many is the right number of...?" And which schools would be "allowed" to offer such programs?
Hey, just change your name to Staff or your initials to TBA. In the class schedule, all those classes will be yours!
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 09:14:10 PM
Mahagonny, we agree on a great many things but it seems to me that you have some sort of inferiority complex that is ruining any real discussion.
No one I know "lords it over" anyone about anything. I never discuss publishing or credentials with any of the adjuncts. Until a couple of years ago I WAS an adjunct. I suspect the attitude comes from the stingy pay and a dead-end career. These days I discuss the job market with my one friend who is an adjunct and actively looking for a FT position.
It is a simple fact that some folks have terminal degrees and publishing credentials which, generally speaking, qualifies them for faculty positions. Of course, these do not mean they are more effective teachers or better people overall than someone with less lines on the CV, but these do signify someone who is a serious academic in higher ed. Sorry, that's the way of the world. I might respectfully suggest you learn to deal with it.
Perhaps there is no point in these types of discussions.
The "ignore user" feature is really awesome.
Quote from: ciao_yall on March 09, 2020, 09:46:37 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 07:36:48 PM
Quote
What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually. I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs. I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.
And.. who would decide "how many is the right number of...?" And which schools would be "allowed" to offer such programs?
Not sure exactly what you are asking.
In English, for instance, there are often 3X the number of adjuncts as there are TT faculty. The adjuncts teach classes that virtually every student in the university must take. They should be FT.
Personally, I would rather see all programs staff by FT professionals.
And how can one "agree to disagree" that adjunct employment is...what? A good thing? Or what, there are not a great many classes taught by PT faculty which could be taught instead by FT faculty? Dumb. Ignore feature.
Sorry, somehow double posted.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 09, 2020, 06:15:06 AM
Let's do the back-of-the-envelope math again on why converting all the current terrible part-time jobs at state institutions into full-time jobs doesn't work.
On the need side (assuming everything else remains constant):
* 60 adjuncts at 2 sections per semester is 120 sections semester.
* 120 sections * $3000/section is a budget of $360k per semester.
On the supply side (assuming everything else remains constant):
* 120 sections per semester at a 4/4 load means 30 full-time positions each semester.
* $65k in salary + 25% in benefits means each full-time position costs $81.25k per year or $40.625k/semester.
The budget for those 30 full-time positions is then $1.2M/semester or more than 3 times the current budget.
Taking the salary down to $40k per year with 25% in benefits still means a budget of $750k/semester, more than double the current budget.
***
On that same budget of $360k/semester with 25% benefits, we can pay 6 people $48k/year. Going from 60 jobs to 6 jobs may not be what anyone wants, particularly those who preferred a part-time job and now have no job.
What point do you think you make when you post these sorts of things, Polly?
If we convert PT to FT jobs, it is going to be more expensive. We know.
Some people will lose their lousy PT jobs. We know.
Anything----from infrastructure to vet benefits to battling COVID-19---is going to be very expensive and more money than we really want to spend. We know.
It will be expensive to fix our colleges. That's part of the deal. Meanwhile, Bloomberg spent $500M to drop out of the presidential race. America has the money. We need to convince the public that we are worth the expense.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 09, 2020, 10:18:20 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 08, 2020, 07:36:48 PM
Quote
What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually. I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs. I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.
And how can one "agree to disagree" that adjunct employment is...what?
Agree to disagree on the idea that
there would be enough good jobs for all of the PhD holders who want them if part-time positions were consolidated.
Never said that, Marshy. Reread.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 09, 2020, 10:46:48 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 10:40:19 AM
Agree to disagree on the idea that there would be enough good jobs for all of the PhD holders who want them if part-time positions were consolidated.
Never said that, Marshy. Reread.
Quote
I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.
OK, I re-read it.
Quote
I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
I assumed "qualified teacher" and "para-professional" above to suggest there might be non-teaching FT jobs for PhDs to make up the difference between possible FT faculty (i.e. teaching) positions and available candidates.
Honestly, what did I mis-read?
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 11:08:55 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 09, 2020, 10:46:48 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 10:40:19 AM
Agree to disagree on the idea that there would be enough good jobs for all of the PhD holders who want them if part-time positions were consolidated.
Never said that, Marshy. Reread.
Quote
I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals. In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.
OK, I re-read it.
Quote
I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.
I assumed "qualified teacher" and "para-professional" above to suggest there might be non-teaching FT jobs for PhDs to make up the difference between possible FT faculty (i.e. teaching) positions and available candidates.
Honestly, what did I mis-read?
Firstly, do your own homework.
Secondly, write clearly. What are you saying there?
Look, it's very simple: We have an army of PT jobs on the books all over North America. If we could convert these PT jobs into FT jobs we could offer a great many people actual careers (maybe not all, but I am betting it is pretty close in disciplines like English which teach a great many sections of composition and gen ed classes). The need for teachers is there, we are simply parsing these classes out in dribs and drabs of 1 to 3 classes----jobs with no benefits, low pay, and no stake in the employing university. We could get a much better quality of teacher if we could make them actual employees with some stakes in their careers. All these programs pumping out PhDs are pumping out needed teachers. We simply don't have careers for most of these people----we have lousy PT jobs that are attenuating our universities. This may not be true of every discipline.
I cannot make this any clearer.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 09, 2020, 11:23:33 AM
We have an army of PT jobs on the books all over North America. If we could convert these PT jobs into FT jobs we could offer a great many people actual careers (maybe not all, but I am betting it is pretty close in disciplines like English which teach a great many sections of composition and gen ed classes). The need for teachers is there, we are simply parsing these classes out in dribs and drabs of 1 to 3 classes----jobs with no benefits, low pay, and no stake in the employing university. We could get a much better quality of teacher if we could make them actual employees with some stakes in their careers. All these programs pumping out PhDs are pumping out needed teachers. We simply don't have careers for most of these people----we have lousy PT jobs that are attenuating our universities. This may not be true of every discipline.
We agree on all but that one line. Here are a couple more things:
- Requiring a PhD instead of a Master's will increase the number of positions available.
- Getting rid of all of the "professional fellows" will *increase the number of positions available.
Any statistics I have seen suggest most part-time faculty are teaching significantly less than a full course load. (That's often a restriction in their contracts.) There are a few freeway fliers who teach at multiple places and so can actually teach
more than a full load. However, from any stats I've seen there are far fewer of them. So consolidating all of those positions will result in a significant reduction of jobs in total, even though they will be better jobs.
So, unless the number of Master's holders and professional fellows is
equal to that difference, there would be a significant number of people who who wind up with no job at all.
To be clear, I think that would be worth it because the system would be better. If you have data suggesting otherwise I'd be glad to see it.
(*Although perhaps not as much as expected. Many courses taught by professional fellows are ones that normal faculty would not be suited to. For instance, if an English department offers a course on "Publishing a Novel", which is taught by a published author, it doesn't make sense to have it taught by a faculty member who
hasn't published a novel. Requiring a PhD would mean the course would probably just go off the books and not be taught at all.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 12:00:29 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 09, 2020, 11:23:33 AM
We have an army of PT jobs on the books all over North America. If we could convert these PT jobs into FT jobs we could offer a great many people actual careers (maybe not all, but I am betting it is pretty close in disciplines like English which teach a great many sections of composition and gen ed classes). The need for teachers is there, we are simply parsing these classes out in dribs and drabs of 1 to 3 classes----jobs with no benefits, low pay, and no stake in the employing university. We could get a much better quality of teacher if we could make them actual employees with some stakes in their careers. All these programs pumping out PhDs are pumping out needed teachers. We simply don't have careers for most of these people----we have lousy PT jobs that are attenuating our universities. This may not be true of every discipline.
We agree on all but that one line. Here are a couple more things:
- Requiring a PhD instead of a Master's will increase the number of positions available.
- Getting rid of all of the "professional fellows" will *increase the number of positions available.
Any statistics I have seen suggest most part-time faculty are teaching significantly less than a full course load. (That's often a restriction in their contracts.) There are a few freeway fliers who teach at multiple places and so can actually teach more than a full load. However, from any stats I've seen there are far fewer of them. So consolidating all of those positions will result in a significant reduction of jobs in total, even though they will be better jobs.
So, unless the number of Master's holders and professional fellows is equal to that difference, there would be a significant number of people who who wind up with no job at all. To be clear, I think that would be worth it because the system would be better.
If you have data suggesting otherwise I'd be glad to see it.
(*Although perhaps not as much as expected. Many courses taught by professional fellows are ones that normal faculty would not be suited to. For instance, if an English department offers a course on "Publishing a Novel", which is taught by a published author, it doesn't make sense to have it taught by a faculty member who hasn't published a novel. Requiring a PhD would mean the course would probably just go off the books and not be taught at all.)
Um, yeah. None of that stuff is controversial, Marshy. All of it is known by the peeps here. How many times have I or someone else pointed out that converting PT positions to FT positions will result in fewer overall jobs? Argh.
Not everyplace with necessarily require a PhD, but the competition would necessitate one in a great many circumstances, probably most circumstances. This is the scenario for most FT jobs now.
We don't have classes called "Publishing a Novel"----we have creative writing classes that are taught by well published creative writers, a great many of whom have PhDs and / or MFAs. Nothing new there. These are sometimes taught by adjuncts but generally taught by FT faculty.
There are already indications (which I've posted before) that schools are working to hire more FT and less PT faculty. The vectors have actually crossed. I do think it is time to stop with the insistence that "there are no jobs" as if somehow the job market is a desert----it is not; it is a dystopia full of jobs that damage our higher ed system. The numbers are there if one is not too pigheaded to see them. It's what we do with the numbers now that counts.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 12:00:29 PM
(*Although perhaps not as much as expected. Many courses taught by professional fellows are ones that normal faculty would not be suited to. For instance, if an English department offers a course on "Publishing a Novel", which is taught by a published author, it doesn't make sense to have it taught by a faculty member who hasn't published a novel. Requiring a PhD would mean the course would probably just go off the books and not be taught at all.)
Perhaps so-- the courses that get taught will always be determined to some extent by the composition of the department and what the cool people, 'real faculty' (PhD and tenure) prefer to be identified with, with what would be best for students, or what they would be inclined to populate, (given a range of choices), competing with the career interests and promotion of these faculty. This would be increasingly true if the part time faculty are retrenched or eliminated.
These days in some humanities fields you can get quite a few things up and running if they promote diversity in the recognized ways. It helps to be on the inside track, as usual. 'Diversity credit' course requirements. I hear students snicker about these from time to time.
The fundamental problem with the question in the thread title is that it uses the present tense. The humanities have been post-apocalyptic for over a decade now.
There might still be people living in the ruins of Hoover Dam, but the dam itself and the benefits it once provided are gone. We don't have the resources or knowledge to build a new dam or the specialized labor to operate one if we built it. There are still people who pile rocks across the Colorado River to divert water for irrigation for subsistence farming. It's important and necessary work, but it bears little resemblance to the coordination and specialization and ambition that once made building and maintaining the Hoover Dam possible.
Should we convert some part-time subsistence farmers to full-time ones and dismiss the rest? Of course. My students would be better off with a full-time teacher whose economic incentives do not mean spending as little time on them as possible. My TT colleagues would be better off with someone else to share the administrative load, even if I'm not that person. But creating a new set of full-time subsistence farming positions will not bring back the Hoover Dam, and the next bomb to fall may sweep away any remaining subsistence farmers still working the land along the river.
Quote from: nonntt on March 13, 2020, 11:00:24 AM
The fundamental problem with the question in the thread title is that it uses the present tense. The humanities have been post-apocalyptic for over a decade now.
There might still be people living in the ruins of Hoover Dam, but the dam itself and the benefits it once provided are gone. We don't have the resources or knowledge to build a new dam or the specialized labor to operate one if we built it. There are still people who pile rocks across the Colorado River to divert water for irrigation for subsistence farming. It's important and necessary work, but it bears little resemblance to the coordination and specialization and ambition that once made building and maintaining the Hoover Dam possible.
Should we convert some part-time subsistence farmers to full-time ones and dismiss the rest? Of course. My students would be better off with a full-time teacher whose economic incentives do not mean spending as little time on them as possible. My TT colleagues would be better off with someone else to share the administrative load, even if I'm not that person. But creating a new set of full-time subsistence farming positions will not bring back the Hoover Dam, and the next bomb to fall may sweep away any remaining subsistence farmers still working the land along the river.
the humanities in my field are not post-apocalyptic. We 'part-timers' bring knowledge to work with us every day and disseminate it. What the TT colleagues are doing is less clear, or how I could help them. In order to get the full time non-TT position, you have to drink their Kool-aid. I mean, lots of it.
I can help students though.
Not every humanities field is doing the same thing, and not every department in the same field is doing the same thing.
The tenure track is the matrix, the think tank of higher education curriculum. It's where things get settled, implemented, exalted to the status of truth and quality. Sometimes, mediocrity makes it to the top of the flagpole and starts waving in the breeze.
I appreciate your perspective.
Due to the lack of interest, over several years, in a B.A. in Philosophy, we began in the fall of 2019 to collapse the program and to stop accepting new students as we had less than twenty students enrolled and five faculty to service them," a Liberty University spokesperson said." From IHE. (https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/05/15/liberty-university-collapses-philosophy-program)
Given that philosophy, of a sort, is central to a Liberty education, it is surprising that they did not push for greater success of the program.
(The choice of words brings up an image of the five faculty changing the oil in the students. What is the relationship between students and faculty at Liberty?)
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 07:42:43 AM
Due to the lack of interest, over several years, in a B.A. in Philosophy, we began in the fall of 2019 to collapse the program and to stop accepting new students as we had less than twenty students enrolled and five faculty to service them," a Liberty University spokesperson said." From IHE. (https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/05/15/liberty-university-collapses-philosophy-program)
Given that philosophy, of a sort, is central to a Liberty education, it is surprising that they did not push for greater success of the program.
(The choice of words brings up an image of the five faculty changing the oil in the students. What is the relationship between students and faculty at Liberty?)
Is Liberty still really invested in its on-campus program or have they continued to convert to almost all online? Wikipedia lists Liberty University as having 95k online students and 15k in-person students.
20 people out of 15k seems like a rounding error that should be discontinued. Offering general education courses with a handful of electives is a different scheduling and staffing issue than ensuring that the program is offering all the requirements for an actual philosophy degree.
One person lecturing to a big hall to meet general education requirements is different than having to have the small seminars that won't meet the minimum requirements for a normal section to run.
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 07:42:43 AM
Due to the lack of interest, over several years, in a B.A. in Philosophy, we began in the fall of 2019 to collapse the program and to stop accepting new students as we had less than twenty students enrolled and five faculty to service them," a Liberty University spokesperson said." From IHE. (https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/05/15/liberty-university-collapses-philosophy-program)
Given that philosophy, of a sort, is central to a Liberty education, it is surprising that they did not push for greater success of the program.
(The choice of words brings up an image of the five faculty changing the oil in the students. What is the relationship between students and faculty at Liberty?)
It's not really all that surprising, really. Frankly, their major is
quite weak--which, again, is not all that surprising, given the kind of institution it is, and the fact that the (seven!) dudes teaching in that department do little other than apologetics. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there's still a market for that kind of philosophy, but there you have it. It's pretty much only alive in US.
Honestly, I kind of think this is a good thing. It's bad for the faculty members, of course, but... well, if I'm being honest, I don't think the work they're doing is especially good for the discipline, let alone society.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 15, 2020, 10:05:21 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 07:42:43 AM
Due to the lack of interest, over several years, in a B.A. in Philosophy, we began in the fall of 2019 to collapse the program and to stop accepting new students as we had less than twenty students enrolled and five faculty to service them," a Liberty University spokesperson said." From IHE. (https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/05/15/liberty-university-collapses-philosophy-program)
Given that philosophy, of a sort, is central to a Liberty education, it is surprising that they did not push for greater success of the program.
(The choice of words brings up an image of the five faculty changing the oil in the students. What is the relationship between students and faculty at Liberty?)
It's not really all that surprising, really. Frankly, their major is quite weak--which, again, is not all that surprising, given the kind of institution it is, and the fact that the (seven!) dudes teaching in that department do little other than apologetics. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there's still a market for that kind of philosophy, but there you have it. It's pretty much only alive in US.
Honestly, I kind of think this is a good thing. It's bad for the faculty members, of course, but... well, if I'm being honest, I don't think the work they're doing is especially good for the discipline, let alone society.
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
(Related thread (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1342.msg30196#msg30196))
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 10:17:46 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 15, 2020, 10:05:21 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 07:42:43 AM
Due to the lack of interest, over several years, in a B.A. in Philosophy, we began in the fall of 2019 to collapse the program and to stop accepting new students as we had less than twenty students enrolled and five faculty to service them," a Liberty University spokesperson said." From IHE. (https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/05/15/liberty-university-collapses-philosophy-program)
Given that philosophy, of a sort, is central to a Liberty education, it is surprising that they did not push for greater success of the program.
(The choice of words brings up an image of the five faculty changing the oil in the students. What is the relationship between students and faculty at Liberty?)
It's not really all that surprising, really. Frankly, their major is quite weak--which, again, is not all that surprising, given the kind of institution it is, and the fact that the (seven!) dudes teaching in that department do little other than apologetics. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there's still a market for that kind of philosophy, but there you have it. It's pretty much only alive in US.
Honestly, I kind of think this is a good thing. It's bad for the faculty members, of course, but... well, if I'm being honest, I don't think the work they're doing is especially good for the discipline, let alone society.
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
(Related thread (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1342.msg30196#msg30196))
Those of us in the liberal arts are terrible about thinking in these terms or designing programs that carve a niche. It's part of the reason our majors are dying.
It an be done. Bowling Green in Ohio channeled its energies into a popular culture major that, while maybe not competing with the elite schools, really fills the conferences and grad programs with faculty and students. Anybody who does anything in that field knows about BG.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 10:31:20 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 10:17:46 AM
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
(Related thread (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1342.msg30196#msg30196))
Those of us in the liberal arts are terrible about thinking in these terms or designing programs that carve a niche. It's part of the reason our majors are dying.
It an be done. Bowling Green in Ohio channeled its energies into a popular culture major that, while maybe not competing with the elite schools, really fills the conferences and grad programs with faculty and students. Anybody who does anything in that field knows about BG.
I agree with Wahoo that part of the problem for many programs is indeed not investing the resources into carving out a niche that would attract a core of specific students from all over.
However, finding that niche can be hard, especially when the current faculty were chosen for their diversity of interests to cover the breadth of the generic major comparable to a vibrant program at a huge institution.
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 10:17:46 AM
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
I mean, they could have tried, I guess. But the competition is Oxford, Notre Dame, Georgetown... A lower bar would be to do it respectably. But then Liberty's reputation gets in the way, and you don't have a rubber stamp program any more.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 15, 2020, 10:38:16 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 10:31:20 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 10:17:46 AM
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
(Related thread (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1342.msg30196#msg30196))
Those of us in the liberal arts are terrible about thinking in these terms or designing programs that carve a niche. It's part of the reason our majors are dying.
It an be done. Bowling Green in Ohio channeled its energies into a popular culture major that, while maybe not competing with the elite schools, really fills the conferences and grad programs with faculty and students. Anybody who does anything in that field knows about BG.
I agree with Wahoo that part of the problem for many programs is indeed not investing the resources into carving out a niche that would attract a core of specific students from all over.
Isn't part of the problem intrinsic? Specifically, the big defence of the humanities, general education, etc., that I've seen is that this is
timeless, universal knowledge. So the very idea of tailoring the offerings to a
specific place and time culturally is anathema to many in those fields.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 15, 2020, 11:20:37 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on May 15, 2020, 10:38:16 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 10:31:20 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 10:17:46 AM
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
(Related thread (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1342.msg30196#msg30196))
Those of us in the liberal arts are terrible about thinking in these terms or designing programs that carve a niche. It's part of the reason our majors are dying.
It an be done. Bowling Green in Ohio channeled its energies into a popular culture major that, while maybe not competing with the elite schools, really fills the conferences and grad programs with faculty and students. Anybody who does anything in that field knows about BG.
I agree with Wahoo that part of the problem for many programs is indeed not investing the resources into carving out a niche that would attract a core of specific students from all over.
Isn't part of the problem intrinsic? Specifically, the big defence of the humanities, general education, etc., that I've seen is that this is timeless, universal knowledge. So the very idea of tailoring the offerings to a specific place and time culturally is anathema to many in those fields.
Not really, Marshy.
What good is it to have a niche if you can't scratch it?
Quote from: mahagonny on May 15, 2020, 01:29:31 PM
What good is it to have a niche if you can't scratch it?
Only works when you mispronounce it.
Quote from: mahagonny on May 15, 2020, 01:29:31 PM
What good is it to have a niche if you can't scratch it?
I have an ointment. Takes care of the niche right quick.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 15, 2020, 11:20:37 AM
Isn't part of the problem intrinsic? Specifically, the big defence of the humanities, general education, etc., that I've seen is that this is timeless, universal knowledge. So the very idea of tailoring the offerings to a specific place and time culturally is anathema to many in those fields.
The niche part is why someone should choose program A over all the other programs with a similar title (e.g., English or history or philosophy)
The niche doesn't have to be '1983 Jacksonville, Florida as American historians know it'.
The niche could be project-based learning as one immersive course at a time that counts as 15 credits in a multidisciplinary way. Cornell College has a niche of taking one course at a time in three-week terms.
The niche could be a lack of formal majors, but guided for each individual student to make a unique path with a large breadth of experience in multiple liberal arts areas. Hampshire College is an example of this.
The niche could be old-England-style tutorial-based with small cohorts who do a lot of individual writing.
St. John's College in the US has a niche that is distinct from even a typical SLAC by focusing on the great books with everyone studying together.
The problem for many programs is being basically the same as the other programs, even to the point of asserting what makes this particular program special (small seminar classes with full-time faculty and a true 1/3 gen ed, 1/3 major, 1/3 free electives curriculum that include study abroad!) being standard boilerplate while trying to compete for the small percentage of people looking for that specific experience.
Any 18-year old who is seriously interested in philosophy and academically capable of completing a real undergraduate philosophy program is not going to attend Liberty University. There might be naive 18-year olds who get persuaded to do whatever Liberty advertises as a "pre-law" program, and that curricular track might include a philosophy course or two, but that's not enough to make a philosophy major viable.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 15, 2020, 03:04:24 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 15, 2020, 11:20:37 AM
Isn't part of the problem intrinsic? Specifically, the big defence of the humanities, general education, etc., that I've seen is that this is timeless, universal knowledge. So the very idea of tailoring the offerings to a specific place and time culturally is anathema to many in those fields.
The niche part is why someone should choose program A over all the other programs with a similar title (e.g., English or history or philosophy)
The niche doesn't have to be '1983 Jacksonville, Florida as American historians know it'.
The niche could be project-based learning as one immersive course at a time that counts as 15 credits in a multidisciplinary way. Cornell College has a niche of taking one course at a time in three-week terms.
The niche could be a lack of formal majors, but guided for each individual student to make a unique path with a large breadth of experience in multiple liberal arts areas. Hampshire College is an example of this.
The niche could be old-England-style tutorial-based with small cohorts who do a lot of individual writing.
St. John's College in the US has a niche that is distinct from even a typical SLAC by focusing on the great books with everyone studying together.
OK, that makes sense.
Quote
The problem for many programs is being basically the same as the other programs, even to the point of asserting what makes this particular program special (small seminar classes with full-time faculty and a true 1/3 gen ed, 1/3 major, 1/3 free electives curriculum that include study abroad!) being standard boilerplate while trying to compete for the small percentage of people looking for that specific experience.
Just looking at the examples above, they all require major restructuring of programs, or academic timetable, or whatever. The "boilerplate" approach is all about small tweaks to the norm but marketed as innovative. (And by defintion, if you're going to be
unique you have to comeup with something original so you can't copy something that works for someone else.) And getting
all your faculty on board for that kind of endeavour is like collecting unicorn tears.
Yes, the problem is exactly being unique in a good way that will attract sufficient students and have all the faculty on board.
The small tweaks aren't enough to save programs that aren't currently competitive for students.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 15, 2020, 11:20:37 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on May 15, 2020, 10:38:16 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 10:31:20 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 10:17:46 AM
Even if the market is modest, couldn't they have invested in being the #1 apologetics program in the world ? Not an important goal from the perspective of most philosophers, but apologetics seems to be to a central field to the leadership there. The institution could have taken it as a point of pride.
Those of us in the liberal arts are terrible about thinking in these terms or designing programs that carve a niche. It's part of the reason our majors are dying.
I agree with Wahoo that part of the problem for many programs is indeed not investing the resources into carving out a niche that would attract a core of specific students from all over.
Isn't part of the problem intrinsic? Specifically, the big defence of the humanities, general education, etc., that I've seen is that this is timeless, universal knowledge. So the very idea of tailoring the offerings to a specific place and time culturally is anathema to many in those fields.
One aspect that Wahoo brings up is that many faculty in the liberal arts are loathe to engage in strategic thinking about their profession.
It is common for faculty in any discipline to want to buckle down in their specialty and not stress out too much about there large-scale issues. But it does appear [to me] to be more common, or more socially accepted, in the liberal arts. What say you all?
If it is more common, I don't understand why it would be intrinsic to the field of study. There is nothing about the humanities or liberal arts that is inconsistent with strategic thinking. But if the field has reinforced the idea as a meme [Def 1 MW (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme)] that has become dominant in the field. Once fixed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_allele) in the population, the meme would lead to departments eschewing long-term planning, failing to identify strengths in the new context and dying majors.
We are seeing that phenomenon, but is the mechanism likely to be true?
In my area of biology, natural philosophy and later natural history were the normal modes of study. They became passé and biologists tried new approaches. Today, biology is doing just fine. Its importance as a subject of study and utility for improving society are not questioned by academic leaders. What would have happened if natural philosophers had stuck with nature study rather than experimental approaches?
Quote from: Hibush on May 15, 2020, 05:32:36 PM
One aspect that Wahoo brings up is that many faculty in the liberal arts are loathe to engage in strategic thinking about their profession.
It is common for faculty in any discipline to want to buckle down in their specialty and not stress out too much about there large-scale issues. But it does appear [to me] to be more common, or more socially accepted, in the liberal arts. What say you all?
If it is more common, I don't understand why it would be intrinsic to the field of study.
We are seeing that phenomenon, but is the mechanism likely to be true?
In my area of biology, natural philosophy and later natural history were the normal modes of study. They became passé and biologists tried new approaches. Today, biology is doing just fine. Its importance as a subject of study and utility for improving society are not questioned by academic leaders. What would have happened if natural philosophers had stuck with nature study rather than experimental approaches?
I've probably done enough damage...but I'll weigh in, partly because I am seeing this phenomenon firsthand for the second time in my career.
The humanities seem stuck in time.
Some of the reasons for this are legitimate, and sometimes biologists and chemists and anatomists etc. appear to think about the humanities as if they are empirical science and thus should pursue experimental approaches once the old approaches become passe, but that's not necessarily what we have in the humanities. The "old approaches" are still perfectly viable, and we've got generations of new approaches anyway.
I have pointed out to my undergrads that one of the reasons Shakespeare is Shakespeare is that his plays have literally been performed all over the world continuously since they were written. The same is true for Beethoven and Mozart. Rembrandt and daVinci, Japanese woodcuts and Mayan pottery etc. You get the point. These things form large parts of the fabric of world culture. What sort of experimental approach should we take with these things? Are they passe if someone in almost every country in the world has performed Shakespeare in the last year?
And actually, if one knew much about the arts, one would see that the humanities have been evolving and expanding and experimenting since, well, forever. Beethoven faced a great deal of derision in his time because he was way too new for the fuddy-duddies. Philip Glass anyone?
I also have to point out that
Star Wars is a direct result of Joseph Campbell's philosophy----if you don't know what I am talking about, google George Lucas and the "monomyth."
Hunger Games? Feminist monomyth. Again, you get the point.
So please, my friends, take a look at what you are posting about before posting. We are redefining and inventing constantly. Always have been.
We are also inventive constantly in the classroom. Lots of examples, but just take my word for it.
So to put it in a nutshell: most of us don't think we should have to defend ourselves. We study some of the most venerable aspects of human activity, ideas and expressions that are as old as cave paintings, and actually probably predate them. It never occurred to me I would have to defend what I do until it appeared that some people wanted me to do so.
So part of the reason the humanities are stuck in time is because we are dealing with the great works that do not need reinventing (what Marshy was trying to get at above) and working constantly with the newly defined stuff. Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was in his time---many times more actually. Let biology reinvent itself because we already know what a stamen is. Philip Glass is the Beethoven of our age.
On the other hand, because we have our heads in the great works of the past, we sometimes miss the genius of our own age.
Hunger Games is a masterpiece. Many professional musicians will not listen to or perform Philip Glass. Students love and can relate to Tolkien and Stephen King and J.K. Rowling and Led Zeppelin and Tarantino. We turn our snoots up at these, generally speaking (exceptions aside). Big mistake. Students will come to Shakespeare and Keats and Stravinsky if we meet them where they are the first time around---we just don't have that much time to do so and so brush our own popular creations aside as confectionery.
But what I was on about is the paucity of marketing abilities in the humanities. Our grads do fine over the long term, they really do, but somehow people who research and write and perform publicly for a living seem incapable of forwarding their own successes.
Part of the this is the nature of our professional lives: our profession is quiet and textual and thoughtful----not great training for loud public relations.
My cousin who is a neuroscientist produces several 1,000 word papers a year on a team of a researchers, sometimes a dozen or so; we spend a year in intellectual isolation to produce 5K to 10K word single-author papers and 5 to 10 years producing 60K to 100K+ word monographs. Great for grammar and complex expression but not something that makes a lot of headlines.
And humanities professors tend not to be alpha personalities. I've known two English professors who got into fisticuffs with people, but both these folks were crazy, not alphas doing alpha s**t. We just don't go around fighting for our right to party.
You are wrong. Charles Wuorinen is the Beethoven of our age. (j/k)
Some tentative thoughts, from someone in a liminal field.
I think one of the reasons that humanities departments don't become niche is that humanists aren't so attached to their own specialties. We tend to think it's important that students get a broad view of our discipline - not that they have to learn everything, because that's impossible, but that they should learn a wide variety of things. At the same time, many humanities disciplines (my field of mathematics is an exception) somehow don't think it's appropriate for people to teach outside their own specialties. So there is a sense that a niche department can't give a proper undergraduate education.
At the same time, the humanities are in some ways much more specialized, though in the less technical parts of the humanities, this is hidden by the lack of specialized jargon. As time goes on, biologists abandon some areas of study. The subfield is done, or no longer interesting. For the most part, humanists don't abandon areas of study, but keep adding more and more new ones. The size of humanities faculties hasn't kept up, and the size of the undergraduate curriculum can't keep up. So it ends up that everyone is in their own subsubfield of one (or more like a dozen, worldwide). Also, because so much is already known and so much needs to be mastered before getting to the frontier of research, research gets detached from undergraduate (or even master's level) education.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 07:23:10 PM
So part of the reason the humanities are stuck in time is because we are dealing with the great works that do not need reinventing (what Marshy was trying to get at above) and working constantly with the newly defined stuff. Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was in his time---many times more actually. Let biology reinvent itself because we already know what a stamen is. Philip Glass is the Beethoven of our age.
On the other hand, because we have our heads in the great works of the past, we sometimes miss the genius of our own age. Hunger Games is a masterpiece. Many professional musicians will not listen to or perform Philip Glass. Students love and can relate to Tolkien and Stephen King and J.K. Rowling and Led Zeppelin and Tarantino. We turn our snoots up at these, generally speaking (exceptions aside). Big mistake. Students will come to Shakespeare and Keats and Stravinsky if we meet them where they are the first time around---we just don't have that much time to do so and so brush our own popular creations aside as confectionery.
But what I was on about is the paucity of marketing abilities in the humanities. Our grads do fine over the long term, they really do, but somehow people who research and write and perform publicly for a living seem incapable of forwarding their own successes.
Part of the this is the nature of our professional lives: our profession is quiet and textual and thoughtful----not great training for loud public relations.
There's the kind of thinking that prevents getting sympathy from other disciplines. The idea that somehow pure thought is the superior way to approach anything. For centuries people believed "heavy objects fall faster than light objects" becuase that's what the Greeks thought, and "experiments" were vulgar; pure reason was the way to establish anything.
Think of the term "digital humanities". Why don't we have "digital physics" or "digital economics" or "digital agriculture" or anything else? Because digital tools have been adopted in all kinds of disciplines for
decades since they were useful. There's no need for a special term for using tools that become available and
seeing opportunities to do things more effectively.
Quote
My cousin who is a neuroscientist produces several 1,000 word papers a year on a team of a researchers, sometimes a dozen or so; we spend a year in intellectual isolation to produce 5K to 10K word single-author papers and 5 to 10 years producing 60K to 100K+ word monographs. Great for grammar and complex expression but not something that makes a lot of headlines.
And how many people read the neuroscience papers vs. the single author humanities papers?
Quote
And humanities professors tend not to be alpha personalities. I've known two English professors who got into fisticuffs with people, but both these folks were crazy, not alphas doing alpha s**t. We just don't go around fighting for our right to party.
How many academics do? There are introverts and extraverts in every field I've seen.
One problem I see for professors' jobs is that individuals don't have to major in the humanities to get many personal benefits of literature, philosophy, or history while becoming truly expert is hard, sustained effort.
If anything, the insistence on formal classes can hurt the message by being "mandatory fun". The same is often true for the liberal arts sciences (e.g., chemistry, physics, geology); people really enjoy the outreach activities, but becoming expert is work. In addition, a bachelor's degree in those fields is no longer an automatic ticket to a middle-class job, especially if one wants to live in a specific small town.
Intellectually capable people have more choices now than they did N decades ago. It's perfectly reasonable to major in biochemical engineering, continue being an avid bookworm/theatre goer, and then take a middle-class job doing something unrelated to engineering of any type.
A good college education is indeed more than preparing one for the first job, but, for people who entered college with a solid K-12 education and good social capital, the case is weak for any given major if the goal after college is a good middle-class life instead of a specific career.
Quote from: quasihumanist on May 15, 2020, 09:58:16 PM
You are wrong. Charles Wuorinen is the Beethoven of our age. (j/k)
Shoot.
Don't know him.
Will definitely check him out.
Thanks for the tip.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 16, 2020, 05:06:24 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 07:23:10 PM
Part of the this is the nature of our professional lives: our profession is quiet and textual and thoughtful----not great training for loud public relations.
There's the kind of thinking that prevents getting sympathy from other disciplines. The idea that somehow pure thought is the superior way to approach anything.
WHAT?! Marshy, I ignore you unless I make a mistake because you just say the dumbest, most obnoxious things.
Where anywhere has anyone said "pure thought is the superior way to approach anything"???
Who says that? I certainly didn't. I don't know anyone who has.
You just made that up. Strawmaning like a jerk there, buddy.
You're like a teenager simply looking for a reason to be mad. Quit being a baby.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 16, 2020, 05:06:24 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 07:23:10 PM
My cousin who is a neuroscientist produces several 1,000 word papers a year on a team of a researchers, sometimes a dozen or so; we spend a year in intellectual isolation to produce 5K to 10K word single-author papers and 5 to 10 years producing 60K to 100K+ word monographs. Great for grammar and complex expression but not something that makes a lot of headlines.
And how many people read the neuroscience papers vs. the single author humanities papers?
No idea. It was not a lot, I assure you. This is very specialized science having to do with a particular response in the parts of the brain when receiving sensory input, and these experiments are very narrow in a very narrow specialty as is the nature of science---that much I understand of his work. Some day I expect it will yield remarkable results, but for now my cousin has been plugging at this for years, since his dissertation.
Marshmellow, you are just one resentful, frustrated, insecure pseudo-scientist, aren't you?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 16, 2020, 11:06:44 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 16, 2020, 05:06:24 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 15, 2020, 07:23:10 PM
Part of the this is the nature of our professional lives: our profession is quiet and textual and thoughtful----not great training for loud public relations.
There's the kind of thinking that prevents getting sympathy from other disciplines. The idea that somehow pure thought is the superior way to approach anything.
WHAT?! Marshy, I ignore you unless I make a mistake because you just say the dumbest, most obnoxious things.
Where anywhere has anyone said "pure thought is the superior way to approach anything"???
Who says that? I certainly didn't. I don't know anyone who has.
By saying
Your profession is "quiet and textual and thoughtful" it implies that other professions, (including, presumably, academics in other disciplines), are
not those things.
I would guess I'm not the only one who thinks suggesting humanities are the only "thoughtful" disciplines sounds condescending.
For instance, saying many STEM fields have a lot of math in them doesn't imply that only people who do math are "smart"; it's just a necessary skill for those fields. Humanities promote their develoment of "soft skills", but imply that they're the disciplines that "really" do that, without offering any concrete evidence of how they do that so much more effectively than other fields.
So, if you want to suggest that "thoughtfulness" is somehow unique to the humanities, I'd be fascinated to hear the explanation.
(Same thing for "textual" really; every field requires people to be able to read and produce highly complex "textual" material.)
And "quiet"? Other than perhaps music and theatre, what makes a discipline "noisy" or "loud"????
Let's maybe take a step back and cool our heads a titch, shall we, friends?
Quote from: polly_mer on May 16, 2020, 07:10:08 AM
One problem I see for professors' jobs is that individuals don't have to major in the humanities to get many personal benefits of literature, philosophy, or history while becoming truly expert is hard, sustained effort.
If anything, the insistence on formal classes can hurt the message by being "mandatory fun". The same is often true for the liberal arts sciences (e.g., chemistry, physics, geology); people really enjoy the outreach activities, but becoming expert is work. In addition, a bachelor's degree in those fields is no longer an automatic ticket to a middle-class job, especially if one wants to live in a specific small town.
Intellectually capable people have more choices now than they did N decades ago. It's perfectly reasonable to major in biochemical engineering, continue being an avid bookworm/theatre goer, and then take a middle-class job doing something unrelated to engineering of any type.
A good college education is indeed more than preparing one for the first job, but, for people who entered college with a solid K-12 education and good social capital, the case is weak for any given major if the goal after college is a good middle-class life instead of a specific career.
A lot of this is true, of course, but since I teach a lot of these classes at a school in a region in which people almost exclusively seek "practical" degrees for future employment, I have a lot of future business people who need an LA credit. Not to a person, but a great many really enjoy my classes. I've gotten lots of thank-you emails, great evals, and even a sweet RMP rating. It is correct that a bookworm with good social capital does not need a class to inspire them to read, yet there are fewer of these folks than you seem to indicate. For many, my classes are an introduction to things that they did not know existed, or if they did know existed knew it only because of a brief, uninspiring introduction through public schools that did not do the work justice and thus did not inspire bookworms with any depth to their capital.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 16, 2020, 11:33:03 AM
By saying Your profession is "quiet and textual and thoughtful" it implies that other professions, (including, presumably, academics in other disciplines), are not those things.
Doesn't imply anything of the sort.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 16, 2020, 07:10:08 AM
One problem I see for professors' jobs is that individuals don't have to major in the humanities to get many personal benefits of literature, philosophy, or history while becoming truly expert is hard, sustained effort.
I don't think that holds up as a distinction. Two of the most popular hobbies in the US, gardening (77% of US households) and bird watching (20% of Americans), are straight out biology, but hardly any of the people enjoying those activities majored in biology. But becoming expert enough in biology, even horticulture or ornithology, to get an academic job takes hard sustained effort.
I'm still favoring the dominant meme model, where the cultural norm has been established by chance rather than being inherent in the nature of the scholarship.
Eric Hayot, the author of the article that inspired this thread (https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-humanities-as-we-know-them-are-doomed-now-what/) is back with a followup. (https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-humanities-have-a-marketing-problem).
It is comparatively optimistic, changing the outlook from "The Humanities as We Know Them Are Doomed" to the more tractable "The Humanities Have a Marketing Problem".
He addresses many of the issues brought up in this thread.
He basically says that humanities instruction is in fine shape. Low enrollment results from fewer students
thinking they want or need it. He also dismisses job-preparation programs meaningful competitors for students.
He sees the main problem being a curriculum as being centered around what professors do rather than what professors can do for students.
QuoteWhat if, then, we reorganized the undergraduate curriculum around a set of concepts that instead of foregrounding training in the graduate disciplines, foregrounded topics, skills, and ideas central to humanistic work and central to the interests of students?
He has just published a book, Humanist Reason (http://cup.columbia.edu/book/humanist-reason/9780231552370), that lays out the whole plan.
The approach is one that I have seen succeed in biology and applied biology.
New students find a lot of fun, rewarding and accessible things in applied biology. Freshman courses need to start with that material. When the students later find that they need advanced statistics, physical chemistry or other classic intro courses, they can take those. Making them suffer through two years of that stuff before they can take the cool majors courses is not a great idea if you want impact.
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 07:35:13 AM
Eric Hayot, the author of the article that inspired this thread (https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-humanities-as-we-know-them-are-doomed-now-what/) is back with a followup. (https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-humanities-have-a-marketing-problem).
It is comparatively optimistic, changing the outlook from "The Humanities as We Know Them Are Doomed" to the more tractable "The Humanities Have a Marketing Problem".
As someone who didn't take
any humanities in university, I can't say reading his article made one iota of difference to my preferences. Since increasing enrollment in humanities requires attracting people
not now interested in humanities, if it doesn't do that it's useless. To be blunt, he still seems to be appealing to the kind of people who already go into humanities (such as by repeated references to "social justice").
Is there anyone here who didn't do humanities who was inspired by that article to think that it would have changed your mind if you'd read it (or seen what it describes) when you were contemplating university?
No, of course not.
"Students are still having their lives changed in our classes." Major fail in the "humanities are essential for learning critical thinking skills" trope right there. Same for "students will have had a richer and more responsible life than they would have had otherwise."
While I agree with this statement:
"If we want students to understand the relationship between what we teach and questions of immense contemporary concern, we should put those matters of concern into our curricular structures."
the matter of most concern for the typical 18-22 year old undergraduate who starts college at a four-year institution is employment. A curriculum with humanities content that is organized around interdisciplinary modules will probably address that concern better than a required ten-course sequence in the history major where courses have titles like "Medieval European History I." But history faculty will fight a truly interdisciplinary curriculum and administrative organization to the death, because a PhD in history indoctrinated them into believing that all undergraduates should, in an ideal world, be trained to be professional historians like themselves via a history major under the control of a history department. And how do they do history? By reading documents and writing about them in arcane venues, just like their forebears forebears did. Meanwhile the average 18-year old is interested in learning how to do animations for Tik Tok videos.
(I'm using history here as an example; people in other fields exhibit the same behavior.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 08:06:43 AM
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 07:35:13 AM
Eric Hayot, the author of the article that inspired this thread (https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-humanities-as-we-know-them-are-doomed-now-what/) is back with a followup. (https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-humanities-have-a-marketing-problem).
It is comparatively optimistic, changing the outlook from "The Humanities as We Know Them Are Doomed" to the more tractable "The Humanities Have a Marketing Problem".
As someone who didn't take any humanities in university, I can't say reading his article made one iota of difference to my preferences. Since increasing enrollment in humanities requires attracting people not now interested in humanities, if it doesn't do that it's useless. To be blunt, he still seems to be appealing to the kind of people who already go into humanities (such as by repeated references to "social justice").
Is there anyone here who didn't do humanities who was inspired by that article to think that it would have changed your mind if you'd read it (or seen what it describes) when you were contemplating university?
Right, but you aren't the target audience. Its like all these programs designed to expose and interest students in STEM disciplines. Nothing was going to make me a STEM major. There were occasional moments in my high school science classes where something piqued my interest, but it wasn't something that I had any particular passion for, and while I could understand the basic concepts, I also knew I didn't have any particular aptitude for it.
Obviously the point of these programs is not to get people without much interest or aptitude to go into the discipline. The idea is to introduce it to people who do have the aptitude and interest, but might not think they do. Same thing here.
Quote from: spork on March 23, 2021, 10:21:01 AM
No, of course not.
"Students are still having their lives changed in our classes." Major fail in the "humanities are essential for learning critical thinking skills" trope right there. Same for "students will have had a richer and more responsible life than they would have had otherwise."
While I agree with this statement:
"If we want students to understand the relationship between what we teach and questions of immense contemporary concern, we should put those matters of concern into our curricular structures."
the matter of most concern for the typical 18-22 year old undergraduate who starts college at a four-year institution is employment. A curriculum with humanities content that is organized around interdisciplinary modules will probably address that concern better than a required ten-course sequence in the history major where courses have titles like "Medieval European History I." But history faculty will fight a truly interdisciplinary curriculum and administrative organization to the death, because a PhD in history indoctrinated them into believing that all undergraduates should, in an ideal world, be trained to be professional historians like themselves via a history major under the control of a history department. And how do they do history? By reading documents and writing about them in arcane venues, just like their forebears forebears did. Meanwhile the average 18-year old is interested in learning how to do animations for Tik Tok videos.
(I'm using history here as an example; people in other fields exhibit the same behavior.)
Its amazing to me how people seem to feel like they can opine on these subjects when they clearly have absolutely no idea what a history major looks like.
Actually, my students really enjoy reading historical documents. They are much more interesting that a textbook with a lot of prepackaged information.
I'm tempted to engage with your ridiculous ideas about the discipline of history, but some ideas are too ignorant to even bother with.
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 10:34:28 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 08:06:43 AM
As someone who didn't take any humanities in university, I can't say reading his article made one iota of difference to my preferences. Since increasing enrollment in humanities requires attracting people not now interested in humanities, if it doesn't do that it's useless. To be blunt, he still seems to be appealing to the kind of people who already go into humanities (such as by repeated references to "social justice").
Is there anyone here who didn't do humanities who was inspired by that article to think that it would have changed your mind if you'd read it (or seen what it describes) when you were contemplating university?
Right, but you aren't the target audience. Its like all these programs designed to expose and interest students in STEM disciplines. Nothing was going to make me a STEM major. There were occasional moments in my high school science classes where something piqued my interest, but it wasn't something that I had any particular passion for, and while I could understand the basic concepts, I also knew I didn't have any particular aptitude for it.
Obviously the point of these programs is not to get people without much interest or aptitude to go into the discipline. The idea is to introduce it to people who do have the aptitude and interest, but might not think they do. Same thing here.
But honestly, who are these people? And what are they doing currently? (It's an honest question. I have no idea who this great untapped market is.)
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 10:40:02 AM
[. . .]
I'm tempted to engage with your ridiculous ideas about the discipline of history, but some ideas are too ignorant to even bother with.
Feel free. Unless you have a PhD in history, I probably took more graduate history courses than you did, and I teach some undergraduate history courses.
Assuming that the structure of an undergraduate history curriculum says something about its content and delivery, here is a sample from my employer:
- History of the United States to 1877 (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Western Civilization I: 500 B.C.-1500 A.D. (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Europe 1789-1914
- The American Revolution
- America's Civil War
- Modern America
- Modern Italy
Doubtful that students are engaging in actual research, using primary sources, in any of these. And term papers are probably the norm.
Again, I'm using history as an illustrative example. The same can be said about the curricula for many other humanities disciplines at many colleges and universities.
Edited to add: by the way, most history majors at my employer are majoring in history so that they can become high school teachers . . . who teach history.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 10:44:12 AM
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 10:34:28 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 08:06:43 AM
As someone who didn't take any humanities in university, I can't say reading his article made one iota of difference to my preferences. Since increasing enrollment in humanities requires attracting people not now interested in humanities, if it doesn't do that it's useless. To be blunt, he still seems to be appealing to the kind of people who already go into humanities (such as by repeated references to "social justice").
Is there anyone here who didn't do humanities who was inspired by that article to think that it would have changed your mind if you'd read it (or seen what it describes) when you were contemplating university?
Right, but you aren't the target audience. Its like all these programs designed to expose and interest students in STEM disciplines. Nothing was going to make me a STEM major. There were occasional moments in my high school science classes where something piqued my interest, but it wasn't something that I had any particular passion for, and while I could understand the basic concepts, I also knew I didn't have any particular aptitude for it.
Obviously the point of these programs is not to get people without much interest or aptitude to go into the discipline. The idea is to introduce it to people who do have the aptitude and interest, but might not think they do. Same thing here.
But honestly, who are these people? And what are they doing currently? (It's an honest question. I have no idea who this great untapped market is.)
Well in the same way there are people who are talented at math but think its something weird that won't result in a rewarding career, there are people who are deeply interested in a humanities discipline but don't understand that majoring in it might be a way to develop the skills they possess in writing and analysis in ways that might help them more than majoring in a default subject like business.
Quote from: spork on March 23, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 10:40:02 AM
[. . .]
I'm tempted to engage with your ridiculous ideas about the discipline of history, but some ideas are too ignorant to even bother with.
Feel free. Unless you have a PhD in history, I probably took more graduate history courses than you did, and I teach some undergraduate history courses.
Assuming that the structure of an undergraduate history curriculum says something about its content and delivery, here is a sample from my employer:
- History of the United States to 1877 (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Western Civilization I: 500 B.C.-1500 A.D. (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Europe 1789-1914
- The American Revolution
- America's Civil War
- Modern America
- Modern Italy
Doubtful that students are engaging in actual research, using primary sources, in any of these. And term papers are probably the norm.
Again, I'm using history as an illustrative example. The same can be said about the curricula for many other humanities disciplines at many colleges and universities.
Edited to add: by the way, most history majors at my employer are majoring in history so that they can become high school teachers . . . who teach history.
I can't speak to your school's requirements, but where I teach the intro requirements are either half of the American History survey and modern Europe. I actually think there's real value in survey courses if they are done well. I lecture a lot, but it is also interactive and students participate quite a bit. Other than that lots of courses are on topics rather than broad periods.
I don't really understand why you think the Civil War is some esoteric subject. I teach a Civil War course and my students are very engaged in the questions about race, slavery, the United States, memory and all the rest that are consistently relevant.
And why is it a problem that many history majors want to become high school teachers?
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 10:58:14 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 10:44:12 AM
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 10:34:28 AM
Right, but you aren't the target audience. Its like all these programs designed to expose and interest students in STEM disciplines. Nothing was going to make me a STEM major. There were occasional moments in my high school science classes where something piqued my interest, but it wasn't something that I had any particular passion for, and while I could understand the basic concepts, I also knew I didn't have any particular aptitude for it.
Obviously the point of these programs is not to get people without much interest or aptitude to go into the discipline. The idea is to introduce it to people who do have the aptitude and interest, but might not think they do. Same thing here.
But honestly, who are these people? And what are they doing currently? (It's an honest question. I have no idea who this great untapped market is.)
Well in the same way there are people who are talented at math but think its something weird that won't result in a rewarding career, there are people who are deeply interested in a humanities discipline but don't understand that majoring in it might be a way to develop the skills they possess in writing and analysis in ways that might help them more than majoring in a default subject like business.
In my experience, the top notch students in high school do well in all of their subjects, STEM, humanities, and anything else. But these students also tend to be pretty clear on what field they want to study, and so they don't seem very "convertible". For the middle-of-the-road students, who don't have such clear direction, they tend to be more focused on outcomes. Specifically, I have a hard time believing many business students could have been talked into humanities. Humanities is increasingly attracting students who want to be "activists", which is quite different from students who choose business.
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 07:35:13 AM
The approach is one that I have seen succeed in biology and applied biology.
New students find a lot of fun, rewarding and accessible things in applied biology. Freshman courses need to start with that material. When the students later find that they need advanced statistics, physical chemistry or other classic intro courses, they can take those. Making them suffer through two years of that stuff before they can take the cool majors courses is not a great idea if you want impact.
Delaying harder courses looks quite deceitful:
essentially, it increases enrollment (and overall tuition collected) at the expense of those students who would take extra years to find out that they lack skills to pass some notorious "gatekeeper"class (or have to graduate without [quite marketable] statistics knowledge)
Let me make an observation, which I think is relevant to some degree, to this discussion. In my field, which is mathematics, it's rarely the case that hiring is framed in a very targeted manner for the purposes of undergraduate curriculuar needs. Maybe we would express a preference for a person in the broad area of algebra, analysis, geometry/topology, applied/computational math, or statistics, but anything more specific than that would be because we wish to fill a particular research need.
My former department chair once said that any mathematician should be able to teach any undergraduate mathematics class, which I don't necessarily agree with, but we are typically expected to be able to cover a significant fraction of the undergraduate curriculum, and we don't really feel any ownership of a specific course except at perhaps the graduate topics course level.
In contrast, it sounds like in some disciplines like the humanities, very targeted searches are justified on the basis of curricular requirements, even for the introductory survey classes. So, while I agree with the premise of the article that an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on methods and skills as opposed to specific course content is likely to improve the relevance of a humanities degree, it feels like this will run up against a much stronger opposition from the humantities faculty.
Quote from: mleok on March 23, 2021, 11:59:00 AM
Let me make an observation, which I think is relevant to some degree, to this discussion. In my field, which is mathematics, it's rarely the case that hiring is framed in a very targeted manner for the purposes of undergraduate curriculuar needs. Maybe we would express a preference for a person in the broad area of algebra, analysis, geometry/topology, applied/computational math, or statistics, but anything more specific than that would be because we wish to fill a particular research need.
My former department chair once said that any mathematician should be able to teach any undergraduate mathematics class, which I don't necessarily agree with, but we are typically expected to be able to cover a significant fraction of the undergraduate curriculum, and we don't really feel any ownership of a specific course except at perhaps the graduate topics course level.
In contrast, it sounds like in some disciplines like the humanities, very targeted searches are justified on the basis of curricular requirements, even for the introductory survey classes. So, while I agree with the premise of the article that an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on methods and skills as opposed to specific course content is likely to improve the relevance of a humanities degree, it feels like this will run up against a much stronger opposition from the humantities faculty.
There's some truth to that, although it depends on discipline and area. I tend to think people should be able to teach anything intro in their broad area. Outside of that, it gets tricky. Since we keep talking about history, I teach both halves of the US survey, for example. That brings me into all kinds of things I didn't study in grad school, but I feel like I have the broad framework that lets me put things in context. I wouldn't feel like that if I was going to teach Modern Europe or Medieval History. I have seen plenty of examples, however, where schools decide they need a person who does some particular granular subspecialty. That might make sense if you're a big department with a grad program, but its pretty silly if you're a department of ten people and the person you're hiring is going to be the only person teaching American History before 1900.
Quote from: mleok on March 23, 2021, 11:59:00 AM
In contrast, it sounds like in some disciplines like the humanities, very targeted searches are justified on the basis of curricular requirements, even for the introductory survey classes. So, while I agree with the premise of the article that an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on methods and skills as opposed to specific course content is likely to improve the relevance of a humanities degree, it feels like this will run up against a much stronger opposition from the humantities faculty.
Hmmmmm, well, kind'a...This is really school dependent. We, like math, have specialties, but like math we are expected to be able to teach a broad array of undergraduate classes.
In my 20 years of teaching (including grad school) I have taught in my areas of specialty maybe 5 times. For the last 7 years I have been teaching business writing, composition, film studies, mythology, science fiction, screenwriting, Medieval literature, advanced essay writing, and a grad course in British modernism---next semester, for the first time in my life, I am slated to teach world literature. None of these are my "specialty." I can teach these with a fair amount of success, however, because I have very broad knowledge of literature, writing, and film, and because I learned to research.
The real specialists teach at the big, prestigious R-1s, but all of these, I wager, hit the Intro to...101 classes regularly.
Honestly, this makes teaching more interesting.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 11:42:01 AM
iBut honestly, who are these people? And what are they doing currently? (It's an honest question. I have no idea who this great untapped market is.)
*****
Well in the same way there are people who are talented at math but think its something weird that won't result in a rewarding career, there are people who are deeply interested in a humanities discipline but don't understand that majoring in it might be a way to develop the skills they possess in writing and analysis in ways that might help them more than majoring in a default subject like business.
In my experience, the top notch students in high school do well in all of their subjects, STEM, humanities, and anything else. But these students also tend to be pretty clear on what field they want to study, and so they don't seem very "convertible". For the middle-of-the-road students, who don't have such clear direction, they tend to be more focused on outcomes. Specifically, I have a hard time believing many business students could have been talked into humanities. Humanities is increasingly attracting students who want to be "activists", which is quite different from students who choose business.
Marshy you are like a lot of conservatives in that you have a constant burr under your saddle about "activists." Maybe talk to someone about that.
I have successfully recruited several good students to our majors. By and large these are people who never had any meaningful exposure to the humanities until college. And these are people who are pleased to find that they have a talent for writing, interpreting, or creating generally and were pleased that I had singled them out for having talent. From my experience, it really is as simple as that.
We as a discipline should really make an effort to do this more often from our intro classes, but humanities profs are reticent to do so. I don't know why.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 01:09:32 PM
I have successfully recruited several good students to our majors. By and large these are people who never had any meaningful exposure to the humanities until college. And these are people who are pleased to find they have a talent for writing, interpreting, or creating generally and were pleased that I had singled them out for having talent. From my experience, it really is as simple as that.
I'm truly curious about this.
How did their high school English, history, geography, etc. not provide "meaningful" exposure? (Honest question.)
Were they not planning to go to university, or were they planning to study other things? If so, what? (Again, honest question)
It wasn't at all clear to me from reading the article exactly
who they were supposed to be marketing
to. Given the size of the enrollment declines they're talking about, it seems like this needs to be more than just the occasional student, so there needs to be an identifiable audience.
Try to convince Business students that money isn't everything.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 01:18:04 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 01:09:32 PM
I have successfully recruited several good students to our majors. By and large these are people who never had any meaningful exposure to the humanities until college. And these are people who are pleased to find they have a talent for writing, interpreting, or creating generally and were pleased that I had singled them out for having talent. From my experience, it really is as simple as that.
I'm truly curious about this.
How did their high school English, history, geography, etc. not provide "meaningful" exposure? (Honest question.)
Were they not planning to go to university, or were they planning to study other things? If so, what? (Again, honest question)
It wasn't at all clear to me from reading the article exactly who they were supposed to be marketing to. Given the size of the enrollment declines they're talking about, it seems like this needs to be more than just the occasional student, so there needs to be an identifiable audience.
There are some great high school teachers. There are also some not so good ones, and even good teachers are limited by their workload. I get the impression that lots of students come to college with the impression that history is just a bunch of random facts that you memorize for exams.
I think you're right that not many math majors are going to decide they actually want to be English majors. However, you do have a lot of people who go into pre med because of family pressure and realize they either don't like it, or lack the aptitude for it. Some of those people might find that a humanities major they hadn't considered would fit their skills and interests. I also think the more realistic competitors are the default majors like poly sci or psychology. Students tend to think these are majors that are more "practical" but that isn't always true. (This isn't a shot at either discipline, I promise)
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 01:18:04 PM
I'm truly curious about this.
How did their high school English, history, geography, etc. not provide "meaningful" exposure? (Honest question.)
Were they not planning to go to university, or were they planning to study other things? If so, what? (Again, honest question)
Dunno. I like my students, but I don't dig into their personal lives.
Not everyone comes from a family which reads, goes to museums and concerts, and finds the arts interesting, as mine did.
Not everyone has good high school English teachers, as I did.
And I think that sometimes one simply needs to be exposed to something, even if it is right in front of one all the time. Most people go to movies or watch
Breaking Bad without thinking very deeply about what they are watching because no one has ever challenged them to think deeply about entertainment media.
Sometimes it is being forced to learn something that creates a breakthrough. I took geology as an undergrad gen ed cluster because it was required and, while I did not become a scientist, those classes changed my life.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 02:46:22 PM
Sometimes it is being forced to learn something that creates a breakthrough. I took geology as an undergrad gen ed cluster because it was required and, while I did not become a scientist, those classes changed my life.
Give details on how it changed your life so much that it was worth the opportunity cost and then give examples of similar level of influence for every single class you've ever been forced to take. Why does it have to be college? Why wasn't the first 13 years of formal, forced education sufficient?
Being required to take Fortran in college changed my life. I could not possibly have had any of the professional class jobs I've had without formal programming experience. However, I also could not have become an engineer without it so the requirement makes sense.
The one political science class I took to check a box was interesting enough, but not nearly as life-changing as decades of engaging with dystopian fiction and then reading up on applications to reality.
I still am frequently amused that my five undergrad classes in math make me well above average and allowed to teach math at the college level while my five undergrad classes in philosophy mean I am unqualified to even hold an opinion on humanities gen ed requirements.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 23, 2021, 03:25:04 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 02:46:22 PM
Sometimes it is being forced to learn something that creates a breakthrough. I took geology as an undergrad gen ed cluster because it was required and, while I did not become a scientist, those classes changed my life.
Give details on how it changed your life so much that it was worth the opportunity cost and then give examples of similar level of influence for every single class you've ever been forced to take. Why does it have to be college? Why wasn't the first 13 years of formal, forced education sufficient?
I do not have to give you anything, Polly.
You too should talk to somebody.
Quote from: spork on March 23, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
Assuming that the structure of an undergraduate history curriculum says something about its content and delivery, here is a sample from my employer:
- History of the United States to 1877 (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Western Civilization I: 500 B.C.-1500 A.D. (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Europe 1789-1914
- The American Revolution
- America's Civil War
- Modern America
- Modern Italy
Doubtful that students are engaging in actual research, using primary sources, in any of these. And term papers are probably the norm.
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends. What if those periods were covered, but presented in the context of the tension between romanticism and enlightenment. We see both motivations in our academic world and society today, so they are pretty relatable. That engagement with ideas really beats the prospect of memorizing the dates of battles and who was king.
What might your curriculum look like if built around concepts like that?
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 05:29:18 PM
Quote from: spork on March 23, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
Assuming that the structure of an undergraduate history curriculum says something about its content and delivery, here is a sample from my employer:
- History of the United States to 1877 (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Western Civilization I: 500 B.C.-1500 A.D. (lecture-based, farmed out to adjuncts)
- Europe 1789-1914
- The American Revolution
- America's Civil War
- Modern America
- Modern Italy
Doubtful that students are engaging in actual research, using primary sources, in any of these. And term papers are probably the norm.
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends. What if those periods were covered, but presented in the context of the tension between romanticism and enlightenment. We see both motivations in our academic world and society today, so they are pretty relatable. That engagement with ideas really beats the prospect of memorizing the dates of battles and who was king.
What might your curriculum look like if built around concepts like that?
It might cause enrollments in some history courses to increase, and it might even peel away a student or two from the six different flavors of the "business" major. But (1) the history department won't create a curriculum like that, because the majority of faculty in the department insist on presenting an undergraduate version of what they themselves do as professional historians, (2) the change, even if implemented, is not going to persuade 18-year old high school graduates that they need to attend this college so that they can major in history.
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 05:29:18 PM
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends.
Do the students know what they want?
Do the students know what they should be learning?
Is there any point in having an expert design coursework?
Quote from: Caracal on March 23, 2021, 01:39:53 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 23, 2021, 01:18:04 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 01:09:32 PM
I have successfully recruited several good students to our majors. By and large these are people who never had any meaningful exposure to the humanities until college. And these are people who are pleased to find they have a talent for writing, interpreting, or creating generally and were pleased that I had singled them out for having talent. From my experience, it really is as simple as that.
I'm truly curious about this.
How did their high school English, history, geography, etc. not provide "meaningful" exposure? (Honest question.)
Were they not planning to go to university, or were they planning to study other things? If so, what? (Again, honest question)
It wasn't at all clear to me from reading the article exactly who they were supposed to be marketing to. Given the size of the enrollment declines they're talking about, it seems like this needs to be more than just the occasional student, so there needs to be an identifiable audience.
There are some great high school teachers. There are also some not so good ones, and even good teachers are limited by their workload. I get the impression that lots of students come to college with the impression that history is just a bunch of random facts that you memorize for exams.
I think you're right that not many math majors are going to decide they actually want to be English majors. However, you do have a lot of people who go into pre med because of family pressure and realize they either don't like it, or lack the aptitude for it.
In my experience, "pre-med" consists of
- a few really good students, who decided this is what they want
- a bunch of people who aren't exceptional students, who will probably go for something like business when they flunk out, since medicine seemed like a lucrative career choice.
I don't see a lot of potential there for humanities.
Quote
Some of those people might find that a humanities major they hadn't considered would fit their skills and interests. I also think the more realistic competitors are the default majors like poly sci or psychology. Students tend to think these are majors that are more "practical" but that isn't always true. (This isn't a shot at either discipline, I promise)
Isn't poly sci in humanities already? Psychology may be close, but like pre-med it's probably going to seem a bit more career focused. (And to the more STEM-y students, who are more interested from a neuroscience angle, they'll probably be more attracted to biology or other STEM.)
Maybe people going for sociology or other social science would be reachable. Perhaps someone here more familiar with that could weigh in.
Quote from: spork on March 23, 2021, 06:02:50 PM
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends. What if those periods were covered, but presented in the context of the tension between romanticism and enlightenment. We see both motivations in our academic world and society today, so they are pretty relatable. That engagement with ideas really beats the prospect of memorizing the dates of battles and who was king.
What might your curriculum look like if built around concepts like that?
It might cause enrollments in some history courses to increase, and it might even peel away a student or two from the six different flavors of the "business" major. But (1) the history department won't create a curriculum like that, because the majority of faculty in the department insist on presenting an undergraduate version of what they themselves do as professional historians, (2) the change, even if implemented, is not going to persuade 18-year old high school graduates that they need to attend this college so that they can major in history.
[/quote]
I'm always amazed that people outside of the humanities feel qualified to look at a few course lists and make these sorts of suggestions. To be clear, I don't think that only people in history can have opinions about history curriculums, but I don't think its asking too much that if you want to weigh in you might want to learn something first about the discipline. Pretty clearly, this attitude comes out of a belief that humanities disciplines aren't really serious disciplines.
How would you react if I looked at a bunch of random course listings in geology and said, "hey, guys, I've got an idea, why don't we just do away with all of this boring stuff where you learn a lot of basic principals and just do a bunch of courses centered around stuff that seems more interesting, like how about rocks on Mars?"
The problem with centering the study of various periods around the tension between romanticism and englightment is that it would an ahistorical construct which wouldn't really make any sense. I don't mean that you couldn't have a course on romanticism and enlightenment, but it would be a really bizarre way to cover the Civil War. It also betrays the basic ignorance at work here. I teach Civil War courses almost every semester and they are always full. Students are really interested in the Civil War, it remains very relevant.
Now, I don't think the idea of having more courses based around big themes that students might find interesting is a bad one. I've designed a couple of courses like that where we examine some big theme like violence or drinking over a long period of time. I don't think it makes sense to think these courses are a replacement for survey courses which serve an important purpose, but it could make sense to have more of them.
If someone gave me total power over a curriculum and unlimited resources, I'd probably design something rather different than what usually exists now, so it isn't that I think the status quo is perfect. I just think most of these suggestions really fail to understand the dynamics at work.
So I'm going to ask a really simple question: What does it look like for the humanities to thrive? Is it just more people taking the classes or specifically more majors? If it's more majors, what % of the total student body is the goal? I certainly don't think it's more Grad degrees, given the issues we currently have with their employment prospects.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 04:50:01 PM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 23, 2021, 03:25:04 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 02:46:22 PM
Sometimes it is being forced to learn something that creates a breakthrough. I took geology as an undergrad gen ed cluster because it was required and, while I did not become a scientist, those classes changed my life.
Give details on how it changed your life so much that it was worth the opportunity cost and then give examples of similar level of influence for every single class you've ever been forced to take. Why does it have to be college? Why wasn't the first 13 years of formal, forced education sufficient?
I do not have to give you anything, Polly.
You too should talk to somebody.
We've talked for years (probably a good decade at this point).
At no point has anyone been able to explain in small words why a liberal arts education is necessary for everyone...other than the flat out statement that humanities faculty need jobs and the way to get jobs is to impose requirements. The general education distribution requirements is not how university education works in any other country.
You don't have to give me anything and I asked because I'm pretty sure no one can. I remember a discussion about how algebra I isn't all that useful to normal people after the class is over and yet in other discussions you have mentioned how astronomy and geology courses changed your life. I have no idea how that can be true because really knowing those subjects and being able to think scientifically at more than a superficial level requires calculus and other higher math as well as far, far more energy invested in learning the science facts than any one, even excellent, course can do.
You have multiple times asked why the general public doesn't have more science knowledge or at least science respect. The answer is they think that one course in college or the forced march through science classes in k-12 where nothing really works and it doesn't matter anyway is science.
Even many of the folks here who claim to value science and watch documentaries/PBS/Discovery Channel aren't really scientists or even good scientific thinking. They have not changed their lives to use scientific thinking in all the necessary contexts. They have fond memories of watching neat demos and picking up unexpected facts.
They don't use statistical thinking to ask questions when reading the news.
They don't use baseline knowledge (like what germy hosts little kids are) to think critically about news headlines (little kids do indeed get and spread Covid; any assertion to the contrary is akin to saying that the sky is usually green and should require extreme levels of information before accepting as fact).
They think of science as nifty pictures of the physical world and some memorized facts, not a way of knowing that involves a lot of questions and is applicable everywhere every day.
I can believe that a normal person never writes and solves partial differential equations in the course of their normal day. I only do that as part of my professional work.
I can believe that a normal person never uses quantitative reasoning and limits themselves to basic arithmetic in daily life (almost always with a calculator). However, anyone who truly does not use quantitative reasoning in daily life on a regular basis is going through life on hard mode.
The life changing aspect of good science and math education means using quantitative reasoning everywhere. Being able to identify the rocks along the road cut is far, far less useful than knowing and regularly using estimation, different types of averages, and comparison of distributions to determine if a thing that appears different as a one-off is really different in context. Knowing how to ask more questions because something is absurd is a similar life changing aspect. Watching more science shows or reading general interest science magazines is not life changing, unless you're spending far more than you can afford doing so.
You're feeling negative feelings towards me because you can't make the argument for the humanities being important enough to force, but you also know that being unable to make the argument is why humanities faculty jobs are greatly declining. After all, even forcing science isn't enough to be truly life changing and I say that as a professional scientist.
The goal is we don't want a bunch of Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs, right, or "business bros!" who we think just look at the balance sheet?
Grossly oversimplifying it, but that is the gist, right?
Sigh. Let's all just ignore that rant, ok?
Quote from: Mobius on March 24, 2021, 11:37:16 AM
The goal is we don't want a bunch of Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs, right, or "business bros!" who we think just look at the balance sheet?
Grossly oversimplifying it, but that is the gist, right?
Unlike Bernie Madoff, who got a BA in Poli. Sci.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 24, 2021, 10:17:32 AM
We've talked for years (probably a good decade at this point).
Indeed. Our flamewars irritate the other posters, who mostly ignore us. Not sure why you want to talk more. I suspect you want me to capitulate, which won't happen.
I don't have "negative feelings" towards you----in fact, quite the opposite.
But you have some issues (who doesn't, right!?) that find vent with this odd animosity toward liberal arts education.
I was forced to take a general science cluster to get my undergraduate degree. I didn't want to take the classes; I just wanted to get the degree and to get on with my life. But I have been forever grateful that I had to fulfill a science requirement. My life has been different since then. I always thought that I would get a job on a college campus and audit classes on geology, but sadly I find that they actually expect me to work. Bummer. But now that we are talking about it, and now that I have had my first Fauci Ouchy (thank you President Biden!!!) and will be inoculated by next fall, maybe I'll actually see if I could sit in on a Geology 101!!! Maybe an intro to astrophysics? Life changing event, you know.
Quote from: mythbuster on March 24, 2021, 09:12:26 AM
So I'm going to ask a really simple question: What does it look like for the humanities to thrive? Is it just more people taking the classes or specifically more majors? If it's more majors, what % of the total student body is the goal? I certainly don't think it's more Grad degrees, given the issues we currently have with their employment prospects.
I would like to see healthy enrollment, dependent on the size and mission of the school, obviously, of people who are not dissuaded by the idea that they will be "baristas" for the rest of their lives.
My father, a practical but very intellectual man, was actually angry when I wanted to major in music and then just plain bummed-out when I switched to English. He had a great appreciation for the arts and humanities, but he had it in his head that I would be unable to pay for anything. He apparently complained to a coworker who said that English majors were great because they wrote good memos and business letters, at which point my father was happy about my choice of degree. So funny that. And then I got a bunch of jobs and could pay for stuff.
And I would like to see humanities majors actually doing things with their passions. Very few writers, for instance, make a living solely from writing, but I would like to see our law school graduates and high school teachers and brokers et al. continue to write and publish poetry and short stories and so on as they did as undergrads. They can make their living however they need to, I would just like to see them actually use their degrees. I would like them to think of the humanities as a lifelong pursuit, not just a degree as a passport to employment.
Poli Sci is in the social sciences, not in the humanities.
I'd guess that even those who deplore the humanities, like some here, read books, or watch movies or TV, or listen to music. Humanities majors created all of those things.
Quote from: Mobius on March 24, 2021, 11:37:16 AM
The goal is we don't want a bunch of Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs, right, or "business bros!" who we think just look at the balance sheet?
Grossly oversimplifying it, but that is the gist, right?
The undergraduate students at my employer who think they will be "business bros" are, in reality, paying a lot of money for a future career in retail. They are not going to start companies like Palantir. They aren't going to start any company at all. Nor will they be a CFO or CEO. None of them entered college with the intent or ability to major in a humanities field, nor will they change focus to humanities during college.
Edited to add: The smattering of gen ed courses students are required to take in fields like math, English, history, biology, etc. (typically one course per field) does none of them any good from a statistical perspective. They don't learn to be proficient in writing, quantitative reasoning, or scientific thinking.
Quote from: Hegemony on March 24, 2021, 12:29:38 PM
Poli Sci is in the social sciences, not in the humanities.
I'd guess that even those who deplore the humanities, like some here, read books, or watch movies or TV, or listen to music. Humanities majors created all of those things.
I don't think anyone "deplores" humanities; the question is why humanities should have an unquestioned superior status to everything else.
As far as all of the artistic endeavours above, there will be lots of people who studied other things (or who never did any higher education at all) who have produced each of those things.
Quote from: Caracal on March 24, 2021, 11:42:42 AM
Sigh. Let's all just ignore that rant, ok?
It wasn't a rant. What is the purpose of requiring coursework in the humanities. Don't get me wrong? I think dabbling to check some boxes has merit, even though some humanities GE requirements are humanities in name only, which doesn't help the underlying arguments supporters of the humanities make.
A fundamental problem for some humanities folks is some believe they deserve to be paid to think. A broke forever humanities grad student or permanent member of the adjunct army who thinks that will always believe their genius in unappreciated.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 24, 2021, 10:17:32 AM
They don't use baseline knowledge (like what germy hosts little kids are) to think critically about news headlines (little kids do indeed get and spread Covid; any assertion to the contrary is akin to saying that the sky is usually green and should require extreme levels of information before accepting as fact).
Ok, sorry I said I wouldn't engage and Poly doesn't see my posts anyway, which is good but...
What's funny is that Poly is trying to illustrate that she thinks clearly while everyone else doesn't, but in the process is illustrating her own sloppy thinking and inability to adjust to evidence. Kids do get and spread Covid, the question was always about degree. Poly says that kids are "germy hosts." Presumably what she means is that kids are a prime source of spread for diseases. That's true for lots of the respiratory diseases we are used to like RSV and the Flu. That's because those diseases are spread primarily by droplets and surfaces and small kids touch a lot of stuff and then put their hands in their mouths and all the rest.
At the beginning of all of this, the assumption was that COVID worked like this too, which was reasonable enough as a starting point. However, its becoming increasingly clear it doesn't. Covid transmission is mostly airborne. That makes it a lot more transmissible than the flu, but it also means that there's nothing special about kids that makes them transmit it more. They don't breathe more than anyone else. They can and do spread it but unlike with the flu, they don't play a disproportionate role in spread. (The data about whether they transmit it less is complicated and hard to sort out)
So, actually, this idea that kids are germy, so they must spread more COVID is incorrect. Poly just grabbed on to this idea because it fit with her preexisting notions and hasn't let go of it even though its just wrong.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 12:28:09 PM
Quote from: mythbuster on March 24, 2021, 09:12:26 AM
So I'm going to ask a really simple question: What does it look like for the humanities to thrive? Is it just more people taking the classes or specifically more majors? If it's more majors, what % of the total student body is the goal? I certainly don't think it's more Grad degrees, given the issues we currently have with their employment prospects.
I would like to see healthy enrollment, dependent on the size and mission of the school, obviously, of people who are not dissuaded by the idea that they will be "baristas" for the rest of their lives.
That's what I'd like to see too. It's sad to think that many students who could thrive in humanities undergrad majors are feeling forced into majors they don't like because they've been told it will ruin their lives, when that's mostly a crock. But since higher education in this country is so horribly expensive, very few students who don't come from wealthy and privileged backgrounds will have the confidence to try to major in anything that doesn't seem to promise a very clear vocational pathway. And that too is sad.
Saddest of all is how relatively few students in higher education seem to have much interest in learning much of anything, really. Learning seems like something they do only under duress.
Quote from: Mobius on March 24, 2021, 12:51:52 PM
A fundamental problem for some humanities folks is some believe they deserve to be paid to think. A broke forever humanities grad student or permanent member of the adjunct army who thinks that will always believe their genius in unappreciated.
Yes, let's just go back to our tired stereotypes. I actually think that GE requirements as they operate are pretty pointless, not just for the humanities, but for other subjects as well. Mostly, that's because they are usually done on the cheap without the sort of infrastructure and investment that would make them meaningful and useful.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 12:40:35 PM
Quote from: Hegemony on March 24, 2021, 12:29:38 PM
Poli Sci is in the social sciences, not in the humanities.
I'd guess that even those who deplore the humanities, like some here, read books, or watch movies or TV, or listen to music. Humanities majors created all of those things.
I don't think anyone "deplores" humanities; the question is why humanities should have an unquestioned superior status to everything else.
As far as all of the artistic endeavours above, there will be lots of people who studied other things (or who never did any higher education at all) who have produced each of those things.
They
shouldn't have an unquestioned superior status to everything else. This thread isn't about whether the humanities are superior to everything else. It's about whether they will continue to exist in a climate where so many seem to think that they don't have a right to exist.
Is anyone aware of any study showing some area of character development or life success where humanities graduates exceed graduates of other disciplines? In principle, if humanities education does a better job of preparing people for "life" in some way, it should be demonstrable.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 01:41:34 PM
Is anyone aware of any study showing some area of character development or life success where humanities graduates exceed graduates of other disciplines? In principle, if humanities education does a better job of preparing people for "life" in some way, it should be demonstrable.
That would seem like a strange and arrogant claim. I'd say that humanities degrees give people useful skills, but also have value in terms of understanding and thinking about the world. I'd say the same, by the way, for STEM disciplines, or social science or anything else.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 12:40:35 PM
I don't think anyone "deplores" humanities; the question is why humanities should have an unquestioned superior status to everything else.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 01:41:34 PM
Is anyone aware of any study showing some area of character development or life success where humanities graduates exceed graduates of other disciplines? In principle, if humanities education does a better job of preparing people for "life" in some way, it should be demonstrable.
Marshy, you have several burrs. You should talk to someone.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 06:25:24 PM
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 05:29:18 PM
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends.
Do the students know what they want?
Do the students know what they should be learning?
Is there any point in having an expert design coursework?
Students have a pretty good idea of what interests them. Do professors know what that is?
Students don't know the detail of what they need to learn to get the end point, and professors should be prepared to fill that in, as they do now.
The core claim of the book is that there would be more enrollment if there were more overlap between how students look at the concepts taught in history classes and how professors describe them in the history curriculum.
Professors have a vested interest in that goal. But students don't know that they do.
Quote from: Hibush on March 24, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2021, 06:25:24 PM
Quote from: Hibush on March 23, 2021, 05:29:18 PM
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends.
Do the students know what they want?
Do the students know what they should be learning?
Is there any point in having an expert design coursework?
Students have a pretty good idea of what interests them. Do professors know what that is?
Some students know what interests them. Often what really, truly interests them is nothing they will find in college.
Many honestly have no idea----or at least they have no idea why they are in college except that their parents are making them or they have no other idea what to do with themselves. In part this is why we give them many options.
Some have their brains opened up. Most leave college pretty much as they came in.
How could profs, or anyone for that matter, "know what that is" unless they know the student really well?
All profs can do is offer up their own interests in as interesting a way as they can.
And the problem with students "knowing" what they want or need is simply that most 18-year-olds actually know very little (and I count myself among these numbers at that point in my life)----even if they know what interests them most do not have any great depth of knowledge. How could they know what they want or need? That's why we have profs instead of just having students read Wikipedia from A to Z and then giving them a degree.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 23, 2021, 03:25:04 PM
I still am frequently amused that my five undergrad classes in math make me well above average and allowed to teach math at the college level while my five undergrad classes in philosophy mean I am unqualified to even hold an opinion on humanities gen ed requirements.
Well, for the record, philosophy isn't much like the other humanities
at all. We get classed with them for historical reasons, but we have more in common with the social sciences.
(Also FWIW, pretty much everyone who majors in philosophy is someone who had no real prior exposure to it, since it's not taught in HS. So: all of our majors were attracted to it from somewhere else. The downside is that we generally don't get a lot of majors.)
Quote from: Caracal on March 24, 2021, 08:01:07 AM
Quote from: spork {Actually HiBush} on March 23, 2021, 06:02:50 PM
This list looks like the kind of curriculum that the book criticizes as being all about the professors and not about the students. Changing the focus to something students can relate to, and then using history to explore those ideas is what he recommends. What if those periods were covered, but presented in the context of the tension between romanticism and enlightenment. We see both motivations in our academic world and society today, so they are pretty relatable. That engagement with ideas really beats the prospect of memorizing the dates of battles and who was king.
What might your curriculum look like if built around concepts like that?
It might cause enrollments in some history courses to increase, and it might even peel away a student or two from the six different flavors of the "business" major. But (1) the history department won't create a curriculum like that, because the majority of faculty in the department insist on presenting an undergraduate version of what they themselves do as professional historians, (2) the change, even if implemented, is not going to persuade 18-year old high school graduates that they need to attend this college so that they can major in history.
I'm always amazed that people outside of the humanities feel qualified to look at a few course lists and make these sorts of suggestions. To be clear, I don't think that only people in history can have opinions about history curriculums, but I don't think its asking too much that if you want to weigh in you might want to learn something first about the discipline. Pretty clearly, this attitude comes out of a belief that humanities disciplines aren't really serious disciplines.
How would you react if I looked at a bunch of random course listings in geology and said, "hey, guys, I've got an idea, why don't we just do away with all of this boring stuff where you learn a lot of basic principals and just do a bunch of courses centered around stuff that seems more interesting, like how about rocks on Mars?"
The problem with centering the study of various periods around the tension between romanticism and englightment is that it would an ahistorical construct which wouldn't really make any sense. I don't mean that you couldn't have a course on romanticism and enlightenment, but it would be a really bizarre way to cover the Civil War. It also betrays the basic ignorance at work here. I teach Civil War courses almost every semester and they are always full. Students are really interested in the Civil War, it remains very relevant.
Now, I don't think the idea of having more courses based around big themes that students might find interesting is a bad one. I've designed a couple of courses like that where we examine some big theme like violence or drinking over a long period of time. I don't think it makes sense to think these courses are a replacement for survey courses which serve an important purpose, but it could make sense to have more of them.
If someone gave me total power over a curriculum and unlimited resources, I'd probably design something rather different than what usually exists now, so it isn't that I think the status quo is perfect. I just think most of these suggestions really fail to understand the dynamics at work.
[/quote]
There is some good thinking here worth reflecting on, and seeing how far Hayat's perspective can go.
First, the geology analogy.
For when you take which courses, the argument would be to have a freshman field geology course where they go hiking and collect rocks. Presumably, something about that activity underlies the interest in geology. The field trips and lectures gets them familiar with some of the bigger questions in geology that are answered in later courses. If instead you make them take physical chemistry and crystallography before doing geomorphology as seniors there will be very few who make it through.
In the history curriculum, the idea is to move the curriculum to societal concepts and ideas rather than time periods. It is indeed a big shift, and it is good to see the process of trying to adapt a Civil War course to that, especially to a framework that is poorly represented during the civil war. In reflecting on that, I'd say the first step would be to stop thinking about the course as being based in the Civil War, and instead having the Civil War be a case study in a course about concepts that
are well illustrated with that case.
One of those concepts could be the social acceptance of slavery. In the period where most of the population was involved in food production, which ended roughly at that time, there were to main modes of agriculture. Subsistence agriculture and commercial agriculture. The latter often depended on slave or indentured labor from other regions. Indeed Passover this week commemorates the end of the Egyptians "Hebrew Bracero" program (ht Tom Lehrer). So the US system was more the historic norm than an aberration. How did that norm change, and how has the concept of humanity been associated with different people? That would be a timely class!
Quote from: apl68 on March 24, 2021, 01:16:49 PM
[. . . ]
very few students who don't come from wealthy and privileged backgrounds will have the confidence to try to major in anything that doesn't seem to promise a very clear vocational pathway.
[. . . ]
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
- Faculty ignore students' vocational concerns entirely with pronouncements about how humanities are essential to "life of the mind" and "what it means to be human."
- Curricular content and delivery often reflect a slightly more advanced form of what students have been subjected to in K-12, or they are structured to replicate at the undergraduate level the work of humanities professionals (historians, philosophers, etc.) when effectively zero of the students will go on to become humanities professionals (in other words, academics.
- The proliferation of nursing ethics, business ethics, bioethics, ethics in psychology, etc. courses is an example of how humanities programs have lost control over their own curricular turf.
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/employment-status-humanities-majors
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 03:08:39 PM
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/employment-status-humanities-majors
A quick skim of that webpage: not seeing any information at all about salaries. I can get a bachelor's degree in any field and work at McDonald's.
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 03:30:36 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 03:08:39 PM
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/employment-status-humanities-majors
A quick skim of that webpage: not seeing any information at all about salaries. I can get a bachelor's degree in any field and work at McDonald's.
What an utterly idiotic graph. At least set the top scale to 10% so we can actually see the unemployment rates instead of itty bitty dots.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 02:12:32 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 12:40:35 PM
I don't think anyone "deplores" humanities; the question is why humanities should have an unquestioned superior status to everything else.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 01:41:34 PM
Is anyone aware of any study showing some area of character development or life success where humanities graduates exceed graduates of other disciplines? In principle, if humanities education does a better job of preparing people for "life" in some way, it should be demonstrable.
Marshy, you have several burrs. You should talk to someone.
It's often pointed out that high salaries aren't the only thing (or even the most important thing) that matters in life. But if there really is something uniquely valuable about studying humanities then there should be some way that it shows up. With all of the census data, actuarial data, and similar sources, it should be possible to find something if it exists.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 02:21:36 PM
Quote from: Hibush on March 24, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
Students have a pretty good idea of what interests them. Do professors know what that is?
Some students know what interests them. Often what really, truly interests them is nothing they will find in college.
Many honestly have no idea----or at least they have no idea why they are in college except that their parents are making them or they have no other idea what to do with themselves. In part this is why we give them many options.
You're welcome to them. I won't fight you for a single one. These drifting students are kind of like vending machine coffee - the quality may occasionally surprise you, but it will be rare.
You are a card, Marshy.
Are YOU quite so good that you can be quite so arrogant?
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 03:30:36 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 03:08:39 PM
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/employment-status-humanities-majors
A quick skim of that webpage: not seeing any information at all about salaries. I can get a bachelor's degree in any field and work at McDonald's.
Why don't y'all just do a Google search yourselves?
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/earnings-humanities-majors-terminal-bachelors-degree#:~:text=1%20Median%20earnings%20for%20humanities,social%20sciences%20or%20life%20sciences.
https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/common-jobs-for-majors/humanities
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/05/new-data-what-humanities-majors-earn
I sometimes remember why I quit coming here. Gee whiz.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2021, 03:41:59 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 02:21:36 PM
Quote from: Hibush on March 24, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
Students have a pretty good idea of what interests them. Do professors know what that is?
Some students know what interests them. Often what really, truly interests them is nothing they will find in college.
Many honestly have no idea----or at least they have no idea why they are in college except that their parents are making them or they have no other idea what to do with themselves. In part this is why we give them many options.
You're welcome to them. I won't fight you for a single one. These drifting students are kind of like vending machine coffee - the quality may occasionally surprise you, but it will be rare.
I'm sorry you have to deal with that sort of student. It would be dispiriting.
Faculty may be writing discouraging curricula in an effort at self-preservation;-)
Quote from: Caracal on March 24, 2021, 01:19:45 PM
Quote from: Mobius on March 24, 2021, 12:51:52 PM
A fundamental problem for some humanities folks is some believe they deserve to be paid to think. A broke forever humanities grad student or permanent member of the adjunct army who thinks that will always believe their genius in unappreciated.
Yes, let's just go back to our tired stereotypes. I actually think that GE requirements as they operate are pretty pointless, not just for the humanities, but for other subjects as well. Mostly, that's because they are usually done on the cheap without the sort of infrastructure and investment that would make them meaningful and useful.
Sure, it's a stereotype, but I've read several tweets from individuals who fit into one of those two groups in the past two weeks wanting to get paid for just that.
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
- Faculty ignore students' vocational concerns entirely with pronouncements about how humanities are essential to "life of the mind" and "what it means to be human."
- Curricular content and delivery often reflect a slightly more advanced form of what students have been subjected to in K-12, or they are structured to replicate at the undergraduate level the work of humanities professionals (historians, philosophers, etc.) when effectively zero of the students will go on to become humanities professionals (in other words, academics.
- The proliferation of nursing ethics, business ethics, bioethics, ethics in psychology, etc. courses is an example of how humanities programs have lost control over their own curricular turf.
Hmm, except I don't actually see much evidence for these claims either.
On curriculum, here are some upper level courses I just pulled up from departments
Anti-Semitism and Modern Europe
The Civil Rights Movement
American Cities
Racial Violence; Colonial times to the present
History of Capitalism in The US
Comparative Genocide
Gandhi and Radical Dissent in the Modern World
Supernatural Europe
Human Rights in Latin America
Using and Abusing the Medieval Past in the Modern World
Fascism: A Global History
I can tell you these courses do not replicate graduate work. The person teaching the class on Gandhi, for example, is probably an East-Asianist, but the class is presumably going to go pretty far afield from East Asia into subjects the person almost certainly didn't study at all in school. I'd guess the person teaching the Fascism course probably does study facism, but I'd bet their training is as a Europeanist and the class presumably takes them to the Americas and Asia, etc. etc.
The point is that this claim that all of these humanities people just teach courses that they don't try to make relevant and interesting to undergrads just isn't true. Now, there are plenty of lower level courses, but those are often important. Students don't know anything about African history for the most part, so you have to start them somewhere with a course that covers the area broadly. Intro courses in American History and Europe might not serve quite that purpose, but they are still vital for people who are studying to be teachers.
Quote from: Hibush on March 24, 2021, 02:40:05 PM
There is some good thinking here worth reflecting on, and seeing how far Hayat's perspective can go.
First, the geology analogy.
For when you take which courses, the argument would be to have a freshman field geology course where they go hiking and collect rocks. Presumably, something about that activity underlies the interest in geology. The field trips and lectures gets them familiar with some of the bigger questions in geology that are answered in later courses. If instead you make them take physical chemistry and crystallography before doing geomorphology as seniors there will be very few who make it through.
In the history curriculum, the idea is to move the curriculum to societal concepts and ideas rather than time periods. It is indeed a big shift, and it is good to see the process of trying to adapt a Civil War course to that, especially to a framework that is poorly represented during the civil war. In reflecting on that, I'd say the first step would be to stop thinking about the course as being based in the Civil War, and instead having the Civil War be a case study in a course about concepts that are well illustrated with that case.
One of those concepts could be the social acceptance of slavery. In the period where most of the population was involved in food production, which ended roughly at that time, there were to main modes of agriculture. Subsistence agriculture and commercial agriculture. The latter often depended on slave or indentured labor from other regions. Indeed Passover this week commemorates the end of the Egyptians "Hebrew Bracero" program (ht Tom Lehrer). So the US system was more the historic norm than an aberration. How did that norm change, and how has the concept of humanity been associated with different people? That would be a timely class!
On the practical experience before going into courses, I like that idea. I'd love to teach a freshman course where you go to an archive, dig something up, research it and write on it. I think you're right that it would expose students to the most interesting parts of the discipline first. The problem, of course, is that you can't do that with a class of 45 students, so that would present some real financial and logistical problems where I work.
On the other point. Comparative history can be interesting. People teach global histories of slavery and there's nothing wrong in theory with such a course. A guy wrote a book years ago that compared Russian Serfdom and American Slavery. However, I'm not sure it would substitute for a Civil War course. The Civil War is really the fulcrum of American History and its incredibly relevant today. People are tearing down statues and nazis are marching around trying to protect those statues. My students are really interested in all of this stuff and my Civil War classes are always full.
To be clear, I think we can have both, and to a large extent we already do. There are lots of courses covering broad topics or looking at something in different times and places. However, there's also a place for courses that have a particular historical timeframe and try to understand particular issues within that time frame.
These discussions on this particular subject remind me of the political "debates" on other message boards.
The point is not really to investigate an issue but to plant a flag.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 04:01:06 PM
You are a card, Marshy.
Are YOU quite so good that you can be quite so arrogant?
Why does this display arrogance? I have no problem working with students over a range of
ability; I'm a lot less excited about working with students who are
unmotivated. And I think it's doing them a great disservice to shuffle them into university because it's "the thing to do". It would be far better to let them work for a year or two, and
if they decide at some point that they
want to study and they
know what they want to study, then I'll be glad to work with them.
It really would be arrogant for me to think I could
give them motivation.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 04:04:56 PM
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 03:30:36 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 03:08:39 PM
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- Humanities faculty make claims about vocational outcomes without presenting any evidence in support of those claims. Such evidence might exist, but if it's not presented the claims ring hollow.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/employment-status-humanities-majors
A quick skim of that webpage: not seeing any information at all about salaries. I can get a bachelor's degree in any field and work at McDonald's.
Why don't y'all just do a Google search yourselves?
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/workforce/earnings-humanities-majors-terminal-bachelors-degree#:~:text=1%20Median%20earnings%20for%20humanities,social%20sciences%20or%20life%20sciences.
https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/common-jobs-for-majors/humanities
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/05/new-data-what-humanities-majors-earn
I sometimes remember why I quit coming here. Gee whiz.
In relation to the topic of this thread, much of the information at those webpages is a logic fail that humanities majors are supposed to be trained not to make.
According to the AAAS webpage, the 2018 average median salary for all terminal bachelor's degree holders was $63K. According to the payscale.com webpage, only 8 of the 30 jobs listed have mid-career salaries that are higher than $63K. The majority of people holding every one of those jobs have non-humanities bachelor's degrees, suggesting the possibility that one's chances for employment in those jobs are lower if one has a humanities bachelor's degree.
The IHE article contains the statement, presumably derived from the AAAS, "Some of the gap in salaries for terminal bachelor's degrees in humanities vs. other fields is due to humanities majors entering professions
that are more important to society than they are lucrative." This is exactly the kind of specious opinion-based claim that I referenced earlier.
Chart III-06a on the AAAS webpage shows that workers with terminal bachelor's degrees in the humanities had a median salary 8% lower than that for all terminal bachelor's degree holders. As stated in the IHE article, "Experts on the impact of salary and wealth would of course be correct to note that relatively modest salary gaps, over the course of a career, can create significant wealth gaps."
The average 18 year old starting college at an average four-year institution is not going to be persuaded to major in the humanities with arguments like "Philosophy is more important to society than accounting" or "Study history and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the course of your working life than your classmates will earn in theirs."
But there are also tons of degrees that don't translate into any specific career. When I worked in insurance, a whole lot of people there had humanities degrees: English, history, art history, etc. You don't have to major in Business to work in insurance. I also worked briefly for Wall Street. My two closest friends there had an English degree and a history degree. One is now a trader; the other is head of a division of a brokerage. When I was talking to the head of our law school a while back, he said they prefer applicants who major in things other than business and pre-law, because they're majoring in their subjects because they have actual interests and are not just going through the motions. He said in his experience, the Classics majors are standouts.
There's also the fact that there are not enough jobs in the field for everyone to be a chemist or an advertising executive, even if everyone wanted to be (and they don't). I'd guess a librarian who is suited to the job is happier than an advertising executive who is not, even if the librarian has a smaller salary. Maximizing salary is not the only criterion when looking for a career. And although the salaries are certainly not stupendous, the major that actually has the highest employment rate in the field is Religious Studies.
That said, there are some humanities majors who made the big bucks. When I meet someone with an interesting top job, I ask them what their major was in college. For example, I was talking to a recording studio executive a while back. Turns out he majored in "General Studies." Certainly worked out for him.
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 05:40:48 PM
In relation to the topic of this thread, much of the information at those webpages is a logic fail that humanities majors are supposed to be trained not to make.
According to the AAAS webpage, the 2018 average median salary for all terminal bachelor's degree holders was $63K. According to the payscale.com webpage, only 8 of the 30 jobs listed have mid-career salaries that are higher than $63K. The majority of people holding every one of those jobs have non-humanities bachelor's degrees, suggesting the possibility that one's chances for employment in those jobs are lower if one has a humanities bachelor's degree.
The IHE article contains the statement, presumably derived from the AAAS, "Some of the gap in salaries for terminal bachelor's degrees in humanities vs. other fields is due to humanities majors entering professions that are more important to society than they are lucrative." This is exactly the kind of specious opinion-based claim that I referenced earlier.
Chart III-06a on the AAAS webpage shows that workers with terminal bachelor's degrees in the humanities had a median salary 8% lower than that for all terminal bachelor's degree holders. As stated in the IHE article, "Experts on the impact of salary and wealth would of course be correct to note that relatively modest salary gaps, over the course of a career, can create significant wealth gaps."
No, the logic fail is all yours.
"The majority of people holding every one of those jobs have non-humanities bachelor's degrees, suggesting the possibility that one's chances for employment in those jobs are lower if one has a humanities bachelor's degree."
Can you spot the problem here?
And there's nothing specious about the claim that certain majors might go into less lucrative fields. Part of that probably does reflect career goals, but it also reflects skills and what gets valued on the market. You can't look at a stat like "workers with terminal bachelor's degrees in the humanities had a median salary 8% lower than that for all terminal bachelor's degree holders" and conclude that those people are making 8 percent less than they would have made if they had been majors in something else. Surely you know this, right?
Like Rush Limbaugh during a democratic presidency, some posters simply want the humanities to fail.
Why I am not sure.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/07/study-finds-humanities-majors-land-jobs-and-are-happy-them
Quote from: Hegemony on March 24, 2021, 06:09:38 PM
But there are also tons of degrees that don't translate into any specific career. When I worked in insurance, a whole lot of people there had humanities degrees: English, history, art history, etc. You don't have to major in Business to work in insurance. I also worked briefly for Wall Street. My two closest friends there had an English degree and a history degree. One is now a trader; the other is head of a division of a brokerage. When I was talking to the head of our law school a while back, he said they prefer applicants who major in things other than business and pre-law, because they're majoring in their subjects because they have actual interests and are not just going through the motions. He said in his experience, the Classics majors are standouts.
There's also the fact that there are not enough jobs in the field for everyone to be a chemist or an advertising executive, even if everyone wanted to be (and they don't). I'd guess a librarian who is suited to the job is happier than an advertising executive who is not, even if the librarian has a smaller salary. Maximizing salary is not the only criterion when looking for a career. And although the salaries are certainly not stupendous, the major that actually has the highest employment rate in the field is Religious Studies.
That said, there are some humanities majors who made the big bucks. When I meet someone with an interesting top job, I ask them what their major was in college. For example, I was talking to a recording studio executive a while back. Turns out he majored in "General Studies." Certainly worked out for him.
Right, my high school friend who makes an absurd amount of money doing something with technology that none of us understand is an English major. I also know a couple of writers and people who do work for non profits that don't make them much money. It isn't like they'd have some more lucrative career if they'd only had the sense to major in something practical.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 06:29:45 PM
Like Rush Limbaugh during a democratic presidency, some posters simply want the humanities to fail.
Why I am not sure.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/07/study-finds-humanities-majors-land-jobs-and-are-happy-them
From the article:
Quote
But a study being released today by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences -- based on data from the U.S. Census and other government sources, plus Gallup polling of workers nationwide -- challenges the myth of the underemployed, unhappy humanities graduate.
So, if "humanities porn" is like "adjunct porn", and not representative of reality, who are the "advocates" for these people who are focusing on the worst-case scenarios? And what do they want to accomplish? (It stands to reason that many people writing articles are probably English graduates themselves, for instance.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 25, 2021, 04:26:31 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2021, 06:29:45 PM
Like Rush Limbaugh during a democratic presidency, some posters simply want the humanities to fail.
Why I am not sure.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/07/study-finds-humanities-majors-land-jobs-and-are-happy-them
From the article:
Quote
But a study being released today by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences -- based on data from the U.S. Census and other government sources, plus Gallup polling of workers nationwide -- challenges the myth of the underemployed, unhappy humanities graduate.
So, if "humanities porn" is like "adjunct porn", and not representative of reality, who are the "advocates" for these people who are focusing on the worst-case scenarios? And what do they want to accomplish? (It stands to reason that many people writing articles are probably English graduates themselves, for instance.)
I don't know. Who are you guys? People who have a weird burr about their persistent beliefs that the humanities aren't practical and students should study something useful instead.
Quote from: Caracal on March 25, 2021, 05:20:37 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 25, 2021, 04:26:31 AM
So, if "humanities porn" is like "adjunct porn", and not representative of reality, who are the "advocates" for these people who are focusing on the worst-case scenarios? And what do they want to accomplish? (It stands to reason that many people writing articles are probably English graduates themselves, for instance.)
I don't know. Who are you guys? People who have a weird burr about their persistent beliefs that the humanities aren't practical and students should study something useful instead.
Here's what I said a little over a year ago:
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 09, 2020, 07:11:14 AM
[M]y point is that adjunctification is a symptom of the problem the humanities have. Programs that have solid enrollment tend not to have a lot of part-time instructors.
I believe that if the humanities can actually establish their value in the public mind, rather than simply assert it loudly, then solid voluntary *enrollment will reduce adjunctification.
It's not people like me that have to be convinced; it's the public. Professional programs often use salaries to establish this value, but that wouldn't work if peoples'
experience was otherwise; i.e. if people know a lot of engineering graduates working at McDonald's, then that's going to override any institutional propaganda.
Since salaries are clearly not the only measure of "success" or "life satisfaction", then what are the metrics by which the public
in their own experience can see that humanities graduates are better off than those people from professional programs?
If there are any criteria by which humanities are significantly better off, they should be easy to identify.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 25, 2021, 04:26:31 AM
Quote
But a study being released today by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences -- based on data from the U.S. Census and other government sources, plus Gallup polling of workers nationwide -- challenges the myth of the underemployed, unhappy humanities graduate.
So, if "humanities porn" is like "adjunct porn", and not representative of reality, who are the "advocates" for these people who are focusing on the worst-case scenarios? And what do they want to accomplish? (It stands to reason that many people writing articles are probably English graduates themselves, for instance.)
What are you talking about, Marshy?
Quote from: Hegemony on March 24, 2021, 12:29:38 PM
Poli Sci is in the social sciences, not in the humanities.
I'd guess that even those who deplore the humanities, like some here, read books, or watch movies or TV, or listen to music. Humanities majors created all of those things.
No, generally the folks in the arts create really interesting entertainment, particularly music and movies/television.
Almost none of the books I read were written by humanities degree holders. The most off-putting advertisement for a book is the author has an MFA or English degree and this is the first book. Lots of people write great books; almost none of the thought-provoking books are written to be taught in classes. Instead, someone writes because they need to write and that writing resonates with many other people.
One of the worst things that humanities folks do to public perception is insist that studying the humanities in college is somehow the path to a better life than studying other things in college. That's demonstrably untrue, particularly for those of us poor kids who read a lot.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 25, 2021, 07:41:19 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on March 24, 2021, 12:29:38 PM
Poli Sci is in the social sciences, not in the humanities.
I'd guess that even those who deplore the humanities, like some here, read books, or watch movies or TV, or listen to music. Humanities majors created all of those things.
No, generally the folks in the arts create really interesting entertainment, particularly music and movies/television.
Almost none of the books I read were written by humanities degree holders. The most off-putting advertisement for a book is the author has an MFA or English degree and this is the first book. Lots of people write great books; almost none of the thought-provoking books are written to be taught in classes. Instead, someone writes because they need to write and that writing resonates with many other people.
One of the worst things that humanities folks do to public perception is insist that studying the humanities in college is somehow the path to a better life than studying other things in college. That's demonstrably untrue, particularly for those of us poor kids who read a lot.
Well, how do you teach creativity other than to show what other creative people have done in detail? And the works of art are already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction.
Quote from: Caracal on March 24, 2021, 06:11:30 PM
[. . .]
You can't look at a stat like "workers with terminal bachelor's degrees in the humanities had a median salary 8% lower than that for all terminal bachelor's degree holders" and conclude that those people are making 8 percent less than they would have made if they had been majors in something else. Surely you know this, right?
Sigh. That's not what I wrote. I'm not going to try to define the ecological fallacy or distributions in a way you can understand.
Quote from: Hegemony on March 24, 2021, 06:09:38 PM
[. . .]
There's also the fact that there are not enough jobs in the field for everyone to be a chemist or an advertising executive, even if everyone wanted to be (and they don't). I'd guess a librarian who is suited to the job is happier than an advertising executive who is not, even if the librarian has a smaller salary. Maximizing salary is not the only criterion when looking for a career.
[. . . ]
All true, but this still does not solve the problem expressed in thread's title. Trying to save undergraduate humanities programs with "Our graduates make less money but are just as happy as everyone else" isn't going to increase enrollment when the primary goal of college for most students is career training/opportunity to achieve or maintain middle class lifestyles, especially if all they see "humanities professionals" do is teach what the "humanities professionals" do as "humanities professionals." Yes, some professors engage students in public history research projects with community partners, etc., but they are in a very small minority.
Quote
That said, there are some humanities majors who made the big bucks. When I meet someone with an interesting top job, I ask them what their major was in college. For example, I was talking to a recording studio executive a while back. Turns out he majored in "General Studies." Certainly worked out for him.
I doubt these folks are statistically representative. At minimum they are not publicized in ways that affect the perceptions of most 18 year olds and their parents.
"Humanities" as fields of study represent universities' institutionalization of certain types of knowledge and its dissemination. The average undergraduate student now finds that institutionalization very unattractive. That's where the failure lies. A friend of mine expresses it much better:
https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/).
I think we can acknowledge that the arts contribute to society and personal growth whether or not the particular piece of "art" was created by a humanist.
I like some writers who had humanist training (say, Walter Isaacson), primarily technical training (say, Ray Kurzweil; Isaac Asimov; Sagan) and probably some with no training.
In addition though to just general appreciation, I have learned how to critique a piece of fiction, or an art work, piece of music, etc.. I have learned, albeit through a certain lens of teacher, what makes these things good and lasting. What makes a particular usage of pentatonic scale interesting? How is a particular scene in a film composed, and what about placement of actors, lighting, post-processing "speaks out." I am glad I learned those things, though admittedly I only started to learn them in college, and then picked up some things on my own. Of course, I did not chose a career in the humanities or related to to my skills in the humanities, but I still made it part of my life.
I can't say whether or not this justifies all colleges and universities having a big humanities staff, but it does justify the discipline (not because I say so, but because it has at least 8some* value to everyone, and great value to a great many).
"And the works of art are already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction."
Well, it makes sense that you would be calling into question the point of any instruction in the humanities, since you are dismissive of the humanist enterprise generally. I suppose my saying that education helps people find a way in and an understanding of works of art will have little impact, particularly as it doesn't seem to have had any benefit in your case. I mean however much instruction you've had in it, you haven't found any particular value in it. And yet others have found great value in it. But perhaps that's irrelevant.
It's also true that everything that's taught in classes in business, science, and similar disciplines can be found in books. The knowledge is already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction. And yet if that's all it took for people to acquire a deeper understanding, there would be no schools or universities.
Quote from: Ruralguy on March 25, 2021, 08:53:09 AM
I can't say whether or not this justifies all colleges and universities having a big humanities staff, but it does justify the discipline (not because I say so, but because it has at least *some* value to everyone, and great value to a great many).
This is the important point: The question isn't about whether there is
any value in
studying humanities, but rather, what
specific value there is in
concentrated study of the humanities to the point of getting a major of even a minor.
For professional programs, most of the value comes from going far enough in the discipline to be professionally certified in it. There's no "minor" in medicine, since it would involve way too much work for no easily-definable benefit.
On the other hand, as many have pointed out, people can study all kinds of humanities areas for their own interest, (e.g. people who become Civil War re-enactors), so the value isn't tied to the credential of a degree.
Even if there are enough STEM professors at a college like mine to agree to keep up majors and gen ed requirements in some of the humanities, most of us would agree that some subjects are in a death spiral,
and we'll probably have to give up the department structure, and maybe eventually the major, and lastly, the related gen eds after those faculty retire.
So, what do we do? How do we support the humanities without falling into a sunk cost fallacy? How do we convince students and parents and our own board?
Quote from: Hegemony on March 25, 2021, 09:27:13 AM
"And the works of art are already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction."
Well, it makes sense that you would be calling into question the point of any instruction in the humanities, since you are dismissive of the humanist enterprise generally. I suppose my saying that education helps people find a way in and an understanding of works of art will have little impact, particularly as it doesn't seem to have had any benefit in your case. I mean however much instruction you've had in it, you haven't found any particular value in it. And yet others have found great value in it. But perhaps that's irrelevant.
It's also true that everything that's taught in classes in business, science, and similar disciplines can be found in books. The knowledge is already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction. And yet if that's all it took for people to acquire a deeper understanding, there would be no schools or universities.
It goes back to the basic dismissive attitude towards the humanities. The operating assumption is that stuff like engineering is rigorous so most people wouldn't be able to pick it up on their own, but English is just reading some books.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 25, 2021, 07:41:19 AM
One of the worst things that humanities folks do to public perception is insist that studying the humanities in college is somehow the path to a better life than studying other things in college. That's demonstrably untrue, particularly for those of us poor kids who read a lot.
I know I asked a version of this question a long time ago...and I don't remember if I got an answer, but...
Where did this defensiveness about the humanities come from?
Maybe I missed it, but who ever said "that studying the humanities in college is somehow the path to a better life than studying other things in college"?
I have seen a lot of 'humanities teaches students to think about the world' kind of rhetoric, but I have never seen a 'humanities is the
only way to study humans' sort of schtick. And this is simply advertising, after all, not a dogma.
And why would you care? Obviously the humanities are struggling as a major, so if someone did try to sell humanities as "the path" it did not work.
Is this a social class thing? Or maybe people who actually love humanities material resent people who study the humanities?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 25, 2021, 10:09:15 AM
Where did this defensiveness about the humanities come from?
Maybe I missed it, but who ever said "that studying the humanities in college is somehow the path to a better life than studying other things in college"?
I have seen a lot of 'humanities teaches students to think about the world' kind of rhetoric, but I have never seen a 'humanities is the only way to study humans' sort of schtick. And this is simply advertising, after all, not a dogma.
And why would you care? Obviously the humanities are struggling as a major, so if someone did try to sell humanities as "the path" it did not work.
Is this a social class thing? Or maybe people who actually love humanities material resent people who study the humanities?
The answer to this question is similar to the question of why people tell unsatisfied adjuncts to find another job.
In both cases, these questions come up because of stories in the media that say "the system" is "broken" or "post-secondary education is useless", and they illustrate it by pointing to (in one case) adjuncts living out of their cars or (in the other case) people with degrees who are baristas or working in a warehouse. In both cases, the people used for illustration represent a small fringe, BUT everyone in "the system" is implied to be at fault and/or clueless enough to perpetuate this. As one of those "professional fellows" as Polly calls them, I make a good living, my part-time teaching is a good sideline, my income is solid and my car is just for transportation. I don't like the implication that I am so clueless as to work like a dog for peanuts. (And I don't.) Similarly, I don't like the implication that the students I teach are likely to wind up working minimum wage jobs because that's all they can get. They have very good job prospects.
In both of those cases, the choices made by people who are most likely to wind up in those sort of sob stories are predictable. So the people who have
not made those kinds of choices are often eager to point out that those
choices were responsible for the observed outcomes.
So if humanities faculty want to say that unemployed graduates are typically those who avoided opportunities to prepare themselves for the working world, I'll be happy to hear the details and be supportive. On the other hand, if they throw up their hands and say it's not their problem*, then my response will be less collegial.
*Again, if they want to point to evidence that the
demonstratable benefit of their program is something other than income, I'm eager to see the evidence and analysis, and if it's sound, I'll be glad to pass it on to other people.
Which "humanities faculty want to say that unemployed graduates are typically those who avoided opportunities to prepare themselves for the working world"??
What?
What in tarnation are you talkin' about, son?
The ones who want to be paid to think and never have held a FT job.
Quote from: apl68 on March 24, 2021, 01:16:49 PMSaddest of all is how relatively few students in higher education seem to have much interest in learning much of anything, really. Learning seems like something they do only under duress.
There is so much truth in these statements that I just get sad thinking about it.
Quote from: mleok on March 25, 2021, 12:02:42 PM
Quote from: apl68 on March 24, 2021, 01:16:49 PMSaddest of all is how relatively few students in higher education seem to have much interest in learning much of anything, really. Learning seems like something they do only under duress.
There is so much truth in these statements that I just get sad thinking about it.
Sad and true.
Quote from: Caracal on March 25, 2021, 10:05:32 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on March 25, 2021, 09:27:13 AM
"And the works of art are already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction."
Well, it makes sense that you would be calling into question the point of any instruction in the humanities, since you are dismissive of the humanist enterprise generally. I suppose my saying that education helps people find a way in and an understanding of works of art will have little impact, particularly as it doesn't seem to have had any benefit in your case. I mean however much instruction you've had in it, you haven't found any particular value in it. And yet others have found great value in it. But perhaps that's irrelevant.
It's also true that everything that's taught in classes in business, science, and similar disciplines can be found in books. The knowledge is already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction. And yet if that's all it took for people to acquire a deeper understanding, there would be no schools or universities.
It goes back to the basic dismissive attitude towards the humanities. The operating assumption is that stuff like engineering is rigorous so most people wouldn't be able to pick it up on their own, but English is just reading some books.
I don't think that. I just think the kinds of things that produce a great artist can't be systematized into a teaching method the same way.
Humanities isn't doomed any more than other programs. Look at the regional publics with awful graduation rates and students who resist completing an internship. Business majors don't fare much better than a humanities major.
Quote from: Caracal on March 25, 2021, 10:05:32 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on March 25, 2021, 09:27:13 AM
"And the works of art are already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction."
Well, it makes sense that you would be calling into question the point of any instruction in the humanities, since you are dismissive of the humanist enterprise generally. I suppose my saying that education helps people find a way in and an understanding of works of art will have little impact, particularly as it doesn't seem to have had any benefit in your case. I mean however much instruction you've had in it, you haven't found any particular value in it. And yet others have found great value in it. But perhaps that's irrelevant.
It's also true that everything that's taught in classes in business, science, and similar disciplines can be found in books. The knowledge is already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction. And yet if that's all it took for people to acquire a deeper understanding, there would be no schools or universities.
It goes back to the basic dismissive attitude towards the humanities. The operating assumption is that stuff like engineering is rigorous so most people wouldn't be able to pick it up on their own, but English is just reading some books.
I have gotten a definite vibe from some STEM folks to the effect that "You could never do what I spent so many years of rigorous courses learning how to do, but I can do what you do in my spare time if I really wanted to." Massive superiority complex vibe, though it may not be intentional.
Quote from: apl68 on March 25, 2021, 01:31:14 PM
Quote from: Caracal on March 25, 2021, 10:05:32 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on March 25, 2021, 09:27:13 AM
"And the works of art are already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction."
Well, it makes sense that you would be calling into question the point of any instruction in the humanities, since you are dismissive of the humanist enterprise generally. I suppose my saying that education helps people find a way in and an understanding of works of art will have little impact, particularly as it doesn't seem to have had any benefit in your case. I mean however much instruction you've had in it, you haven't found any particular value in it. And yet others have found great value in it. But perhaps that's irrelevant.
It's also true that everything that's taught in classes in business, science, and similar disciplines can be found in books. The knowledge is already there to be gleaned from, with or without accredited instruction. And yet if that's all it took for people to acquire a deeper understanding, there would be no schools or universities.
It goes back to the basic dismissive attitude towards the humanities. The operating assumption is that stuff like engineering is rigorous so most people wouldn't be able to pick it up on their own, but English is just reading some books.
I have gotten a definite vibe from some STEM folks to the effect that "You could never do what I spent so many years of rigorous courses learning how to do, but I can do what you do in my spare time if I really wanted to." Massive superiority complex vibe, though it may not be intentional.
There's a sort of science-supremacism that is common among some people in STEM disciplines. It leads some people to believe that their disc-lipless isn't just a way to gain knowledge about the world, but the only way to examine the world in a rigorous manner. Plenty of scientists don't believe this at all, but it seems to be pretty common.
Quote from: Caracal on March 25, 2021, 02:01:52 PM
Quote from: apl68 on March 25, 2021, 01:31:14 PM
I have gotten a definite vibe from some STEM folks to the effect that "You could never do what I spent so many years of rigorous courses learning how to do, but I can do what you do in my spare time if I really wanted to." Massive superiority complex vibe, though it may not be intentional.
There's a sort of science-supremacism that is common among some people in STEM disciplines. It leads some people to believe that their disc-lipless isn't just a way to gain knowledge about the world, but the only way to examine the world in a rigorous manner. Plenty of scientists don't believe this at all, but it seems to be pretty common.
Take this from the perspective of an applied scientist who trained in the basic sciences...
The superiority complex is real. To a significant extent, basic science training has been designed to weed out those who cannot attain such a sense of superiority. The field is just that cutthroat competitive. I, for instance, am no longer worthy in the eyes of some of my former colleagues.
On the other hand, in the part of academe I now find myself in, scientists are in a way more rigorous
because they recognize that there are a whole lot of ways to examine the world. (I find the applied side more fulfilling as well, still being able to make new discoveries while also having a positive impact on the world.)
I think a lot of scientists recognize the importance of the arts in a way, but when it comes down to it, most scientists will think of science as *the* way to think about and do things, whereas the arts are kind of a grand diversion no matter how beautiful the painting, how meaningful the film or gripping the novel.
Being where I am, I deliberately try not to think this way, but then things like insane politics and crazy family show me how bad things can get when people ignore science (or really, any knowledge, but especially science). I wish I were a better ally of the humanities, but it can be difficult, not because I dislike the humanities, but because I see doubling down on defense of a scientifically led life as even more critical. So, I guess my opinion is sort of a bridge between Hegemony and Poly (now there's a nice sentence...).
None of this "which is better" talk that people assume everyone else is engaging in is going to increase enrollment in humanities programs.
Quote from: fivethirtyeight.com
Link (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/)
But philosophy majors also have some of the highest scores in the LSAT and GMAT — the required tests for entry to law and business school respectively, according to figures from the Educational Testing Service (ETS). And when it comes to earnings for people who only have undergraduate degrees, philosophy majors have the fourth-highest median earnings, $81,200 per year, out-ranking business and chemistry majors, according to the ETS. Bar none, philosophy majors have the highest salary growth trajectory from entry to mid-career.
[...]
People with liberal arts degrees in disciplines like philosophy go on to do all sorts of jobs; most don't just sit around and philosophize in coffee shops or even in classrooms. According to PayScale.com, annual wages for people with B.A.s in philosophy range from $37,000 to $83,000. For welders, the site says the salary range is $23,000 to $63,000.
Since people with philosophy degrees do many things, one way to track them is by earnings regardless of their day job. According to American Community Survey data, the median earnings of full-time year-round employees ages 30-49 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, and no graduate degree, was $51,000 per year from 2010 to 2012. In addition, the Department of Labor (DOL) also keeps statistics on what people earn by job category. "Philosophy and Religion Teachers, postsecondary" earn, on average, $71,350 (and presumably many are college professors with graduate degrees and the associated time-commitment and/or debt). The DOL's figures show that "Welding, Soldering and Brazing Workers" make $39,570 on average. Two other job categories including "welding" or "welder" have median wages of $40,040 and $36,450.
In addition to crushing the LSAT and the GMAT (https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/Images/phil-test-scores-salaries.png), philosophy majors outperform
everyone overall on the GRE (https://dailynous.com/2019/10/11/philosophy-majors-gre-updated-data/) (and fall just after physics, math, engineering, and accounting on the quantitative section[3url]).
Those aren't unique contributions, but since that's the kind of data whose non-existence is being derided...
(http://chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table4.pdf)
Quote from: spork on March 24, 2021, 02:55:08 PM
- The proliferation of nursing ethics, business ethics, bioethics, ethics in psychology, etc. courses is an example of how humanities programs have lost control over their own curricular turf.
This is an important factor, and some of the situation is due to the recalcitrance of philosophy departments in the '80s and '90s to grow these kinds of service courses. But it's worth remembering (1) that most philosophy departments are
very small (e.g. 4 faculty), and that doesn't lend itself to teaching many such courses, whereas these professional programs are huge and the demand for these courses is likewise larger than what a small department could fulfill, (2) that these professional programs are huge and thus have a lot of clout when it comes to curricular matters, whereas the four philosophers at a given university are going to struggle to be heard (or even acknowledged) when they try to serve these curricular needs, and (3) some of those courses, if they're to be given in the context of a professional program, are actually
highly specialized and would require a narrow specialist on staff to teach them well, in a fashion that properly serves the professional program's needs.
Having seen what passes for "ethics" courses in such professional programs, I can tell you that they leave
a lot to be desired. I can also tell you (by way of illustrating (2) ) that the psych department here is trying to introduce its own professional ethics course even though our department already has one on the books (which they approved!), and because they're a powerful department and we're not they're able to ignore our protestations that the course already exists and is up to the appropriate standards. Something similar happened with business years and years ago. The other thing that happens is that you go to curriculum development meetings, you point out that your small department can service a need, everyone nods and says that's great, yeah, we should really do that, and then when the documents are prepared you find out that you've been entirely left out in the cold.
All that's just to say: it's tough! I expect that similar turf wars play out between the mathematics department and various other departments which would prefer an in-house mathematics course.
Quote from: Ruralguy on March 25, 2021, 02:40:21 PM
I wish I were a better ally of the humanities, but it can be difficult, not because I dislike the humanities, but because I see doubling down on defense of a scientifically led life as even more critical. So, I guess my opinion is sort of a bridge between Hegemony and Poly (now there's a nice sentence...).
Why do the sciences and the humanities have to compete?
"The kinds of things that produce a great artist can't be systematized into a teaching method the same way." But humanities courses are not all devoted to creating works of art, but also to thinking about and understanding works of art. There are classes in painting, and also in art history; there are classes in creative writing, and also in English and comparative literature. Perhaps analogous to the way science-literate people should understand how vaccines are made and tested, without necessarily learning all the nuts and bolts of stuff like what stabilizers are suitable and the umpteen steps in determining whether an adjuvant is effective.
One could argue that "The proliferation of nursing ethics, business ethics, bioethics, ethics in psychology, etc. courses is an example of how humanities programs have lost control over their own curricular turf," but one could also argue that the proliferation of nursing ethics, business ethics, bioethics, ethics in psychology, etc. courses is evidence of how non-humanities disciplines acknowledge their need for the humanities.
As for why the humanities and sciences have to compete — in my ideal world, they would not. Most people if not everyone would have a good basic education in both, and an appreciation for both. I don't hear many people here arguing that teaching science is pointless, but I do hear people arguing that teaching the humanities is pointless. That they clearly did not pick up on the value of humanities teaching is evidence, in my view, of why more and better humanities teaching is important.
Quote from: Hegemony on March 25, 2021, 05:38:45 PM
As for why the humanities and sciences have to compete — in my ideal world, they would not. Most people if not everyone would have a good basic education in both, and an appreciation for both. I don't hear many people here arguing that teaching science is pointless, but I do hear people arguing that teaching the humanities is pointless. That they clearly did not pick up on the value of humanities teaching is evidence, in my view, of why more and better humanities teaching is important.
I'd be happy to hear from advocates for everyone taking humanities courses who also support everyone being required to take probability and statistics and research methods courses. (Notice neither of those are specific to a field of science, but all about understanding how to think scientifically, and how to tell evidence-based statements from propaganda.)
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 25, 2021, 04:42:01 PM
All that's just to say: it's tough! I expect that similar turf wars play out between the mathematics department and various other departments which would prefer an in-house mathematics course.
That's pretty common. In the engineering school my daughter attended, every engineering
sub-discipline taught its own calculus. The argument is typically that math departments are too theoretical in their approach, and that other disciplines want more emphasis on application.
Quote from: spork on March 25, 2021, 03:15:12 PM
None of this "which is better" talk that people assume everyone else is engaging in is going to increase enrollment in humanities programs.
No, but it highlights the shallowness and intellectual poverty of many of the anti-humanities arguments. At base, a lot of it is just about intellectual chauvinism. Some posters seem to not grasp that they are asking for levels of proofs of the utility of degrees that their own disciplines can't produce either. If you get more majors and more people assume that majoring in your discipline is going to produce results, it can be easy to pretend that the value of your discipline is self-evident.
Which is convenient, because I'm not sure that many undergraduate degrees really have a concrete demonstrable value. Take computer science or computer engineering. I know quite a few people who do coding or severer management with humanities degrees who have absolutely zero formal training. They quite literally never took a course with computer in the title in college. I get the impression from these people that isn't really particularly unusual in their fields.
Now, this doesn't mean computer science majors are worthless, it just suggests that they may not create a particularly exclusive path to a job. I'd be inclined to go further and argue that much of the apparent success of computer science majors on the job market, has little to do with their choice of major. People with an interest and aptitude in computing are naturally more likely to gravitate towards a computer science major, and there's a good job market for people who can build up skills in those areas. but when those people decide to go major in something else, and build up those skills as hobbies, it isn't clear they pay any real price for that on the job market.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 05:19:04 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on March 25, 2021, 05:38:45 PM
As for why the humanities and sciences have to compete — in my ideal world, they would not. Most people if not everyone would have a good basic education in both, and an appreciation for both. I don't hear many people here arguing that teaching science is pointless, but I do hear people arguing that teaching the humanities is pointless. That they clearly did not pick up on the value of humanities teaching is evidence, in my view, of why more and better humanities teaching is important.
I'd be happy to hear from advocates for everyone taking humanities courses who also support everyone being required to take probability and statistics and research methods courses. (Notice neither of those are specific to a field of science, but all about understanding how to think scientifically, and how to tell evidence-based statements from propaganda.)
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 25, 2021, 04:42:01 PM
All that's just to say: it's tough! I expect that similar turf wars play out between the mathematics department and various other departments which would prefer an in-house mathematics course.
That's pretty common. In the engineering school my daughter attended, every engineering sub-discipline taught its own calculus. The argument is typically that math departments are too theoretical in their approach, and that other disciplines want more emphasis on application.
I've been advocating that every student here be required to take statistics. Some of the strongest opposition to this comes from the math department, because those faculty members don't want statistics to be eligible for the one-and-done check box math course in the gen ed requirements.
I'll repeat what I posted earlier -- this is why the majority of undergraduate-level humanities programs in the USA are doomed:
https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/).
Edited to add: GRE, GMAT, and LSAT scores of philosophy majors were mentioned in a previous post. I don't think this is relevant to the survival of undergraduate humanities programs across U.S. higher ed. I think only about 1/3 of the adult U.S. population completes a bachelor's degree, a far smaller percentage completes a graduate degree, and a far, far smaller proportion of those graduate degrees are in humanities fields. The vast majority of 18-year olds do not enroll at a college thinking that in four years they will be starting a graduate program in a humanities field and thus need to major as undergraduates in that field.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 05:19:04 AM
I'd be happy to hear from advocates for everyone taking humanities courses who also support everyone being required to take probability and statistics and research methods courses. (Notice neither of those are specific to a field of science, but all about understanding how to think scientifically, and how to tell evidence-based statements from propaganda.)
Absolutely on probability and statistics. I don't consider myself a particularly qualitative historian, but even so, basic probability and statistical ideas are crucial towards how I evaluate evidence. I don't do anything theoretically complex, but when I'm trying to evaluate evidence and figure out what conclusions are reasonable to draw, I think in terms of representative and non-representative samples, sample bias, outliers etc.
Research methods I'm a bit less sure about. If I was appointed the czar of some college and given unlimited resources, I'd completely scrap gen ed structure as it exists and replace it with something that involved interdisciplinary course series taught by professors in different disciplines examining some sort of problem or debate. The problem with the way gen-ed courses usually are structured is that they lack any context and the relevance to a students other classes isn't clear. It would be neat to have a structure where you can have courses where biology majors can learn about eugenics, social darwinism and the role of scientists in promoting these ideas, while history majors can get a better grounding in current scientific ideas about genetics and evolution. In the process you could have some really interesting discussions about the philosophy of science and its role in society.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 05:19:04 AMQuote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:21:57 AM
That's pretty common. In the engineering school my daughter attended, every engineering sub-discipline taught its own calculus. The argument is typically that math departments are too theoretical in their approach, and that other disciplines want more emphasis on application.
I've been advocating that every student here be required to take statistics. Some of the strongest opposition to this comes from the math department, because those faculty members don't want statistics to be eligible for the one-and-done check box math course in the gen ed requirements.
I agree that a universal statistics course is essential so that people have basic tools for determining what is true based on information they see.
I recall our dear forumite Daniel Von Flanagan vigorously arguing that statistics without a solid grounding in calculus is unthinkable. I disagree. No calculus is needed to understand the basics of probability, the assumptions underlying hypothesis testing, or the difference between expected outcomes before and after you look at the results. Those are all things students should be able to do even if they have only struggled through algebra.
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:21:57 AM
I'll repeat what I posted earlier -- this is why the majority of undergraduate-level humanities programs in the USA are doomed:
The irony is that a historical prospective would allow you to understand how myopic and presentist these ideas are.
Quote from: Hibush on March 26, 2021, 07:03:08 AM
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:21:57 AM
That's pretty common. In the engineering school my daughter attended, every engineering sub-discipline taught its own calculus. The argument is typically that math departments are too theoretical in their approach, and that other disciplines want more emphasis on application.
I've been advocating that every student here be required to take statistics. Some of the strongest opposition to this comes from the math department, because those faculty members don't want statistics to be eligible for the one-and-done check box math course in the gen ed requirements.
I agree that a universal statistics course is essential so that people have basic tools for determining what is true based on information they see.
I recall our dear forumite Daniel Von Flanagan vigorously arguing that statistics without a solid grounding in calculus is unthinkable. I disagree. No calculus is needed to understand the basics of probability, the assumptions underlying hypothesis testing, or the difference between expected outcomes before and after you look at the results. Those are all things students should be able to do even if they have only struggled through algebra.
Yeah, I agree. It works on the same principle as lots of other subjects. When I'm teaching introductory history courses, or gen-ed courses, I'm really trying to get the students to understand how to think about the past using historical reasoning. Can an intro history class teach you how to make an original historical contribution? Does it allow you to fully engage with the historical literature? No, it can't do those things, but it can allow students to understand a mode of thinking.
Same thing with statistics. I certainly can't create or evaluate a complex statistical model based on the statistics I took in college and high school. However, I did learn how to think in a statistical mode and that's something that is really valuable, both in my work and in other aspects of my life.
Quote from: Caracal on March 26, 2021, 07:22:30 AM
Quote from: Hibush on March 26, 2021, 07:03:08 AM
I agree that a universal statistics course is essential so that people have basic tools for determining what is true based on information they see.
I recall our dear forumite Daniel Von Flanagan vigorously arguing that statistics without a solid grounding in calculus is unthinkable. I disagree. No calculus is needed to understand the basics of probability, the assumptions underlying hypothesis testing, or the difference between expected outcomes before and after you look at the results. Those are all things students should be able to do even if they have only struggled through algebra.
Yeah, I agree. It works on the same principle as lots of other subjects. When I'm teaching introductory history courses, or gen-ed courses, I'm really trying to get the students to understand how to think about the past using historical reasoning. Can an intro history class teach you how to make an original historical contribution? Does it allow you to fully engage with the historical literature? No, it can't do those things, but it can allow students to understand a mode of thinking.
Same thing with statistics. I certainly can't create or evaluate a complex statistical model based on the statistics I took in college and high school. However, I did learn how to think in a statistical mode and that's something that is really valuable, both in my work and in other aspects of my life.
This is the point, and why I included research methods; in the same way that studying humanities is supposed to be preparation for
life, understanding how science works is important for
life. Think of the past year, and all of the claims from all over the place of "fake news" and "junk science". Society needs to have a general level of understanding of how do evaluate claims in order to function. (The media does a
very bad job of encouraging this, and often fails to exhibit the most
basic understanding itself.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 05:19:04 AM
I'd be happy to hear from advocates for everyone taking humanities courses who also support everyone being required to take probability and statistics and research methods courses. (Notice neither of those are specific to a field of science, but all about understanding how to think scientifically, and how to tell evidence-based statements from propaganda.)
Most critical thinking courses run out of philosophy departments include modules on statistical reasoning. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many of us who
didn't support requiring everyone to take a proper stats course, at least in principle. (Maybe that's too strong, but I guarantee you'd find broad-based support for it.)
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:21:57 AM
Edited to add: GRE, GMAT, and LSAT scores of philosophy majors were mentioned in a previous post. I don't think this is relevant to the survival of undergraduate humanities programs across U.S. higher ed. I think only about 1/3 of the adult U.S. population completes a bachelor's degree, a far smaller percentage completes a graduate degree, and a far, far smaller proportion of those graduate degrees are in humanities fields. The vast majority of 18-year olds do not enroll at a college thinking that in four years they will be starting a graduate program in a humanities field and thus need to major as undergraduates in that field.
The point of mentioning performance on those tests wasn't that everyone does or should go on to take further courses in those fields. The point was that at least one humanities discipline does a
fantastic job at imparting the skills measured by those tests--better, even, than non-humanities disciplines. You'll recall that I was responding to the charge that the humanities have nothing much to offer students in the way of skills or preparation. There are issues with relying on that kind of data, but I think it goes a long way towards showing that at least some humanities majors aren't a waste of time. And if we grant that much, it seems likely we should grant far more.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 07:31:43 AM
Quote from: Caracal on March 26, 2021, 07:22:30 AM
Quote from: Hibush on March 26, 2021, 07:03:08 AM
I agree that a universal statistics course is essential so that people have basic tools for determining what is true based on information they see.
I recall our dear forumite Daniel Von Flanagan vigorously arguing that statistics without a solid grounding in calculus is unthinkable. I disagree. No calculus is needed to understand the basics of probability, the assumptions underlying hypothesis testing, or the difference between expected outcomes before and after you look at the results. Those are all things students should be able to do even if they have only struggled through algebra.
Yeah, I agree. It works on the same principle as lots of other subjects. When I'm teaching introductory history courses, or gen-ed courses, I'm really trying to get the students to understand how to think about the past using historical reasoning. Can an intro history class teach you how to make an original historical contribution? Does it allow you to fully engage with the historical literature? No, it can't do those things, but it can allow students to understand a mode of thinking.
Same thing with statistics. I certainly can't create or evaluate a complex statistical model based on the statistics I took in college and high school. However, I did learn how to think in a statistical mode and that's something that is really valuable, both in my work and in other aspects of my life.
This is the point, and why I included research methods; in the same way that studying humanities is supposed to be preparation for life, understanding how science works is important for life. Think of the past year, and all of the claims from all over the place of "fake news" and "junk science". Society needs to have a general level of understanding of how do evaluate claims in order to function. (The media does a very bad job of encouraging this, and often fails to exhibit the most basic understanding itself.)
Here's another thing that society could use. It needs an understanding of history--that our present is the creation of things that happened in the past, that people weren't always like they are now--and not just because they were inferior to us--and that different groups in society have different histories that do much to explain why they think the way they do now. To anybody who has any kind of grounding or training in history the lack of this sort of perspective, and the problems caused by it in our society, are obvious. Which is why some awareness of history needs to be part of the equipment needed to be considered an educated citizen.
Granted, all too many undergrads who take gen ed courses in history gain nothing at all from it. The same can be said of all too many undergrads taking gen ed math, science, statistics, and research methods. That's their fault for failing to take advantage of the opportunity they were given. It's not an argument for just dropping any of these things from an undergrad education.
As for the debate over who makes the most money or has the best chances of finding a good job--that's largely a red herring. Any good college education in any major should prepare a student well enough for the job market, if the student is prepared to work at it. But fear that majoring in anything other than STEM or business will condemn you to poverty is driving students away from the study of the humanities--a study that could greatly benefit them--in droves, and needlessly. We're all likely to end up poorer for it.
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 08:27:48 AM
But fear that majoring in anything other than STEM or business will condemn you to poverty is driving students away from the study of the humanities--a study that could greatly benefit them--in droves, and needlessly. We're all likely to end up poorer for it.
No. Just no.
The people who could benefit from a humanities major in terms of knowledge who don't pick a humanities major due to fear of poverty probably would not be middle class with a humanities major. Loving to read and play with ideas is not at all the same as being capable of getting a middle class job when the only people you know with middle class jobs are k-12 teachers.
<waves cheerily>
My child will likely major in the arts or humanities because of his personality, but he has the social capital to be middle class even without college. He has social networks that can get him internships and coops for experience. I will make every effort for him to select a college that will be aligned with his interests, which likely will not be the cheapest option to check boxes.
But there was no path from where I started to a good middle class life through first bachelor's degree in the humanities. Even BA to MLS wasn't really an option to be solidly middle class. However, 30 years of STEM that involved moving around the country, acquiring middle class and professional class friends, and acquiring middle class habits that are now automatic means my child is well positioned to be middle class.
Ignoring the realities of the social capital in getting a middle class job with formal education in the humanities means complete ignorance of vast swatches of literature and history. It's on a level with claiming scientific basic knowledge and blindly accepting that small children won't get and pass a respiratory virus.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 26, 2021, 08:59:00 AM
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 08:27:48 AM
But fear that majoring in anything other than STEM or business will condemn you to poverty is driving students away from the study of the humanities--a study that could greatly benefit them--in droves, and needlessly. We're all likely to end up poorer for it.
No. Just no.
The people who could benefit from a humanities major in terms of knowledge who don't pick a humanities major due to fear of poverty probably would not be middle class with a humanities major. Loving to read and play with ideas is not at all the same as being capable of getting a middle class job when the only people you know with middle class jobs are k-12 teachers.
<waves cheerily>
My child will likely major in the arts or humanities because of his personality, but he has the social capital to be middle class even without college. He has social networks that can get him internships and coops for experience. I will make every effort for him to select a college that will be aligned with his interests, which likely will not be the cheapest option to check boxes.
But there was no path from where I started to a good middle class life through first bachelor's degree in the humanities. Even BA to MLS wasn't really an option to be solidly middle class. However, 30 years of STEM that involved moving around the country, acquiring middle class and professional class friends, and acquiring middle class habits that are now automatic means my child is well positioned to be middle class.
Ignoring the realities of the social capital in getting a middle class job with formal education in the humanities means complete ignorance of vast swatches of literature and history. It's on a level with claiming scientific basic knowledge and blindly accepting that small children won't get and pass a respiratory virus.
Polly, your syntax is very confusing here. I suspect this was written in a hurry.
I wonder if you could restate what you are saying here a little more clearly.
I also wonder about your ideas regarding internships and a "social networks." Certainly you know that plenty of students get internships from corporations and government offices staffed by people who are are strangers to the student.
Are you a follower of Marty Nemko?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 09:31:39 AM
Polly, your syntax is very confusing here. I suspect this was written in a hurry.
I wonder if you could restate what you are saying here a little more clearly.
What I read Polly saying is that someone who is from an urban, middle class family with parents who are professionals (and university graduates themselves) will be able to translate any degree into some sort of middle class job. On the other hand, someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 09:31:39 AM
Polly, your syntax is very confusing here. I suspect this was written in a hurry.
I wonder if you could restate what you are saying here a little more clearly.
What I read Polly saying is that someone who is from an urban, middle class family with parents who are professionals (and university graduates themselves) will be able to translate any degree into some sort of middle class job. On the other hand, someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
If this is what polly is saying then she has a point. But I think she is generalizing too much. The humanities are not just for urban rich kids. I'm from a rural area, and my family was only borderline middle class. I grew up in a working-class community, and have long since returned to one after my long interlude of working at an R1 in the big city. That interlude did not make me forget my roots. I'm well aware of the challenges that members of different social groups face in seeking a higher education.
And I still believe that undergrad majors in the humanities should be seen as a viable choice for students from a variety of backgrounds. Certainly they're not for everybody. A college education of any sort is not for everybody. Not everybody is cut out for the same pathway. But this idea that study of the humanities is some kind of ornamental frill that is only for the idle children of the rich simply isn't true. I can see how polly might have grown up with such an idea. It's hardly an uncommon one. That said, it's unfortunate that a person of her obvious intelligence should hold onto it so stubbornly after having had so much experience of the broader world.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 09:31:39 AM
I also wonder about your ideas regarding internships and a "social networks." Certainly you know that plenty of students get internships from corporations and government offices staffed by people who are are strangers to the student.
Internships requiring specific technical skills are indeed quite likely to be openly advertised.
This is not the case for many generic office roles potentially filled by humanities graduates. The probability further decreases if one excludes large corporations actively recruiting graduates from top schools (I am pretty sure that a humanities degree from Harvard does open a lot of doors).
Quote from: Hibush on March 25, 2021, 02:12:10 PM
Quote from: Caracal on March 25, 2021, 02:01:52 PM
Quote from: apl68 on March 25, 2021, 01:31:14 PM
I have gotten a definite vibe from some STEM folks to the effect that "You could never do what I spent so many years of rigorous courses learning how to do, but I can do what you do in my spare time if I really wanted to." Massive superiority complex vibe, though it may not be intentional.
There's a sort of science-supremacism that is common among some people in STEM disciplines. It leads some people to believe that their disc-lipless isn't just a way to gain knowledge about the world, but the only way to examine the world in a rigorous manner. Plenty of scientists don't believe this at all, but it seems to be pretty common.
Take this from the perspective of an applied scientist who trained in the basic sciences...
The superiority complex is real. To a significant extent, basic science training has been designed to weed out those who cannot attain such a sense of superiority. The field is just that cutthroat competitive. I, for instance, am no longer worthy in the eyes of some of my former colleagues.
On the other hand, in the part of academe I now find myself in, scientists are in a way more rigorous because they recognize that there are a whole lot of ways to examine the world. (I find the applied side more fulfilling as well, still being able to make new discoveries while also having a positive impact on
the world.)
It seems to me that any type of higher education ought to promote a kind of humility in the face of a world that's a lot bigger and grander than any one of us can comprehend. And yet I've found in reading at The Fora that people can get through higher ed and earn advanced degrees and yet still have very little humility, and minds that are very, very tightly closed. Maybe it's a byproduct of that weeding-out process. Maybe an occupational hazard of having to master so much in the way of knowledge and skills is a failure to remember that "the more you learn, the less you know." If members of the educated professions--humanities, lawyers, engineers, scientists, doctors and all--didn't come across as such know-it-alls so much of the time, they might provoke less opposition to their expertise.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Marshwiggle (and polly) are making valid points here about students from these sorts of backgrounds facing greater challenges in some respects. I've seen what they're talking about. My concern is that recognition of these challenges seems to be leading to a conclusion that these students shouldn't even bother trying to study anything that conventional wisdom says doesn't have dollar signs all over it. It's as if students from rural, working class backgrounds are being told that any effort to study the humanities is an aspiration above their station. It's not right to tell them all that, any more than it's right to tell them all that about getting an education in the first place.
Some of them could thrive in a humanities major, given opportunity and encouragement.
Please understand that I'm talking about
undergrad majors here. When it comes to grad education in the humanities, "just don't go" is, however much we might wish it were otherwise, the best advice in most cases.
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 01:11:14 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Marshwiggle (and polly) are making valid points here about students from these sorts of backgrounds facing greater challenges in some respects. I've seen what they're talking about. My concern is that recognition of these challenges seems to be leading to a conclusion that these students shouldn't even bother trying to study anything that conventional wisdom says doesn't have dollar signs all over it. It's as if students from rural, working class backgrounds are being told that any effort to study the humanities is an aspiration above their station. It's not right to tell them all that, any more than it's right to tell them all that about getting an education in the first place. Some of them could thrive in a humanities major, given opportunity and encouragement.
I have always said that the really good students could thrive no matter what they study. My objection has always been to recruiting unmotivated, unexceptional students into programs to keep the numbers up when those students are not going to be the first ones hired no matter what they study.
I would never try to talk someone out of something they're
passionate about. But if someone doesn't know what they want to study, (or even
IF they want to study), they should do something else until they
know what they want to study.
It has nothing to do with "their station"; it has everything to do with avoiding making a huge investment of time and money just to do what someone
else suggests they should.
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 01:11:14 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Marshwiggle (and polly) are making valid points here about students from these sorts of backgrounds facing greater challenges in some respects. I've seen what they're talking about. My concern is that recognition of these challenges seems to be leading to a conclusion that these students shouldn't even bother trying to study anything that conventional wisdom says doesn't have dollar signs all over it. It's as if students from rural, working class backgrounds are being told that any effort to study the humanities is an aspiration above their station.
My father, the son of an alcoholic cement salesman, was exactly one of these middle class students who did very well in life. He took his family to a gray-collar / blue-collar middle-class town connected to a highway where I grew up.
My last employer and my current employer are both open enrollment teaching schools serving mid-middle-class, lower middle-class, working class and poverty-class populations. Both schools serve a number of 1st generation students.
I am very familiar with the demographic being described here.
But I understood the argument to be that students from the lower socioeconomic demographics fail with humanities degrees because they lack social connections and acumen.
I wondered if I misunderstood or if there is evidence of this phenomenon.
It sounded like Marty Nemko's cluess ranting.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 01:44:13 PM
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 01:11:14 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Marshwiggle (and polly) are making valid points here about students from these sorts of backgrounds facing greater challenges in some respects. I've seen what they're talking about. My concern is that recognition of these challenges seems to be leading to a conclusion that these students shouldn't even bother trying to study anything that conventional wisdom says doesn't have dollar signs all over it. It's as if students from rural, working class backgrounds are being told that any effort to study the humanities is an aspiration above their station. It's not right to tell them all that, any more than it's right to tell them all that about getting an education in the first place. Some of them could thrive in a humanities major, given opportunity and encouragement.
I have always said that the really good students could thrive no matter what they study. My objection has always been to recruiting unmotivated, unexceptional students into programs to keep the numbers up when those students are not going to be the first ones hired no matter what they study.
I would never try to talk someone out of something they're passionate about. But if someone doesn't know what they want to study, (or even IF they want to study), they should do something else until they know what they want to study.
It has nothing to do with "their station"; it has everything to do with avoiding making a huge investment of time and money just to do what someone else suggests they should.
That's my concern, though--that students who
would be motivated to study the humanities are being discouraged from doing so. Neither I nor, I think, anybody else here is wanting the humanities to recruit as majors undermotivated students who just want to get their piece of paper that entitles them to a lucrative job.
That's not the same as saying that there should be no gen ed humanities requirements. The slackers will do poorly no matter what they study. Good students can pick up a variety of useful perspectives if exposed to a variety of disciplines.
Quote from: Caracal on March 26, 2021, 07:03:24 AM
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:21:57 AM
I'll repeat what I posted earlier -- this is why the majority of undergraduate-level humanities programs in the USA are doomed:
The irony is that a historical prospective would allow you to understand how myopic and presentist these ideas are.
Presentist? What does that mean? Refute the data mentioned at https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/) with data of your own. The data at that webpage includes a 50% decrease in the number of undergraduate history majors in the decade after the 2008 recession at a public R1 university, and a national 34% decrease over the same period.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 02:41:11 PM
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 01:11:14 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Marshwiggle (and polly) are making valid points here about students from these sorts of backgrounds facing greater challenges in some respects. I've seen what they're talking about. My concern is that recognition of these challenges seems to be leading to a conclusion that these students shouldn't even bother trying to study anything that conventional wisdom says doesn't have dollar signs all over it. It's as if students from rural, working class backgrounds are being told that any effort to study the humanities is an aspiration above their station.
My father, the son of an alcoholic cement salesman, was exactly one of these middle class students who did very well in life. He took his family to a gray-collar / blue-collar middle-class town connected to a highway where I grew up.
My last employer and my current employer are both open enrollment teaching schools serving mid-middle-class, lower middle-class, working class and poverty-class populations. Both schools serve a number of 1st generation students.
I am very familiar with the demographic being described here.
But I understood the argument to be that students from the lower socioeconomic demographics fail with humanities degrees because they lack social connections and acumen.
I wondered if I misunderstood or if there is evidence of this phenomenon.
It sounded like Marty Nemko's cluess ranting.
I don't think we can rely on personal anecdotes as being representative of the college-going population at large. Neither one of my parents went to college, they provided their children with a middle-class lifestyle in the 1970s and 1980s. But those of us who came from those backgrounds and ended up with PhDs are most likely far less numerous than those from those backgrounds who never went to college, attended college but never completed a degree, or otherwise fell through the cracks. On average people who obtain a bachelor's degree earn significantly more than those with just a high school diploma at the same point in time, but guess what? My income with a PhD is in inflation-adjusted terms the same as my father's.
I looked up BLS median annual salaries for a few occupations.
Editor, $61K: One of those jobs that nominally requires a bachelor's degree and that academics often say someone with a humanities bachelor's degree is well-suited for. Typically requires ~ 5 years post-college related experience to obtain a job with this title.
Dental hygienist, $76K: requires associate's degree, often obtained relatively inexpensively at community college. Once you've complete the program and are licensed, you quality for a job with this title.
Sales manager, $127K: most have bachelor's degrees. Typically requires ~ 5 years post-college related experience to obtain a job with this title.
While humanities fields might be wonderful preparation for a career as a sales manager, they are not pitched that way by the people who deliver them, nor do 18-year olds entering college associate the study of the humanities with that career. The message that the 18 year olds get is instead "You can major in X and maybe after college work your way up to being an editor, which pays less than being a dental hygienist who went to college for two years and also pays less than what your classmates who are studying other fields will be doing in their careers."
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 03:33:49 PM
I don't think we can rely on personal anecdotes as being representative of the college-going population at large.
I was specifically asking for statistics.
The rest of this was not what I was asking.
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 03:33:49 PM
Neither one of my parents went to college, they provided their children with a middle-class lifestyle in the 1970s and 1980s. But those of us who came from those backgrounds and ended up with PhDs are most likely far less numerous than those from those backgrounds who never went to college, attended college but never completed a degree, or otherwise fell through the cracks. On average people who obtain a bachelor's degree earn significantly more than those with just a high school diploma at the same point in time, but guess what? My income with a PhD is in inflation-adjusted terms the same as my father's.
I looked up BLS median annual salaries for a few occupations.
Editor, $61K: One of those jobs that nominally requires a bachelor's degree and that academics often say someone with a humanities bachelor's degree is well-suited for. Typically requires ~ 5 years post-college related experience to obtain a job with this title.
Dental hygienist, $76K: requires associate's degree, often obtained relatively inexpensively at community college. Once you've complete the program and are licensed, you quality for a job with this title.
Sales manager, $127K: most have bachelor's degrees. Typically requires ~ 5 years post-college related experience to obtain a job with this title.
Nor was this...
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 03:33:49 PM
While humanities fields might be wonderful preparation for a career as a sales manager, they are not pitched that way by the people who deliver them, nor do 18-year olds entering college associate the study of the humanities with that career. The message that the 18 year olds get is instead "You can major in X and maybe after college work your way up to being an editor, which pays less than being a dental hygienist who went to college for two years and also pays less than what your classmates who are studying other fields will be doing in their careers."
People who are editors are generally pretty passionate about their work. I would be making at least double what I am making now without the decade of poverty in grad school, and I would be able to live where I wanted, if I had stayed in underwriting----at least up to the point I leaped to my death from the top of the MetLife Building.
Getting paid $XXXX is not the only thing in life.
The "follow one's passion at all costs" concept is not very persuasive to a large proportion of undergraduates, especially if they're coming from low SES backgrounds or have had white suburban middle class fear drilled into them from an early age by their parents.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-01-09-for-students-to-succeed-social-capital-matter-just-as-much-as-skills-here-s-why
https://hechingerreport.org/the-real-reasons-many-low-income-students-dont-go-to-college/
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/managing-hiring-managers-high-expectations-for-new-college-graduates.aspx
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/08/underemployment-persists-throughout-college-graduates-careers/?sh=56585cd67490
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/privileged-poor-navigating-elite-university-life/585100/
https://edpolicy.education.jhu.edu/how-social-capital-can-help-close-the-achievement-gap/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/17/18647250/privileged-poor-university-admissions-anthony-abraham-jack
https://hechingerreport.org/high-school-grads-least-likely-america-go-college-rural-ones/
https://hechingerreport.org/rural-colleges-arent-supplying-the-workers-rural-businesses-and-agriculture-need/
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/higher-ed's-dirty-little-secrets
https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-elite-colleges-lead-to-higher-salaries-only-for-some-professions-1454295674
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 04:15:18 PM
The "follow one's passion at all costs" concept is not very persuasive to a large proportion of undergraduates,
Never said it was. We humanities folks are weirdos.
I just want to reach the weirdos like me. There are enough.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 26, 2021, 04:58:52 PM
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-01-09-for-students-to-succeed-social-capital-matter-just-as-much-as-skills-here-s-why
etc. etc.
Okay.
I think this is one of those little agons in which we argue something that is not in contention.
We all know that growing up middle-class gifts kids with social capital and that poor kids generally are faced with socioeconomic hurdles----that's why they publish books like
Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
What I wanted to know, specifically, was, if a poor kid gets a humanities bachelor's degree are they unable to climb the professional ladder?
Do we have numbers that illustrate how humanities degree holders are unable to overcome socioeconomic limitations?
Does a humanities degree confer no socioeconomic benefits to students from lower socioeconomic strata?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 06:11:34 PM
[. . .]
What I wanted to know, specifically, was, if a poor kid gets a humanities bachelor's degree are they unable to climb the professional ladder?
Do we have numbers that illustrate how humanities degree holders are unable to overcome socioeconomic limitations?
Does a humanities degree confer no socioeconomic benefits to students from lower socioeconomic strata?
None of these questions are the topic of this thread. On average, people who obtain bachelor's degrees earn more than people with only high school diplomas.
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:51:49 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 06:11:34 PM
[. . .]
What I wanted to know, specifically, was, if a poor kid gets a humanities bachelor's degree are they unable to climb the professional ladder?
Do we have numbers that illustrate how humanities degree holders are unable to overcome socioeconomic limitations?
Does a humanities degree confer no socioeconomic benefits to students from lower socioeconomic strata?
None of these questions are the topic of this thread. On average, people who obtain bachelor's degrees earn more than people with only high school diplomas.
Oh Spork. I have been responding directly to this for several posts:
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Quote from: apl68 on March 26, 2021, 08:27:48 AMAs for the debate over who makes the most money or has the best chances of finding a good job--that's largely a red herring. Any good college education in any major should prepare a student well enough for the job market, if the student is prepared to work at it. But fear that majoring in anything other than STEM or business will condemn you to poverty is driving students away from the study of the humanities--a study that could greatly benefit them--in droves, and needlessly. We're all likely to end up poorer for it.
As a mathematician, my department has "benefited" from the current emphasis on employability, in the sense that the size of our mathematics major has increased by a factor of five since I have arrived, and is now the third most popular major. But our faculty size has remained flat, and our upper division classes are now filled by students with neither inclination nor talent in mathematics, but think that getting a C average in the major will help their career prospects.
Let me put it this way, at the current juncture, I would prefer to teach lower division calculus to non-majors than our large upper division classes, because the distribution of motivation and talent is now roughly comparable between these two types of classes, and at least with calculus, you're not really tasked with getting them to think extremely deeply.
What does someone with an undergrad math major, who does not go to grad or professional school, and does not become a teacher, typically end up doing, career-wise, and is this different based on *where* the math undergrad degree was earned? What, IOW, do these rapidly increasing number of math majors expect to do with their degrees?
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 26, 2021, 09:41:19 PM
What does someone with an undergrad math major, who does not go to grad or professional school, and does not become a teacher, typically end up doing, career-wise, and is this different based on *where* the math undergrad degree was earned? What, IOW, do these rapidly increasing number of math majors expect to do with their degrees?
Well, at least in my department, a big segment of the majors are in a "Math-CS" major, which sounds like a double major in mathematics and computer science if you're not familiar with our program, and most of these students will leverage that to go on to a job which require some general mathematical/technical/modeling skills coupled with strong programming skills. In general, if you don't go on to graduate school, or take the actuarial exams, then the typical math major is not going to get an entry-level position without the ability to program.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 07:00:44 PM
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:51:49 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 06:11:34 PM
[. . .]
What I wanted to know, specifically, was, if a poor kid gets a humanities bachelor's degree are they unable to climb the professional ladder?
Do we have numbers that illustrate how humanities degree holders are unable to overcome socioeconomic limitations?
Does a humanities degree confer no socioeconomic benefits to students from lower socioeconomic strata?
None of these questions are the topic of this thread. On average, people who obtain bachelor's degrees earn more than people with only high school diplomas.
Oh Spork. I have been responding directly to this for several posts:
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Students who are the first in the families to attend college make statistically different college major selections than otherwise identical students (http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1407/first-generation-college-students-college-major-choices)
Rich kids study English (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/)
Note that the author of the Atlantic piece majored in English at Penn after attending an elite private high school in Silicon Valley.
Quote from: mleok on March 26, 2021, 09:52:26 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 26, 2021, 09:41:19 PM
What does someone with an undergrad math major, who does not go to grad or professional school, and does not become a teacher, typically end up doing, career-wise, and is this different based on *where* the math undergrad degree was earned? What, IOW, do these rapidly increasing number of math majors expect to do with their degrees?
Well, at least in my department, a big segment of the majors are in a "Math-CS" major, which sounds like a double major in mathematics and computer science if you're not familiar with our program, and most of these students will leverage that to go on to a job which require some general mathematical/technical/modeling skills coupled with strong programming skills. In general, if you don't go on to graduate school, or take the actuarial exams, then the typical math major is not going to get an entry-level position without the ability to program.
A liberal arts program at one university becoming more clear career path-oriented, I assume in response to enrollment trends, which in turn are likely driven by economic concerns of students and their parents.
People in traditionally-organized and delivered humanities programs can wail about the true economic and cultural value of those programs all they want, but it won't make a difference because those arguments are not persuasive to the majority of the people who are now attending college.
Quote from: spork on March 27, 2021, 03:35:26 AM
Students who are the first in the families to attend college make statistically different college major selections than otherwise identical students (http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1407/first-generation-college-students-college-major-choices)
Rich kids study English (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/)
Note that the author of the Atlantic piece majored in English at Penn after attending an elite private high school in Silicon Valley.
Quote from: mleok on March 26, 2021, 09:52:26 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 26, 2021, 09:41:19 PM
What does someone with an undergrad math major, who does not go to grad or professional school, and does not become a teacher, typically end up doing, career-wise, and is this different based on *where* the math undergrad degree was earned? What, IOW, do these rapidly increasing number of math majors expect to do with their degrees?
Well, at least in my department, a big segment of the majors are in a "Math-CS" major, which sounds like a double major in mathematics and computer science if you're not familiar with our program, and most of these students will leverage that to go on to a job which require some general mathematical/technical/modeling skills coupled with strong programming skills. In general, if you don't go on to graduate school, or take the actuarial exams, then the typical math major is not going to get an entry-level position without the ability to program.
A liberal arts program at one university becoming more clear career path-oriented, I assume in response to enrollment trends, which in turn are likely driven by economic concerns of students and their parents.
People in traditionally-organized and delivered humanities programs can wail about the true economic and cultural value of those programs all they want, but it won't make a difference because those arguments are not persuasive to the majority of the people who are now attending college.
This is
a. Not persuasive, as to the actual economics. I believe that people
think that liberal arts degrees are unlikely to lead to career success. And its also
b. Pretty dumb. Which could be said for your whole take on this conversation. I'm not trying to make a personal attack, its just that people can get so dug in to making a reductive argument and so convinced that others who don't agree just
don't get it that they just make increasingly silly points that miss what everyone else is actually talking about.
Yes, we all understand that people interested in maximizing their earnings are going to go into certain STEM fields right now. And, they aren't wrong about those choices. Some skills are in particular demand. That's just the incredibly obvious point. I promise, we all understand, you don't need to tell us that engineering majors make more than English majors.
And yes, we understand that people, including students and parents believe that humanities degrees are particularly likely to lead to particularly poor earnings and outcomes. However, there isn't any compelling evidence that people are correct about this. That's where we get to the dumb part. You seem to believe that the incredibly obvious point that comparing earnings of different majors is misleading given that it reflects differences in talent, interests and career goals is some sort of dodge.
The other dumb part is the continuous invoking of the wisdom of the market. Of course it matters and is a problem that majors in humanities disciplines are declining. However, you seem to basically believe you work at a KFC and if the Molten Chicken sandwich isn't selling its time to discontinue it. That isn't hard headed, it's dumb. You don't work at a KFC, you work at a non profit institution. Those institutions have to deal with people's preferences and ideas about value, but they don't need to just give in to them, because that isn't actually their mission. They should, instead, try to find ways to persuade people that, for example, a psychology or political science degree actually doesn't really give people better career prospects than a degree in History or English. This is partly about the importance of humanities disciplines, but it is also about allowing students find ways to figure out what they are good at and interested in.
Quote from: spork on March 27, 2021, 03:35:26 AM
Oh Spork. I have been responding directly to this for several posts:
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
Students who are the first in the families to attend college make statistically different college major selections than otherwise identical students (http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1407/first-generation-college-students-college-major-choices)
Rich kids study English (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/)
Note that the author of the Atlantic piece majored in English at Penn after attending an elite private high school in Silicon Valley.
[/quote]
Still not the simple question I asked.
I wanted to know if poor kids who studied English et al., in lieu of a "practical" degree, actually DID suffer a lack of upward mobility, as some seemed to be claiming.
I think there simply simply too much noise in your head, Spork, to hear that.
We DO know that English majors do just fine on the job market...but again, some people have such a roaring going on their heads that they cannot think past it----what Caracal said much more eloquently, in other words.
Quote from: spork on March 26, 2021, 06:51:49 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 06:11:34 PM
[. . .]
What I wanted to know, specifically, was, if a poor kid gets a humanities bachelor's degree are they unable to climb the professional ladder?
Do we have numbers that illustrate how humanities degree holders are unable to overcome socioeconomic limitations?
Does a humanities degree confer no socioeconomic benefits to students from lower socioeconomic strata?
None of these questions are the topic of this thread. On average, people who obtain bachelor's degrees earn more than people with only high school diplomas.
The key terms are "on average" and "degree". Very few poor kids who go to college graduate: https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2016/10/graduation-gap is from 2916, but nothing I remember from more recent articles indicate a positive change and articles in the past quarter indicate most poor people enrolling in underresourced institutions or sitting out higher ed entirely due to Covid.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02/19/a-college-degree-is-worth-less-if-you-are-raised-poor/ points out another reality that isn't news to those who have observed community members with college degrees.
Sara Goldrick-Rab at Temple does a lot of work in the area of how poverty affects college experience and subsequent outcomes, especially at non-elite institutions. In many cases, the poor kids are choosing to work now while attending part-time, often at places that don't have humanities BAs. A humanities BA from a good school isn't even on the table because of limiting factors.
The social justice advocate mass media discussions based on social science is filled with information on what it practically means to be poor. A lot of that can be summarized as having zero room for error and no safety net when a cobbled together current status falls through. I know exactly the feeling of having $6.34 in my bank account and a refrigerator that should get me through to Friday. I know exactly the feeling of signing over all my college savings as a teenager to my mother so she could pay the monthly bills that were already a month behind. I know exactly the feeling of both of us being furloughed during a government shutdown and knowing there is no one we can ask to lend money and even the local minimum wage jobs aren't hiring.
I have been poor and yet I know people who have had it so much worse because they don't even get to have their own place with a full refrigerator most of the time.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/snap-hunger-challenge-not-really-a-poor-grad-student-after-all_b_1891318 resonates with me.
There is a path out of poverty that involves a humanities BA. Step 1 is getting into an elite institution, ideally in elementary, but college is not too late for some people. The privileged poor who get on the path early and assimilate into the relevant SES networks do very well. However, that often means becoming a different person and possibly disconnecting from childhood networks, either voluntarily or by being shunned as uppity/snooty/elitist.
The kicker in many cases is having the resources and adaptive ability to assimilate. The same media outlets that publish quit lit and adjunct porn also tend to have articles on the problems of being bright and being unable to do the social activities due to having to work and still having too little money compared to fellow students.
Two years ago, there was a huge uproar abour Harvard paying work-study students to clean dorm toilets https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/10/debate-raging-over-harvards-federal-work-study-program:
Knowing what a long shot the path to middle class is with a humanities BA for people starting where I did, I chose the state school STEM path, as did almost all my friends who had any possibility of completing it. About half my college friends didn't finish a college degree. I have, however, paid for a BA humanities degree once my PhD got me an upper-middle class job and my husband could afford to be a full-time student in anything he wanted.
Another possible path that involves significant strategy is marrying well.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 08:08:01 AM
There is a path out of poverty that involves a humanities BA. Step 1 is getting into an elite institution, ideally in elementary, but college is not too late for some people.
Knowing what a long shot the path to middle class is with a humanities BA for people starting where I did, I chose the state school STEM path, as did almost all my friends who had any possibility of completing it.
We've gotten hung up on the unchallenged notions that poor kids choose practical degrees and that poor kids face significant challenges in college.
That was not what I wanted to know.
What I was asking for was information that shows a humanities BA stymies upward mobility for poor kids, which once again seems to be the indication.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
This can be easily derived from 2 observations:
1) Income of post-secondary graduates is strongly affected by parental income
Canadian data, but I suspect this effect is even stronger in the UShttps://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm)
2) Earnings for the 25th percentile of English graduates are not particularly middle class
web toolhttps://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/pseo_explorer.html?type=earnings&specificity=2&state=08&institution=00137000°reelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=25&program=23,14 (https://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/pseo_explorer.html?type=earnings&specificity=2&state=08&institution=00137000°reelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=25&program=23,14)
I.e. if one is likely to end with below median earnings for a chosen major, humanities are not a good choice
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 08:40:15 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
This can be easily derived from 2 observations:
1) Income of post-secondary graduates is strongly affected by parental income
Canadian data, but I suspect this effect is even stronger in the US
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm)
I.e. if one is likely to end with below median earnings for a chosen major, humanities are not a good choice
Okay. This is interesting. I played with it a bit. This information varies a great deal depending on percentile, institution, and state. You linked to the 25% percentile in Colorado at U of Bolder.
Again, looking around at the sampling, lib arts and humanities majors are securing in the middle class after 5 years in every one of the samplings. Humanities majors do not make as much money as engineering or business, granted, but they are not baristas.
The thinking seems so stuck on this issue.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 09:02:06 AM
Okay. This is interesting. I played with it a bit. This information varies a great deal depending on percentile, institution, and state. You linked to the 25% percentile in Colorado at U of Bolder.
I have used 25 percentile as a proxy for graduates from low status families.
University of Colorado is a solid institution in an economically growing state (both parameters favourable to graduates regardless of the major).
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 09:02:06 AM
Again, looking around at the sampling, lib arts and humanities majors are securing in the middle class after 5 years in every one of the samplings.
Indeed. This makes it a perfectly acceptable choice for students rich enough not to take large students loans.
Waiting multiple years to get a middle class salary is very detrimental for long-term financial well-being for somebody with tens of thousands in loans.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 09:02:06 AM
Humanities majors do not make as much money as engineering or business, granted, but they are not baristas.
Some of them clearly are.
In the same link there is a "flow" data type.
"Accomodation and food services" and "Retail trade" employ (280+232)/1844= 28% of english graduates one year after graduation
Same metric is (89+108)/4948=4% for engineering graduates
Fair enough.
Same school: Same database: One year out:
English Language and Literature/Letters: $18,910
Health Professions and Related Programs: $17,784
Education: $23,391
Biological and Biomedical Sciences: $19,130
Parks, Recreation, Leisure, Fitness, and Kinesiology: $18,565
Psychology: $19,479
Mathematics and Statistics: $24,703
Social Sciences: $21,137
Which again is only the bottom 25% percentile. What it looks like it a rough first year for a lot of graduates who are not in Business, Computer Science, or Engineering. This is typical for American workers. That was my experience on the job market, actually, when I graduated undergrad in the early '90s, as it was for most of the people I knew. Anecdotal? Perhaps, but I think it is also fairly standard.
At 10 years out (approx. 31 or 32 years of age, which is a long way away from most people's maximum earnings, BTW), English Language and Lit grads in the 25% are making an average of $36K, not great but well above poverty level for a family of 4. Okay, maybe we don't consider that upwardly mobile if we are the sole breadwinner----but there are too many variables there (do we pay for childcare? Are we married to another income earner? etc.)
The 75% percentile same school, same database looks like...
English Language and Literature/Letters: 1 year out: $36,430; 5 years out: $54,698; 10 years out: $72,306.
The other disciplines follow suite.
As for Flow, "Accommodations and Food Services" drops each successive year in all disciplines, which seems to me is the college degree in action.
Interestingly, business lists "Accommodations and Food Service" as 116 out of 3,481 surveyed after 10 years out; while "English Language and Literature" lists 43 out of 857----and in some ways this does not tell us very much; do we know if any of these are managers or buyers or executives or are we flipping burgers here?
All of this seems to be what we already know and any simple answer here seems incomplete.
So I don't know what anyone thinks they've proved here.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 09:34:26 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 09:02:06 AM
Okay. This is interesting. I played with it a bit. This information varies a great deal depending on percentile, institution, and state. You linked to the 25% percentile in Colorado at U of Bolder.
I have used 25 percentile as a proxy for graduates from low status families.
Why would that be a good proxy?
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 08:08:01 AM
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02/19/a-college-degree-is-worth-less-if-you-are-raised-poor/ points out another reality that isn't news to those who have observed community members with college degrees.
This one was very interesting, and it indicates, as Polly said, that poor kids with a college degree earn less than rich kids with a college degree.
Quote
College graduates from families with an income below 185 percent of the federal poverty level (the eligibility threshold for the federal assisted lunch program) earn 91 percent more over their careers than high school graduates from the same income group. By comparison, college graduates from families with incomes above 185 percent of the FPL earned 162 percent more over their careers (between the ages of 25 and 62) than those with just a high school diploma
But will still have to acknowledge that the degree is paying off, even if we acknowledge that degrees from the Ivies vs. degrees from the U of State City Colleges have different earnings potentials, which may account for some of the discrepancies in earnings along with the socioeconomic factors held over from childhood:
Quote
What's behind this rather startling gap? There are a host of possibilities, from family resources during childhood and the place where one grew up, to the colleges that low-income students attend. My colleagues and I are currently investigating and weighing these and other factors. We are also looking to see if our overall findings hold up in other data sets and time periods.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 10:18:42 AM
Which again is only the bottom 25% percentile. What it looks like it a rough first year for a lot of graduates who are not in Business, Computer Science, or Engineering. This is typical for American workers. That was my experience on the job market, actually, when I graduated undergrad in the early '90s, as it was for most of the people I knew. Anecdotal? Perhaps, but I think it is also fairly standard.
The humanities are now a worse option not because of change in outcomes income-wise.
The tuition increases since early 1990s means that increasing fraction of those outcomes are not compatible with size of loans poorer students need to take (and with increases in the cost of living in places where many jobs are).
In the changing world it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. Most of humanities are not even walking.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 10:18:42 AM
So I don't know what anyone thinks they've proved here.
Decline in humanities is a result of rational choices an increasing fraction of students is taking.
Humanities are not unique in being subjects to such pressures (e.g. closed geology department in University of Vermont, fired physics professor from twitter etc).
Humanities (in their current form) are not the first to lose influence following socioeconomic changes: decline in relative role of classics since late 19 century may be a good example
Quote from: Caracal on March 27, 2021, 10:47:55 AM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 09:34:26 AM
I have used 25 percentile as a proxy for graduates from low status families.
Why would that be a good proxy?
The reason is twofold:
- there is correlation between status of the parents and earnings of post-secondary graduates. So, outcome for a student from a poorer family is better approximated by looking at 25th percentile
- focussing on median implicitly ignores plight of graduates with worse outcomes. This is not very humanitarian.
Quote from: Caracal on March 27, 2021, 05:43:41 AM
Yes, we all understand that people interested in maximizing their earnings are going to go into certain STEM fields right now. And, they aren't wrong about those choices. Some skills are in particular demand. That's just the incredibly obvious point. I promise, we all understand, you don't need to tell us that engineering majors make more than English majors.
And yes, we understand that people, including students and parents believe that humanities degrees are particularly likely to lead to particularly poor earnings and outcomes. However, there isn't any compelling evidence that people are correct about this.
I would imagine what most parents and prospective students would mean by "particularly" poor would be related to what high school graduates who didn't go on to PSE could be making without having the lost time and potential debt of PSE.
So if a high school graduate could start earning right away, whereas another student would spend four years and potentially go into debt, even a few thousand dollars more for the PSE graduate wouldn't seem like a big attraction since it would take several years to catch up.
Quote
The other dumb part is the continuous invoking of the wisdom of the market. Of course it matters and is a problem that majors in humanities disciplines are declining. However, you seem to basically believe you work at a KFC and if the Molten Chicken sandwich isn't selling its time to discontinue it. That isn't hard headed, it's dumb. You don't work at a KFC, you work at a non profit institution. Those institutions have to deal with people's preferences and ideas about value, but they don't need to just give in to them, because that isn't actually their mission. They should, instead, try to find ways to persuade people that, for example, a psychology or political science degree actually doesn't really give people better career prospects than a degree in History or English. This is partly about the importance of humanities disciplines, but it is also about allowing students find ways to figure out what they are good at and interested in.
Has the decline in humanities enrollment coincided with similar growth in psychology and political science? If not, that's not going to solve the problem. And I'm not sure that lots of people choose psychology and political science because of the perceived high earning potential. (Anyone able to prove/disprove this?)
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 11:48:47 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 10:18:42 AM
Which again is only the bottom 25% percentile. What it looks like it a rough first year for a lot of graduates who are not in Business, Computer Science, or Engineering. This is typical for American workers. That was my experience on the job market, actually, when I graduated undergrad in the early '90s, as it was for most of the people I knew. Anecdotal? Perhaps, but I think it is also fairly standard.
The humanities are now a worse option not because of change in outcomes income-wise.
The tuition increases since early 1990s means that increasing fraction of those outcomes are not compatible with size of loans poorer students need to take (and with increases in the cost of living in places where many jobs are).
I guess so. But your own database indicates that most majors and most workers face similar situations after college. And your database indicates that all graduates work their ways up the socioeconomic ladder.
Plus we must acknowledge that not every student comes from a poor background. If childhood poverty is your only metric, okay, but this discussion is about all students, not just poor kids.
Should students be making life choices based solely upon post-graduation salaries?
And perhaps it is my own inclinations toward music, theater, literature, and creativity----and the people I have surrounded myself with who are also interested in these things----but college is not just about making money. This statement seems to irritate some people who only want to use business jargon when referring to college degrees or who only want to discuss upward mobility and income.
So I wonder about "social capital" that we gain in other ways related to a college degree.
Social workers, for instance, are seldom wealthy people, but their jobs are extremely important and carry some cache. The same can be said of journalists, teachers, professors, and various government workers----we can also say that these people have climbed the social ladder even if their incomes are not as robust as business majors.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." is frequently attributed to Upton Sinclair.
What would be convincing to you, Wahoo?
Is there anything that could be convincing short of literally every humanities degree holder everywhere living in abject poverty, even those who end up as faculty at Harvard?
Mid-30s after years of experience is indeed terrible when typical average starting salaries for elite institutions and engineering/CS majors are such that the humanities folks bring the average down to only $50k: https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/compensation/Pages/average-starting-salary-for-recent-college-grads.aspx
How does one get a $50k starting salary? Generally, it's by having the years of experience needed through co-ops and internships, either as direct experience or through a network of people who think that "only" $50k + benefits is an entry-level position.
We don't have the numbers you want as part of a scientific study because almost no one who is truly poor (lowest SES quintile in the US):
* goes as an 18-22 year old to postsecondary institutions that have humanities majors that result in a BA
* gets counted as a full-time, first time student attending only one institution prior to graduation (the IPEDS collected data)
* actually majors in the humanities.
It just does not happen enough to matter.
Better advertising by the humanities of specific outcomes for people with good social capital who will be recruited out of college for a job unrelated to their major will not change the base starting place of people who are choosing to delay college, go part-time while working full-time or more, and have to have a major that teaches specific skills for which employers will hire a stranger and the entry level positions will be full-time with benefits and a career ladder to climb. I don't know what paid internships/coops look like in the humanities; I can easily find good regional comprehensives who have that kind of earning while learning in STEM, business, social work, teaching, and human-services-adjacent majors like psychology.
Anyone who looks at the completion rates for poor people combined with the loan totals for those who do complete compared to their expected starting salary and says, yeah, take out $30-50k in loans for a job that will pay $30k/year after a decade of experience has failed at quantitative reasoning.
Who is worse off for taking out student loans? The poor people who don't finish their degrees and now owe several thousand dollars that might as well be a million based on their current income: https://talkpoverty.org/2016/05/02/why-student-loan-debt-harms-low-income-students-the-most/
The middle class people who end up with a lot of student debt, but then have a medical degree or top-flight law degree pay back their student loans.
The poor people who tried community college for a couple semesters and then had to drop out due to having complicated lives end up with almost no debt comparatively speaking, but are very likely to be on the non-paying list.
"Everyone" starting college as desperately poor betting big on college being economic mobility knows people who worked their butts off and still didn't graduate, but now has student loans.
Nearly everyone will know someone who went to college, came home, and now has the same job they could have gotten right out of high school, but with student loans and lacking those four years of experience to move up to the next level.
Middle-class people who will end up middle-class can afford to study what they like in college. Poor people who have been paying attention and do a whole afternoon of internet research will make other choices.
My school's psych majors tend to be interested in law enforcement (police/fbi) and teaching/coaching. My school's poli sci/government/international relations majors tend to be interested in law (attorney) and politics. The only one that really has potential to make real money (as in salary, not growth of invested income) is attorney, and many of them don't make all that much. All in all, I doubt this is a path that guarantees anything more than a typical humanities major..at least not for our students. I don't have the income data though, but I think it does exist. I'll try to find it out.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 01:05:06 PM
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." is frequently attributed to Upton Sinclair.
What would be convincing to you, Wahoo?
Is there anything that could be convincing short of literally every humanities degree holder everywhere living in abject poverty, even those who end up as faculty at Harvard?
Now, now, this is when I tune you out, Polly.
Convince me of what, exactly? I disagree with nothing you have posted and yet I get a catalog of things I wasn't arguing about.
Just out of curiosity, what is it you want me to say?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 01:01:05 PM
Social workers, for instance, are seldom wealthy people, but their jobs are extremely important and carry some cache. The same can be said of journalists, teachers, professors, and various government workers----we can also say that these people have climbed the social ladder even if their incomes are not as robust as business majors.
The fast way to stay not-quite-as-desperately poor is to get a degree in social work or education and then return to the old neighborhood. There's currently a shortage of social workers and teachers in many places because those are hard jobs every day for the money involved. You have not become middle-class in most cases by taking those jobs, especially in the places that need them most.
Journalist as a middle-class profession is dying so fast that I can't believe you haven't been reading about those problems in the same media outlets that do adjunct porn, quit lit, and problems of being bright in elite institutions. Just this week, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/student-loans-cares-act.html appeared.
Many local/regional governments are underfunded and therefore working for them is a bad bet if the goal is financial security. One way that Black women college graduates end up earning substantially less with their college degrees is working for local/regional government because that's where their network gets them jobs. If the pension plan holds out, then the trade-off might be worth it, but that's a much less good bet than it used to be.
Money isn't everything, but having sufficient money to be able to pay all the bills, have an emergency fund, and be able to make choices based on interest instead of price is a goal for many people.
Those of us who know mostly social workers, teachers, low-level government workers, and the local journalists who are working extremely hard and terrified about losing their jobs would not choose to go into those professions when so many better choices exist.
Again, I am just curious: What is it you want me to say, Polly?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 01:13:00 PM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 01:05:06 PM
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." is frequently attributed to Upton Sinclair.
What would be convincing to you, Wahoo?
Is there anything that could be convincing short of literally every humanities degree holder everywhere living in abject poverty, even those who end up as faculty at Harvard?
Now, now, this is when I tune you out, Polly.
Convince me of what, exactly? I disagree with nothing you have posted and yet I get a catalog of things I wasn't arguing about.
Just out of curiosity, what is it you want me to say?
I'm just frustrated that you still appear to be asking the question of, Yeah, but where's the data stating that a humanities degree is a bad bet for people who aren't already in the comfortably middle-class and higher?, in the face of mountains of evidence.
You've explicitly listed questions of why people don't choose the humanities and what could be done to change that in the face of mountains of evidence that the probability of doing well is mostly a matter of where people start and the demographics for the near-future college going groups are not starting in the places where a humanities degree is a good option, if the goal is being solidly middle class.
Thus, what I conclude after years of this is you don't want to accept reality. You're still waiting for someone to tell you that if we'd only do X, then:
* everyone who is qualified and wants one can have a good middle-class faculty position
* hordes of aspiring students will be flooding non-elite institutions eager to study the humanities because they are choosing otherwise merely out of unfounded fear instead of having different interests or different goals.
That's not going to happen in any reasonable world here. When the humanities were most of the majors available and the goal of college was mostly social signaling or true interest in studying the humanities, then almost everyone studied them.
Now that many, many fabulous majors exist and nearly everyone who goes to college admits that getting a good job is one of the top three goals, the humanities will continue to have small enrollments outside of mandatory general education for a variety of reasons.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 01:21:17 PM
Again, I am just curious: What is it you want me to say, Polly?
I want you to explicitly acknowledge that studying the humanities is a niche market for those seeking a first degree.
I want you to explicitly acknowledge that most humanities faculty jobs outside the elite institutions will continue to decline.
I want you to explicitly acknowledge that you, personally, are making career plans to change jobs so your family isn't financially devastated when the collapse comes for you--non-TT person in a department that is almost exclusively gen ed service at a place that is ripe for drastic reduction in humanities faculty. Remember when you wrote that students enroll at your R2 because it's convenient and cheap? Yeah, that's not nearly as good as people enrolling because they love the fabulous business department and are waiting until college to take their general education requirements.
I want you to explicitly join other discussions in sounding the alarm about the realistic landscape instead of joining the chorus of "but it's working for ME!" for the adjuncts who are supported by family and the late career folks who will retire before any personal effects are felt through loss of major or even job.
Good job isn't the issue. Wahoo showed convincing (to me) data that the distributions of salaries are roughly the same. However, an important distinction is what are your job prospects? Even in a full employment economy, the reality is that while there are lots of jobs there aren't that many (relatively) high paying ones available to most majors right out of graduation, and market restrictions in different professions also play a role. Teacher salaries tend to be higher than psych majors because there is a negative perception of being a teacher now, but still a need. Nurses have a restricted market because in most states there are caps on nursing program admissions, a demonstrated need, while in psych there are effectively neither.
If I successfully get an elementary education degree I am (in recent years) pretty much guaranteed a job without really even having to move far from my hometown. Middle and high school, no problem. If you are willing to teach in a large urban district you are a shoo-in. The same is definitely not true for a psych major.
And, yes I know psych is a social science. But, the job prospects for an undergrad humanities or psych major (or a business major from a regional public who isn't in accounting for that matter) in a "good" paying job are very similar.
You are the most interesting person I have ever talked to online.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 01:30:15 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 01:21:17 PM
Again, I am just curious: What is it you want me to say, Polly?
I want you to explicitly acknowledge that studying the humanities is a niche market for those seeking a first degree.
"a niche" market for a "first degree"? No, I don't think I will concede that, mostly because I am not sure what you are getting at. Extrapolating from what you have said, I think you are indicating that the humanities are only for students of a certain socioeconomic background or educational pedigree. Nope, won't agree to that.
Hey kids, if the humanities are your interest and passion, go for it! You actually won't starve and it's your life anyway! Make your own choices even if mom and dad want you to be an accountant! But if you want a business degree because you desire a Beemer, that's cool too! Maybe consider a minor! Putting down "written and verbal communication skills" on your resume is a great line if you can submit evidence! A minor in the humanities is also a great way to show that you have a breadth of interests and knowledge. And if that would take too long and cost too much, consider some electives in literature or writing as these can teach you important writing skills----as someone who has spent all day grading business writing reports, understanding how to use language is very important for future business leaders!
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 01:30:15 PM
I want you to explicitly acknowledge that most humanities faculty jobs outside the elite institutions will continue to decline.
Um, yeah. I've acknowledge that for a long time. For some reason the noise in your head stops you from reading that when I write it.
In the past I have conjectured about ways to reverse this trend over the long-haul, but then COVID wiped out any hopes of this, at least for the foreseeable future.
A lot of us are looking at collapse. Academia at large is going to take a huge, painful hit very soon. Too bad.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 01:30:15 PM
I want you to explicitly acknowledge that you, personally, are making career plans to change jobs so your family isn't financially devastated when the collapse comes for you--non-TT person in a department that is almost exclusively gen ed service at a place that is ripe for drastic reduction in humanities faculty. Remember when you wrote that students enroll at your R2 because it's convenient and cheap? Yeah, that's not nearly as good as people enrolling because they love the fabulous business department and are waiting until college to take their general education requirements.
Nope. I am staying the course. My department and school are solid. Convenient and cheap are very important to the community we serve.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 01:30:15 PM
I want you to explicitly join other discussions in sounding the alarm about the realistic landscape instead of joining the chorus of "but it's working for ME!" for the adjuncts who are supported by family and the late career folks who will retire before any personal effects are felt through loss of major or even job.
Do you suppose impoverished adjuncts are looking to me as some sort of rock star they wish to emulate!?!?! Numerous times I have advised people to ditch academia, here and in my actual professional life. Again, there must be a lot of noise in your head.
Sorry, Polly, I may just frustrate you forever.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 08:40:15 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
This can be easily derived from 2 observations:
1) Income of post-secondary graduates is strongly affected by parental income
Canadian data, but I suspect this effect is even stronger in the US
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm)
Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure that data supports what you're saying:
Quote
The results suggest that the estimated earnings premiums associated with PSE are large and positive for youth from families across the distribution of income. In fact, the relative premium is considerably larger for youth from the bottom income quintile than for their counterparts from the top income quintile.
[...]
Consistent with many previous studies, the chart demonstrates that higher-educated individuals generally tend to earn more. What is new is how this relationship varies across the parental income distribution. The chart suggests that median earnings increase with more education for youth from all parental income quintiles. Median earnings are slightly more strongly associated with educational attainment among youth from lower-income families in an absolute sense. Youth from the lowest parental income quintile with a university bachelor's degree earned on average $52,238 five years after graduation, while those with no PSE earned $19,744. This difference corresponds to an absolute premium of $32,494 and a relative premium of 165%. In contrast, the gap in median earnings between the two groups is smaller ($28,922) among individuals from the top income quintile ($62,420 for those with a university bachelor's degree and $33,498 for those with no PSE). This difference corresponds to a relative premium of 86%. In other words, a university education is more strongly associated with higher earnings for youth from lower-income backgrounds in absolute and (especially) relative terms.
The same broad conclusion can be drawn about having a college education versus having no PSE. Among youth from families in the bottom income quintile, those with a college diploma earned $15,286 more than youth who did not pursue PSE (for a relative premium of 77%). Among youth from families in the top income quintile, college diploma graduates earned $11,056 (or 33%) more than those with no PSE.
It's also worth noting, however, that Canadians have one of the highest higher-education rates in the world, and we're unique in that high school education outcomes are basically the same (and good!) across the spectrum, regardless of race, socio-economic, or immigration status (the only exception are outcomes for Indigenous youth on-reserve, for seriously heavy historical and social reasons).
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 11:48:47 AM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 09:34:26 AM
I have used 25 percentile as a proxy for graduates from low status families.
Why would that be a good proxy?
The reason is twofold:
- there is correlation between status of the parents and earnings of post-secondary graduates. So, outcome for a student from a poorer family is better approximated by looking at 25th percentile
- focussing on median implicitly ignores plight of graduates with worse outcomes. This is not very humanitarian.
[/quote]
We were just talking about statistics and research methods... That doesn't work. You can't assume that humanities students have less income mobility in an attempt to prove that humanities studies is a bad choice for people from lower income backgrounds. And I can think of quite a few reasons this is a questionable assumption-not least all the questions about career options.
Quote
Quote from: Caracal on March 27, 2021, 02:16:52 PM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 11:48:47 AM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 09:34:26 AM
I have used 25 percentile as a proxy for graduates from low status families.
Why would that be a good proxy?
The reason is twofold:
- there is correlation between status of the parents and earnings of post-secondary graduates. So, outcome for a student from a poorer family is better approximated by looking at 25th percentile
- focussing on median implicitly ignores plight of graduates with worse outcomes. This is not very humanitarian.
We were just talking about statistics and research methods... That doesn't work. You can't assume that humanities students have less income mobility in an attempt to prove that humanities studies is a bad choice for people from lower income backgrounds. And I can think of quite a few reasons this is a questionable assumption-not least all the questions about career options.
Don't have to assume it. It's in the data. You don't even have to look at post-college annual income quartiles. The lower the family SES, the lower the probability of completing a bachelor's degree. The lower the family SES, the lower the probability that student loan payments are a small portion of one's post-college income. Or you can just look at the median salaries I posted upthread.
The above refers to comparing college graduates to college graduates. It does not refer to comparing college graduates to people with only a high school diploma.
Also of note: "attorney" as career path for political science majors is approaching the attractiveness of "journalist" for English majors. The bottom fell out of the attorney labor market some time ago. One study I cited on the old fora, which I don't have time to hunt for now, found that 40% of law school grads were in jobs that did not require a law degree. "Lawyer" as career plan is very non-rational for a first-time, entering college student who comes from a poor background and is unlikely to be academically talented enough to get a full-ride scholarship from a top law school.
By the way, still waiting for the statistical definition of "presentist."
Maybe we should start from a point at which we agree and go fro. There?
How about:
1. The humanities have intrinsic value.
2. Colleges are places where you can study humanities in more detail than just high school or your own appreciation.
Then it gets tricky....
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 27, 2021, 02:16:17 PM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 08:40:15 AM
This can be easily derived from 2 observations:
1) Income of post-secondary graduates is strongly affected by parental income
Canadian data, but I suspect this effect is even stronger in the US
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm)
Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure that data supports what you're saying...
I was referring to the absolute numbers (Chart 1 and associated data), not premiums.
I.e. student from upper quintile (i.e. rich) family on average makes more than student from lower quintile (i.e. poor) for the same educational level.
Quote from: Caracal on March 27, 2021, 02:16:52 PM
We were just talking about statistics and research methods... That doesn't work. You can't assume that humanities students have less income mobility in an attempt to prove that humanities studies is a bad choice for people from lower income backgrounds. And I can think of quite a few reasons this is a questionable assumption-not least all the questions about career options.
I was not assuming that humanities are special here.
I was assuming that students from low status backgrounds are more likely to end on the lower side of income range regardless of the major. Just in case of engineering that lower side actually pays enough to warrant taking loans and forfeiting several years of full-time income.
spork wrote "You don't even have to look at post-college annual income quartiles. The lower the family SES, the lower the probability of completing a bachelor's degree."
This doesn't follow. It assumes the likelihood of completing is the same across degrees. The probability of anyone completing an Engineering degree is lower than the probability of say General Studies, but a BS in General Studies will have more value than an an Engineering dropout with no degree. And, for low SES students I believe it's true that students are more likely to choose a degree which they are unprepared for.
I know three definitions of presentist, none of which are statistical.
But "presentist bias" is, as it turns out: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X17306334
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 27, 2021, 03:56:14 PM
spork wrote "You don't even have to look at post-college annual income quartiles. The lower the family SES, the lower the probability of completing a bachelor's degree."
This doesn't follow.
This is not a logic argument. That's what data states from our best measurements of actual students in the various SES.
Generally, the explanation is having more fragile arrangements that fall apart, not choice of major or even academic preparation.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-most-students-drop-out-of-college-and-how-we-can_b_5a5d9f77e4b01ccdd48b5f46
Quote from: Ruralguy on March 27, 2021, 03:37:34 PM
Maybe we should start from a point at which we agree and go fro. There?
How about:
1. The humanities have intrinsic value.
2. Colleges are places where you can study humanities in more detail than just high school or your own appreciation.
Then it gets tricky....
I disagree with point 2.
Some higher ed institutions are places where people can study the humanities.
Other higher ed institutions require humanities courses unrelated to any of the offered majors. Those humanities courses are of varying quality and may be even worse quality than an excellent public HS, let alone an excellent private HS.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 02:05:29 PM
You are the most interesting person I have ever talked to online.
Well bless your heart.
You are still not living in reality, though.
The problem isn't leading adjuncts further astray. It's refusing to accept deep in your heart the demographic and other factors that mean jobs like yours are going away as students continue to make other choices that are objectively better for their life goals.
The humanities as human knowledge aren't doomed. However, many things associated with jobs related to the humanities at all levels are not favorable for increased undergrad study of the humanities especially when focused on majors. Minors are just worthless as job credentials unless they are tied to direct job experience.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 05:47:41 PM
You are still not living in reality, though.
The problem isn't leading adjuncts further astray. It's refusing to accept deep in your heart the demographic and other factors that mean jobs like yours are going away as students continue to make other choices that are objectively better for their life goals.
Actually, Polly, I do accept that. I have accepted it for a long time. I am not as evangelically motivated as you are about the idea, and maybe that is why I am frustrating to you.
I think it is a very sad scenario. Education changes to meet demands. What is too bad is when we lose viable majors because of cherry-picked misinformation and turn our universities into an arm of corporate America.
At the same time, I teach business writing, which is a strong new service course; composition, which, despite some noise, is going nowhere; and creative writing, which will always appeal to would-be writers and real writers.
What is interesting is that all of us see the practical applications of our disciplines which outsiders may not. I can virtually always tell when I am grading a paper written by someone who does not read, particularly when I have to advise someone to "write in a more formal register" or a similar language-level issue. One of the habits I constantly urge on my bad writers is to read every day. While I am sure statistics and algebra could be extremely useful in all sorts of life and professional scenarios, written communication is a prime skillset, particularly post-Bill Gates.
One does not need a major or even a college class to read, of course, but it helps. And it helps to have someone directing aesthetic observations and forcing students to think about how language works. We are in the process of dismantling majors----including languages, philosophy, and history, among others----which teaches just these sorts of advanced skills.
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 05:47:41 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 02:05:29 PM
You are the most interesting person I have ever talked to online.
Well bless your heart.
You are still not living in reality, though.
The problem isn't leading adjuncts further astray. It's refusing to accept deep in your heart the demographic and other factors that mean jobs like yours are going away as students continue to make other choices that are objectively better for their life goals.
The humanities as human knowledge aren't doomed. However, many things associated with jobs related to the humanities at all levels are not favorable for increased undergrad study of the humanities especially when focused on majors. Minors are just worthless as job credentials unless they are tied to direct job experience.
Let's say things like fine arts start to vanish from higher education. I wouldn't like it, for several reasons, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end. It will be interesting (perhaps tragically sad, perhaps not) to see how the arts survive.
If you take the brightest lights as examples. Let's say violinist Hilary Hahn. Could she have attained the success and stature she has without accredited programs doing what they do? Would the same quality of teachers be available? Could she still have suitable places to perform? If yes, then classical music survives, because being in the same room with a superstar is the same experience, and it's the reason we have arts.
At the same time, jazz music evolved without any help from academia at all. Rejection even. But it had a marketplace and a culture that were receptive. How to replicate something like that, who knows.
What I meant by my statement 2 is just that colleges and universities are homes for the humanities. I didn't get to debating about majors or gen Ed requirements.
I guess I was trying to get us away from culture war morass and see if anyone could agree that the sky is blue, but maybe that isn't possible.
Quote from: Ruralguy on March 27, 2021, 07:06:27 PM
What I meant by my statement 2 is just that colleges and universities are homes for the humanities. I didn't get to debating about majors or gen Ed requirements.
They are indeed homes and if there isn't some kind of home somewhere, the humanities will be in trouble. But maybe it doesn't have to be the same kind of home. As in, whether accredited or not.
Quote from: Ruralguy on March 27, 2021, 07:06:27 PM
What I meant by my statement 2 is just that colleges and universities are homes for the humanities. I didn't get to debating about majors or gen Ed requirements.
I agree with statement 2.
That's fantastic on the Hilary Hahn call out. She is truly one of the all-time greats. And a great person too.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 27, 2021, 06:59:12 PM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 05:47:41 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 02:05:29 PM
You are the most interesting person I have ever talked to online.
Well bless your heart.
You are still not living in reality, though.
The problem isn't leading adjuncts further astray. It's refusing to accept deep in your heart the demographic and other factors that mean jobs like yours are going away as students continue to make other choices that are objectively better for their life goals.
The humanities as human knowledge aren't doomed. However, many things associated with jobs related to the humanities at all levels are not favorable for increased undergrad study of the humanities especially when focused on majors. Minors are just worthless as job credentials unless they are tied to direct job experience.
Let's say things like fine arts start to vanish from higher education. I wouldn't like it, for several reasons, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end. It will be interesting (perhaps tragically sad, perhaps not) to see how the arts survive.
If you take the brightest lights as examples. Let's say violinist Hilary Hahn. Could she have attained the success and stature she has without accredited programs doing what they do? Would the same quality of teachers be available? Could she still have suitable places to perform? If yes, then classical music survives, because being in the same room with a superstar is the same experience, and it's the reason we have arts.
At the same time, jazz music evolved without any help from academia at all. Rejection even. But it had a marketplace and a culture that were receptive. How to replicate something like that, who knows.
I think that even jazz owes much to university and conservatory education. I have not done a deep dive, but as an example here is link to short bios of the Marsalis family. every one of them has a music degree and/or studied at a conservatory.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marsalis-family
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 28, 2021, 06:17:26 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 27, 2021, 06:59:12 PM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 27, 2021, 05:47:41 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 27, 2021, 02:05:29 PM
You are the most interesting person I have ever talked to online.
Well bless your heart.
You are still not living in reality, though.
The problem isn't leading adjuncts further astray. It's refusing to accept deep in your heart the demographic and other factors that mean jobs like yours are going away as students continue to make other choices that are objectively better for their life goals.
The humanities as human knowledge aren't doomed. However, many things associated with jobs related to the humanities at all levels are not favorable for increased undergrad study of the humanities especially when focused on majors. Minors are just worthless as job credentials unless they are tied to direct job experience.
Let's say things like fine arts start to vanish from higher education. I wouldn't like it, for several reasons, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end. It will be interesting (perhaps tragically sad, perhaps not) to see how the arts survive.
If you take the brightest lights as examples. Let's say violinist Hilary Hahn. Could she have attained the success and stature she has without accredited programs doing what they do? Would the same quality of teachers be available? Could she still have suitable places to perform? If yes, then classical music survives, because being in the same room with a superstar is the same experience, and it's the reason we have arts.
At the same time, jazz music evolved without any help from academia at all. Rejection even. But it had a marketplace and a culture that were receptive. How to replicate something like that, who knows.
I think that even jazz owes much to university and conservatory education. I have not done a deep dive, but as an example here is link to short bios of the Marsalis family. every one of them has a music degree and/or studied at a conservatory.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marsalis-family
i agree. But it didn't start out that way, and for years was shut out of higher ed. That's all changed now. And where classical is concerned if there hadn't been a conservatory there would still have been a church. A home, as one poster put it.
The university is not where art forms are born, but it is where they are perpetuated. As they become more and more dependent on educational setting to survive, they change, sometimes. Not always for the better. Sometimes academics and critics decide how they should evolve as opposed to chronicling how they did evolve.
Of course the Marsalises are accomplished in classical too, especially Wynton. Big fan here.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 28, 2021, 06:35:53 AM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 28, 2021, 06:17:26 AM
I think that even jazz owes much to university and conservatory education. I have not done a deep dive, but as an example here is link to short bios of the Marsalis family. every one of them has a music degree and/or studied at a conservatory.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marsalis-family
i agree. But it didn't start out that way, and for years was shut out of higher ed. That's all changed now. And where classical is concerned if there hadn't been a conservatory there would still have been a church. A home, as one poster put it.
The university is not where art forms are born, but it is where they are perpetuated.
This is actually kind of like computer science. Lots of good programmers had no formal training but picked it up on their own. In areas where high levels of skill are
rare, but easy to identify, people can become experts outside of academia, but over time programs develop to formalize the path students
can follow to achieve proficiency.
^ Hence my previous references to the Content Asian Studies blog post. The paths that people are now following to achieve proficiency in certain skills are not being institutionalized by undergraduate humanities programs.
Quote from: mahagonny on March 27, 2021, 06:59:12 PM
Let's say things like fine arts start to vanish from higher education. I wouldn't like it, for several reasons, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end. It will be interesting (perhaps tragically sad, perhaps not) to see how the arts survive.
Every one of the great concert musicians in the contemporary world is a product of lifelong conservatory training. Every one.
From Eugène Ysaÿe to Van Kilburn to Heifetz to Perlman to Andre Watts to Yo-Yo Ma to the current crown prince of the fiddle, Chritian Li----all of the products of the great conservatories. They do not live normal lives but are doused in highest caliber music and musicians from early childhood. I doubt there is any other way to create these geniuses.
I've had a couple of old friends who did conservatories or major music schools. They are like D-1 athletes for music.
Classical musical training really only takes place in intensive higher education.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 28, 2021, 09:50:20 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on March 27, 2021, 06:59:12 PM
Let's say things like fine arts start to vanish from higher education. I wouldn't like it, for several reasons, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end. It will be interesting (perhaps tragically sad, perhaps not) to see how the arts survive.
Every one of the great concert musicians in the contemporary world is a product of lifelong conservatory training. Every one.
From Eugène Ysaÿe to Van Kilburn to Heifetz to Perlman to Andre Watts to Yo-Yo Ma to the current crown prince of the fiddle, Chritian Li----all of the products of the great conservatories. They do not live normal lives but are doused in highest caliber music and musicians from early childhood. I doubt there is any other way to create these geniuses.
I've had a couple of old friends who did conservatories or major music schools. They are like D-1 athletes for music.
Classical musical training really only takes place in intensive higher education.
I suppose this could dovetail nicely into a statement that civilization would go right down the crapper without academic tenure. As for me, not to reiterate more than needed, I find it hard to let my heart bleed if a humanities department bites the dust because it can't afford to maintain tenured positions and the decades ahead planning entailed when it already has non-TT faculty who are great teachers. It is not then knowledge that's going away, just effective management. [edited to add] For that matter, once upon a time you could have a school without a
diversity diversity and inclusion diversity equity and inclusion staff and their full time salaries, and somehow it worked.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 27, 2021, 08:40:15 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 26, 2021, 11:59:54 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 26, 2021, 10:26:06 AM
someone who is first-generation, from a rural area, is not very likely to be able to do so unless the degree is very career-focused. The culture and parents' social connections have a huge influence in the difference between these scenarios.
Do we have any evidence of this?
This can be easily derived from 2 observations:
1) Income of post-secondary graduates is strongly affected by parental income
Canadian data, but I suspect this effect is even stronger in the US
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019012-eng.htm)
2) Earnings for the 25th percentile of English graduates are not particularly middle class
web tool
https://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/pseo_explorer.html?type=earnings&specificity=2&state=08&institution=00137000°reelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=25&program=23,14 (https://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/pseo_explorer.html?type=earnings&specificity=2&state=08&institution=00137000°reelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=25&program=23,14)
I.e. if one is likely to end with below median earnings for a chosen major, humanities are not a good choice
So, I went and poked around at those data, and actually, they don't really support the arguments being made here.
Really, when you look more closely at the data what becomes apparent is that the argument about students deciding not to be humanities majors because they are making rational choices about their earnings potential really falls apart. For example, if you look here, psychology majors have increased pretty dramatically in the last decade and English degrees have decreased, but the earnings for those two degrees are almost exactly the same by any metric. Health degrees have skyrocketed but again, they actually make very similar salaries to English majors, or foreign language majors, another group where the number of degrees has fallen.
There are all these other examples where the narrative just doesn't fit. Philosophy majors really earn very similar amounts to biology majors for example. (At least at most places, there are big differences by institution, which I assume reflect fields of study) Yet, somehow I must have missed all the rhetoric about how biology is a dying discipline only suitable for the wealthy.
Quote from: Caracal on March 28, 2021, 01:18:01 PM
So, I went and poked around at those data, and actually, they don't really support the arguments being made here.
Really, when you look more closely at the data what becomes apparent is that the argument about students deciding not to be humanities majors because they are making rational choices about their earnings potential really falls apart. For example, if you look here, psychology majors have increased pretty dramatically in the last decade and English degrees have decreased, but the earnings for those two degrees are almost exactly the same by any metric. Health degrees have skyrocketed but again, they actually make very similar salaries to English majors, or foreign language majors, another group where the number of degrees has fallen.
There are all these other examples where the narrative just doesn't fit. Philosophy majors really earn very similar amounts to biology majors for example. (At least at most places, there are big differences by institution, which I assume reflect fields of study) Yet, somehow I must have missed all the rhetoric about how biology is a dying discipline only suitable for the wealthy.
The things you describe do not mean decreasing popularity of the humanities is irrational.
They mean that popularity of several other fields is.
For example, your statement about biology is a testament that the general public is yet to catch up with reality: due to insane competition (mostly driven by throngs of students hoping to get into medicine-related jobs) biology majors are among the least paid in STEM. This applies to all levels: overproduction of PhDs in this field is notorious.
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2012/07/stellar-opportunity (https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2012/07/stellar-opportunity)
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 28, 2021, 03:33:45 PM
Quote from: Caracal on March 28, 2021, 01:18:01 PM
So, I went and poked around at those data, and actually, they don't really support the arguments being made here.
Really, when you look more closely at the data what becomes apparent is that the argument about students deciding not to be humanities majors because they are making rational choices about their earnings potential really falls apart. For example, if you look here, psychology majors have increased pretty dramatically in the last decade and English degrees have decreased, but the earnings for those two degrees are almost exactly the same by any metric. Health degrees have skyrocketed but again, they actually make very similar salaries to English majors, or foreign language majors, another group where the number of degrees has fallen.
There are all these other examples where the narrative just doesn't fit. Philosophy majors really earn very similar amounts to biology majors for example. (At least at most places, there are big differences by institution, which I assume reflect fields of study) Yet, somehow I must have missed all the rhetoric about how biology is a dying discipline only suitable for the wealthy.
The things you describe do not mean decreasing popularity of the humanities is irrational.
They mean that popularity of several other fields is.
For example, your statement about biology is a testament that the general public is yet to catch up with reality: due to insane competition (mostly driven by throngs of students hoping to get into medicine-related jobs) biology majors are among the least paid in STEM. This applies to all levels: overproduction of PhDs in this field is notorious.
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2012/07/stellar-opportunity (https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2012/07/stellar-opportunity)
It isn't that humanities majors earn a lot less than other fields. Its that a few majors earn a lot more. Math, Chemistry, Engineering, Physics, Economics, Computer Science. Obviously, its perfectly rationale that more people are going into majors that might lead to employment in well paying fields. However, not everyone is going to be capable of being a STEM major and some people who might be, are going to be unhappy with that career path. For people with skills in other areas, people in humanities fields earn pretty similar amounts. Yet, nobody seems to spend their time carting about psychology, or nursing degrees and how they are out of step with our modern times.
^ 29% decrease in the number of English literature/language bachelor's degrees conferred since 2005-06, which was the post-Vietnam War peak (NCES).
See the median annual income for a dental hygienist posted earlier. Nurses had a similar 2019 median annual income, $73,300, with 66% having a two-year associate's degree (BLS and ONET).Projected growth in demand over the next decade: 5-7%.
For editors, with four-year bachelor's degrees, an average of five years prior experience, and a median annual income that is $12-$15K lower, the projected job growth is -7%.
Why take longer and pay more for a planned career path that pays on average 20% less and for which demand is likely to decline, unless one is already wealthy?
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 02:37:45 AM
^ 29% decrease in the number of English literature/language bachelor's degrees conferred since 2005-06, which was the post-Vietnam War peak (NCES).
See the median annual income for a dental hygienist posted earlier. Nurses had a similar 2019 median annual income, $73,300, with 66% having a two-year associate's degree (BLS and ONET).Projected growth in demand over the next decade: 5-7%.
For editors, with four-year bachelor's degrees, an average of five years prior experience, and a median annual income that is $12-$15K lower, the projected job growth is -7%.
Why take longer and pay more for a planned career path that pays on average 20% less and for which demand is likely to decline, unless one is already wealthy?
Because very few English majors are going on to careers as editors. Time to give this one up. You guys have constructed a whole edifice on cherry picking the data. English majors are mostly in decline because other people hold these misconceptions you've illustrated nicely.
The truth is that I would bet the actual degree matters very little outside of a pretty small selection of fields. It's mostly a proxy for skills and interests. For the rare person who might be choosing between an English degree and a Computer Science degree, it probably isn't a particularly important choice. If they're talented enough at the tech stuff, they can probably hone the skills that will get them hired out of college without doing a comp sci degree.
Quote from: Caracal on March 28, 2021, 05:04:27 PM
It isn't that humanities majors earn a lot less than other fields. Its that a few majors earn a lot more. Math, Chemistry, Engineering, Physics, Economics, Computer Science. Obviously, its perfectly rationale that more people are going into majors that might lead to employment in well paying fields. However, not everyone is going to be capable of being a STEM major and some people who might be, are going to be unhappy with that career path. For people with skills in other areas, people in humanities fields earn pretty similar amounts. Yet, nobody seems to spend their time carting about psychology, or nursing degrees and how they are out of step with our modern times.
Both psychology and nursing, and all of the STEM fields mentioned above
have to be constantly updating their content according to the progress in those fields. There are ideas and practices of the past that have been proven to be scientifically unsound, and so they have to change. In humanities, there are two differences from this. On the one hand, historically part of the "pitch" in humanities is that the knowledge is timeless, and the reason what is studied and how doesn't need to change is that human nature and the human condition is universal. On the other hand, as humanities have become more "inclusive", there has been a move to hear more "voices" from other communities. The reason that I'm using the quotation marks is specifically that these changes are based on intellectual fashion and ideology, rather than on any objective factors like I pointed out for STEM. In STEM, the scientific process isn't dependent on, or supportive of, any particular ideology or fashion, and so the changes are based on the process, not on the preferences of faculty.
For instance, issues such as vaccine safety are not determined by the makeup of faculty in medical schools; the process for testing vaccines is based on objective measures, and so some vaccines are determined to be safe and some are not; no-one gets to decide which is OK based on their personal experience. And different medical schools can't have different positions on this; at most they can disagree on aspects of the issue which need to be resolved by further study, and in principle, they can agree on what methodology would definitively answer the question.
Summary: "Out of step with modern times" is a luxury STEM can't afford and is intellectually counterproductive.
Quote from: Caracal on March 29, 2021, 05:05:38 AM
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 02:37:45 AM
^ 29% decrease in the number of English literature/language bachelor's degrees conferred since 2005-06, which was the post-Vietnam War peak (NCES).
See the median annual income for a dental hygienist posted earlier. Nurses had a similar 2019 median annual income, $73,300, with 66% having a two-year associate's degree (BLS and ONET).Projected growth in demand over the next decade: 5-7%.
For editors, with four-year bachelor's degrees, an average of five years prior experience, and a median annual income that is $12-$15K lower, the projected job growth is -7%.
Why take longer and pay more for a planned career path that pays on average 20% less and for which demand is likely to decline, unless one is already wealthy?
Because very few English majors are going on to careers as editors. Time to give this one up. You guys have constructed a whole edifice on cherry picking the data. English majors are mostly in decline because other people hold these misconceptions you've illustrated nicely.
The truth is that I would bet the actual degree matters very little outside of a pretty small selection of fields. It's mostly a proxy for skills and interests. For the rare person who might be choosing between an English degree and a Computer Science degree, it probably isn't a particularly important choice. If they're talented enough at the tech stuff, they can probably hone the skills that will get them hired out of college without doing a comp sci degree.
How about journalism? 2019 median salary: $48,000. Projected job growth over the next decade: - 11%.
Data doesn't care whether you believe in it or not.
Quote from: Caracal on March 29, 2021, 05:05:38 AM
The truth is that I would bet the actual degree matters very little outside of a pretty small selection of fields.
This is entirely true.
The data indicate that eliteness of institution matters far more than major for most majors: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/does-college-matter/400898/ is a different link with the same points that have been repeatedly made. Thus, someone who wants to major in the humanities is best advised to go to a selective or better institution for the networking aspects and companies that recruit humanities majors for jobs.
Quote
For those headed toward careers where elite networks rule, school choice is more important since selective schools provide access to the companies and individuals necessary to further one's career. Who attends these schools? Largely, wealthy kids who've had better access to the types of education, test preparation, and extracurricular activities that help them gain entry, says Kim Weeden, a sociology professor at Cornell University. Rich kids also have the ability to build their resumes via unpaid internships, an easier proposition for students whose families can help support them.
Formal classes are mostly irrelevant when the qualifications aren't tied to a particular major, which means those internships and co-op positions are all the more important to build the relevant skills in a business setting.
Thus, the conclusion from the data is that one should go to a selective institution and network one's butt off to get one of those 80% of jobs that aren't advertised (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/how-to-get-a-job-often-comes-down-to-one-elite-personal-asset.html).
People who have humanities degrees can absolutely do interesting things with good jobs and good possibilities to move up the career ladder. The problem is it's not the humanities degree itself or even the relevant skills that leads to those outcomes; it's leveraging sufficient social capital to be at a point where the skills and hard work matter.
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 05:40:40 AM
Quote from: Caracal on March 29, 2021, 05:05:38 AM
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 02:37:45 AM
^ 29% decrease in the number of English literature/language bachelor's degrees conferred since 2005-06, which was the post-Vietnam War peak (NCES).
See the median annual income for a dental hygienist posted earlier. Nurses had a similar 2019 median annual income, $73,300, with 66% having a two-year associate's degree (BLS and ONET).Projected growth in demand over the next decade: 5-7%.
For editors, with four-year bachelor's degrees, an average of five years prior experience, and a median annual income that is $12-$15K lower, the projected job growth is -7%.
Why take longer and pay more for a planned career path that pays on average 20% less and for which demand is likely to decline, unless one is already wealthy?
Because very few English majors are going on to careers as editors. Time to give this one up. You guys have constructed a whole edifice on cherry picking the data. English majors are mostly in decline because other people hold these misconceptions you've illustrated nicely.
The truth is that I would bet the actual degree matters very little outside of a pretty small selection of fields. It's mostly a proxy for skills and interests. For the rare person who might be choosing between an English degree and a Computer Science degree, it probably isn't a particularly important choice. If they're talented enough at the tech stuff, they can probably hone the skills that will get them hired out of college without doing a comp sci degree.
How about journalism? 2019 median salary: $48,000. Projected job growth over the next decade: - 11%.
Data doesn't care whether you believe in it or not.
What are you even talking about? I didn't say all fields or degrees had equally good job prospects. Part of the problem with journalism is that is a career oriented major. And, um, you're the one who keeps cherry picking data, not me. Seriously, your argument is totally incoherent and not at all based on a reasonable assessment of data. Repeating it endlessly doesn't make it any stronger.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2021, 05:24:55 AM
Both psychology and nursing, and all of the STEM fields mentioned above have to be constantly updating their content according to the progress in those fields. There are ideas and practices of the past that have been proven to be scientifically unsound, and so they have to change. In humanities, there are two differences from this. On the one hand, historically part of the "pitch" in humanities is that the knowledge is timeless, and the reason what is studied and how doesn't need to change is that human nature and the human condition is universal
Nope, that isn't really the basis for any humanities field. Certainly it is very wrong for History.
I think you're wrong about science too, but that's a different discussion.
^ I'll phrase it in simpler terms:
1. Only a very small proportion of undergraduate students attend uber-elite universities where networking with people with pre-existing high levels of social capital is highly likely. 40% of undergraduates attend community colleges, where networking with the children of the wealthy is highly unlikely.
2. Given (1), economic prospects weigh heavily on the choice of academic major for a large proportion of undergraduates.
3. Undergraduate humanities programs are not designed and delivered in ways that take (2) into account.
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 06:59:27 AM
^ I'll phrase it in simpler terms:
1. Only a very small proportion of undergraduate students attend uber-elite universities where networking with people with pre-existing high levels of social capital is highly likely. 40% of undergraduates attend community colleges, where networking with the children of the wealthy is highly unlikely.
2. Given (1), economic prospects weigh heavily on the choice of academic major for a large proportion of undergraduates.
3. Undergraduate humanities programs are not designed and delivered in ways that take (2) into account.
Oh? Then why do humanities majors not seem to earn much less than other comparable majors, even at non-elite universities? All assertions, no actual relevant evidence.
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 02:37:45 AM
Why take longer and pay more for a planned career path that pays on average 20% less and for which demand is likely to decline, unless one is already wealthy?
Most relevant if your single criteria for college is salary.
Not so relevant if you have another objective in mind.
I, for instance, would never want to be a dental hygienist. I am not alone in that.
Quote from: Caracal on March 29, 2021, 07:32:17 AM
Oh? Then why do humanities majors not seem to earn much less than other comparable majors, even at non-elite universities? All assertions, no actual relevant evidence.
Based on the posts above, it appears that you use quite narrow definition of "comparable majors".
Furthermore, some majors that you have specifically mentioned as having similar earnings, but remaining popular (i.e. biology), are known to be poor choices for students requiring large loans to graduate.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2021, 08:48:06 AM
Most relevant if your single criteria for college is salary.
Not so relevant if you have another objective in mind.
I would paraphrase it to:
Most relevant if one has to take 50k in loans to get a bachelor degree.
Not so relevant if you don't (either by virtue of being rich or going through college 30 years ago when tuition was way lower)
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 29, 2021, 08:54:29 AM
Quote from: Caracal on March 29, 2021, 07:32:17 AM
Oh? Then why do humanities majors not seem to earn much less than other comparable majors, even at non-elite universities? All assertions, no actual relevant evidence.
Based on the posts above, it appears that you use quite narrow definition of "comparable majors".
At this point, I'm just legitimately confused about what you're trying to argue. Basically, the discussion has gone like this:
You and spork: Humanities majors are dying because of rational choices of students-look how much less English Majors earn than Engineering Majors"
Me: Certain STEM Majors earn more, but actually if you compare humanities majors to disciplines outside of STEM, and even some in it, there's really not much difference.
You and Spork: The point is that humanities majors are declining because they can't keep up with the times and provide students access to stable employment.
Me: So, wait why aren't students fleeing psychology majors since they earn about as much as English majors. And why are we so focused on the supposed penalty that students get from being a humanities major when earnings are very similar for lots of other majors.
You: Seems like your definition of comparable majors is very narrow. The point is humanities majors are only for the rich.
Data can't lie by itself, but people can certainly use it to spin misleading narratives.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 29, 2021, 08:54:29 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2021, 08:48:06 AM
Most relevant if your single criteria for college is salary.
Not so relevant if you have another objective in mind.
I would paraphrase it to:
Most relevant if one has to take 50k in loans to get a bachelor degree.
Not so relevant if you don't (either by virtue of being rich or going through college 30 years ago when tuition was way lower)
Why is it we feel the need to say obvious things or to be extraordinarily literal?
The point is very simple: we go to college for a myriad of reasons.
It is very true, I think, that the majority of students want a passport to gainful employment----in fact, this has been agreed upon so many times that I do not know why we constantly point it out.
It is also very true that people have ambitions and desires that are not entirely predicated upon salary.
I would not want to spend my adult working hours with my hands in other people's mouths, particularly considering what we will find there once people seek out a dentist. I do not care that my salary after two relatively cheap years of education and 5 years of work is better than the earnings of a bachelor's degree at the same point in life. I am not alone in this.
Certainly students balance the need for a career, cost, and outcomes; this is obvious.
I know it seems like some of us don't get it, but we get it. We don't need to point out the obvious.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2021, 09:45:52 AM
The point is very simple: we go to college for a myriad of reasons.
It is very true, I think, that the majority of students want a passport to gainful employment----in fact, this has been agreed upon so many times that I do not know why we constantly point it out.
It is also very true that people have ambitions and desires that are not entirely predicated upon salary.
Putting all this together, it means that in order to increase enrollment to one program or discipline, you're mainly going to have to find people considering other *similar or adjacent disciplines. (There aren't likely lots of people considering STEM who can be talked into humanities, or vice versa.)
*So assuming things like psychology are similar or adjacent to humanities, is there any research to show that perceptions of salary
are what drive the choice? If other factors are more important in most students' decisions, then all of the discussion about salary,
regardless of whether it's favourable or not, are beside the point.
Quote from: Caracal on March 29, 2021, 09:27:24 AM
At this point, I'm just legitimately confused about what you're trying to argue. Basically, the discussion has gone like this:
You and spork: Humanities majors are dying because of rational choices of students-look how much less English Majors earn than Engineering Majors"
Me: Certain STEM Majors earn more, but actually if you compare humanities majors to disciplines outside of STEM, and even some in it, there's really not much difference.
You and Spork: The point is that humanities majors are declining because they can't keep up with the times and provide students access to stable employment.
Me: So, wait why aren't students fleeing psychology majors since they earn about as much as English majors. And why are we so focused on the supposed penalty that students get from being a humanities major when earnings are very similar for lots of other majors.
You: Seems like your definition of comparable majors is very narrow. The point is humanities majors are only for the rich.
Data can't lie by itself, but people can certainly use it to spin misleading narratives.
From my perspective the exchange was the following (additions bolded):
You and spork: Humanities majors are dying because of rational choices of students-look how much less English Majors earn than Engineering Majors
, while increasing tuition means that those earnings are not high enough to help dealing with increasing debt load post-graduationMe: Certain STEM Majors earn more, but actually if you compare humanities majors to disciplines outside of STEM, and even some in it, there's really not much difference.
You
and Spork:
Those disciplines also are a poor choice for anyone, who needs to take large loans to get a bachelor degree. The point is that humanities majors are declining because they can't keep up with the times and provide students access to stable employment.Me:
So, wait why aren't students fleeing psychology majors since they earn about as much as English majors. And why are we so focused on the supposed penalty that students get from being a humanities major when earnings are very similar for lots of other majors. Oh? Then why do humanities majors not seem to earn much less than other comparable majors, even at non-elite universities? All assertions, no actual relevant evidence.You: Seems like your definition of comparable majors is very narrow
as you keep comparing between different poor choices. The point is humanities majors are only for the rich.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2021, 09:45:52 AM
Why is it we feel the need to say obvious things or to be extraordinarily literal?
The point is very simple: we go to college for a myriad of reasons.
My point is that the fraction of prospective students who can afford to not to prioritise earnings is steadily decreasing, thus, putting strain on humanities (and other) departments. Average student debt for graduates is already 30+k and rising.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2021, 09:45:52 AM
[. . .
The point is very simple: we go to college for a myriad of reasons.
[. . .]
There is a significant difference between the "we" coming from medium to low SES backgrounds, who need a reasonable rate of return on educational investment to (1) pay off educational debt, (2) compensate for the opportunity cost of not engaging in full-time employment while in college, and (3) stay in a higher income bracket for a significant amount of time after college, and the "we" who (a) can rely on family wealth regardless of major or institution attended or (b) are able to attend an elite university and benefit from institutional reputation and networks dense with social capital.
I happen to fall into the (b) category, which even twenty-five years ago was an extremely small proportion of the college-going population.
Quote from: spork on March 29, 2021, 10:54:59 AM
There is a significant difference between the "we" coming from medium to low SES backgrounds, who need a reasonable rate of return on educational investment
Once again, there is no need to state the obvious.
There is no need to state a recognized truism that has been agreed upon any number of times.
And why is that relevant anyway? This is not a discussion of low SES backgrounds.
Students may pursue any education they choose for whatever reasons they choose, and they may pay for it however they can.
If low SES students don't want a humanities degree, no one will force them to pursue one.
Do you have a point in bringing this up again and again?
Is there something else we should learn other than you opinion / observation that a humanities degree
might be a bad investment for someone who wants to pursue upward mobility (even though this is demonstrably not true in comparison with other degrees)?
This is a theme that several posters orbit around. Is there some sort of resentment involved?
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 29, 2021, 10:13:11 AM
You: Seems like your definition of comparable majors is very narrow as you keep comparing between different poor choices. The point is humanities majors are only for the rich.
Oh ok, so really the only good choices are certain STEM disciplines, economics and maybe business? Why didn't you just start with that ridiculous argument instead of wasting our time with all the nonsense about the humanities.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on March 29, 2021, 10:35:59 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2021, 09:45:52 AM
Why is it we feel the need to say obvious things or to be extraordinarily literal?
The point is very simple: we go to college for a myriad of reasons.
My point is that the fraction of prospective students who can afford to not to prioritise earnings is steadily decreasing, thus, putting strain on humanities (and other) departments. Average student debt for graduates is already 30+k and rising.
Agreed. It is obvious.
Your own database, however, indicates that humanities degrees are not unique in this regard.
And your own database indicates that, even with loan issues, humanities majors experience upward mobility typical of college graduates. The government will work with you on paying back your loans; I know this from experience. They are certainly a burden but not insurmountable obstacles for a lot of people.
People seem to want to hold onto their bias against the humanities even when their own information militates against their reasoning. This is why people have their opinions about the humanities.
I post again with a certain trepidation for the result...
The effects of the Covid crisis on net hiring of faculty is reported by the CUPA-HR (https://www.cupahr.org/blog/new-report-highlights-changes-to-faculty-workforce-in-the-wake-of-the-pandemic/).
QuoteIn terms of sheer number of positions, the disciplines of Business, Management, and Marketing and Biological and Biomedical Sciences lost the greatest number of faculty over the past academic year.
A vocational and a science field got hit the hardest. Not Humanities.
The biggest percentage losses were in Leisure and Recreational Activities, and Library Science, both vocational majors. Not Humanities.
Quote from: Hibush on April 12, 2021, 11:38:09 AM
I post again with a certain trepidation for the result...
The effects of the Covid crisis on net hiring of faculty is reported by the CUPA-HR (https://www.cupahr.org/blog/new-report-highlights-changes-to-faculty-workforce-in-the-wake-of-the-pandemic/).
QuoteIn terms of sheer number of positions, the disciplines of Business, Management, and Marketing and Biological and Biomedical Sciences lost the greatest number of faculty over the past academic year.
A vocational and a science field got hit the hardest. Not Humanities.
The biggest percentage losses were in Leisure and Recreational Activities, and Library Science, both vocational majors. Not Humanities.
Biology has been a not-great STEM choice for quite a while. It's worth pointing out that it is also one of the
least quantitative fields within STEM.
The absolute numbers are meaningless. Business and Bio were large. They're suely still large.
The relative decline is what matters. That leaves Library and Leisure. Could be a pure Covid effect. Don't know.
Quote from: dismalist on April 12, 2021, 11:54:48 AM
The absolute numbers are meaningless. Business and Bio were large. They're suely still large.
The relative decline is what matters. That leaves Library and Leisure. Could be a pure Covid effect. Don't know.
Biology has been heavily over-enrolled, in relation to labor market demand, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels for many years.
There was some pre-pandemic indication that "business" enrollments were starting to slip at the graduate level, basically in the non-elite MBA programs that every struggling university thought would be cash cows about thirty years ago. I would not be surprised if undergraduate business enrollments were starting to soften as well, but I haven't drilled down into the data far enough to know if this is actually the case.
Not sure which thread to put this in:
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/04/21/howard-plans-close-classics-department (https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/04/21/howard-plans-close-classics-department).
What a shame.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 21, 2021, 09:59:42 AM
What a shame.
Agreed. Especially since apparently it's the only one at an HBCU.
Hardly surprising, though. Classics enrollment would be low even if there
wasn't a language barrier (or two!). I often wonder about the point of maintaining a classics department, as opposed to redistributing it between languages, history, and philosophy. (But I'll also readily admit that I'm not super well-informed about what goes on in the classics department.)
If you break up the classics dept., you remove from one location the classicist specialists, and distribute them into various locations which do not make classics, either classical languages, history, etc., first priority. You especially devalue the teaching of classical languages, which is not properly done the same way that modern languages are taught.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 21, 2021, 09:49:35 PM
If you break up the classics dept., you remove from one location the classicist specialists, and distribute them into various locations which do not make classics, either classical languages, history, etc., first priority. You especially devalue the teaching of classical languages, which is not properly done the same way that modern languages are taught.
Aren't they? I'm reasonably confident that my classes in Attic Greek were taught similarly to my classes in Spanish and German. What was I missing about the mode of instruction?
(A genuine question, by the way. I don't mean to be dismissive about the value of the classics. I'm just not sure that the disciplinary boundaries make much sense.)
This is a problem for the field just about everywhere, save for elites and state flagships. Not that they will all close, but I have the feeling many depts. will fold and many positions will be reduced. As we've mentioned in other threads, its hardly the only example of consolidation in higher ed these days, but probably is the most extreme. As an extra special bonus to an already difficult situation, I doubt this improves morale in said (potentially former) departments.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 22, 2021, 08:05:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 21, 2021, 09:49:35 PM
If you break up the classics dept., you remove from one location the classicist specialists, and distribute them into various locations which do not make classics, either classical languages, history, etc., first priority. You especially devalue the teaching of classical languages, which is not properly done the same way that modern languages are taught.
Aren't they? I'm reasonably confident that my classes in Attic Greek were taught similarly to my classes in Spanish and German. What was I missing about the mode of instruction?
(A genuine question, by the way. I don't mean to be dismissive about the value of the classics. I'm just not sure that the disciplinary boundaries make much sense.)
Not sure that's really true. Nobody needs to be able to have conversations in Greek.
Quote from: Caracal on April 22, 2021, 11:26:23 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 22, 2021, 08:05:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 21, 2021, 09:49:35 PM
If you break up the classics dept., you remove from one location the classicist specialists, and distribute them into various locations which do not make classics, either classical languages, history, etc., first priority. You especially devalue the teaching of classical languages, which is not properly done the same way that modern languages are taught.
Aren't they? I'm reasonably confident that my classes in Attic Greek were taught similarly to my classes in Spanish and German. What was I missing about the mode of instruction?
(A genuine question, by the way. I don't mean to be dismissive about the value of the classics. I'm just not sure that the disciplinary boundaries make much sense.)
Not sure that's really true. Nobody needs to be able to have conversations in Greek.
I might be oversestimating the similarities, but we did a lot of oral exercises when I was learning classical Greek. There was more reading aloud, perhaps, and there were no oral presentations. But we had a workbook, like in my other language classes, and it even included some conversational phrases. At least, as I remember it--I don't have the text with me on this coast, so I can't check.
But yeah, I don't remember it being significantly different from my other language classes. But maybe I didn't go far enough, or I'm misremembering, or my classes were weird outliers.
Caracal is right, we do not generally teach conversational ancient Greek, whatever dialect thereof one is studying. There are a wide variety of reasons why, including 1) we do not really know what a conversation, as opposed to individual sounds, would have sounded like, esp since it is very difficult to infer what their prose rhythms (aka 'accent') would have sounded like, though we do know that it was a tone/ pitch language, like Chinese 2) the written form was very diglossic, much more so than the differences between written and spoken forms of any dialect of English, or even German or French (modern Greek continues this dichotomy to a large extent-- classical Latin is much the same) 3) it is a very complicated language grammatically, and appreciably different from English, and any conversational Attic speaking would be very limited until and unless the learner actually learns to start *thinking* in it, something very hard to accomplish when there are no longer any native speakers left, country where it is spoken, etc.
Now, of course, I do not know how you learned whatever modern foreign/ second languages you studied (you're a native francophone, right?)-- but it is also very possible you may have studied one or more of these with a basically 'grammar-translation' approach that was until recent generations used for modern languages as it is for classical ones. This is not necessarily awful, esp when the students are post-pubescent adolescents or adults-- it would be inappropriate for children. I use this method myself, but then again most of the langs I teach have been classical ones. It is however almost certainly true that no one could obtain real fluency in a modern language without significant immersion time in an L2 environment, best accomplished by living in a place where said language is spoken. This is the main reason why I have never fulfilled a long-time wish to learn Spanish, since I see no option for doing this. I have little to no doubt I could become, on my own, a fluent reader and writer of it in six weeks, but that is not the same as speaking it.
I teach a dead language, and I went to a big workshop our university was having about incorporating all the best methods into language teaching. We were supposed to report on whether we had our students reading social media in the target language, how many blogs in the target language were assigned, whether we were using menus in the target language, whether our students were listening to native speaker videos on YouTube ... and on and on. None of these were very applicable to my particular dead language, or probably to almost any dead language. Sure, you could make up some menus in Greek and find a few Vatican blogs in Latin. That's not the kind of "dynamic contemporary engagement" the workshop really meant.
Quote from: Hegemony on April 23, 2021, 01:40:36 AM
I teach a dead language, and I went to a big workshop our university was having about incorporating all the best methods into language teaching. We were supposed to report on whether we had our students reading social media in the target language, how many blogs in the target language were assigned, whether we were using menus in the target language, whether our students were listening to native speaker videos on YouTube ... and on and on. None of these were very applicable to my particular dead language, or probably to almost any dead language. Sure, you could make up some menus in Greek and find a few Vatican blogs in Latin. That's not the kind of "dynamic contemporary engagement" the workshop really meant.
I can just see language students Facebooking in Old Church Slavonic or biblical Hebrew.
Again unsure which thread to put this in:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/heres-who-was-hit-hardest-by-higher-eds-pandemic-driven-job-losses (https://www.chronicle.com/article/heres-who-was-hit-hardest-by-higher-eds-pandemic-driven-job-losses).
12% decrease in the higher ed labor force during the pandemic.
I find it interesting that the college-educated people who are profiled studied ESL/English/rhet & comp (3), biology (1), math (1), and physics (1).
We lost our very sweet, funny, Army-vet admin assistant who supports hu's elderly mother. Multiple departments were combined, and I know several administrative positions vanished in the crunch.
Our actual enrollment numbers for online classes increased a bit, and we are actually hiring a TT line right now, but I don't know about the adjuncts because, quite frankly, only a few of them were ever around.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 22, 2021, 10:04:25 PM
Caracal is right, we do not generally teach conversational ancient Greek, whatever dialect thereof one is studying. There are a wide variety of reasons why, including 1) we do not really know what a conversation, as opposed to individual sounds, would have sounded like, esp since it is very difficult to infer what their prose rhythms (aka 'accent') would have sounded like, though we do know that it was a tone/ pitch language, like Chinese 2) the written form was very diglossic, much more so than the differences between written and spoken forms of any dialect of English, or even German or French (modern Greek continues this dichotomy to a large extent-- classical Latin is much the same) 3) it is a very complicated language grammatically, and appreciably different from English, and any conversational Attic speaking would be very limited until and unless the learner actually learns to start *thinking* in it, something very hard to accomplish when there are no longer any native speakers left, country where it is spoken, etc.
Now, of course, I do not know how you learned whatever modern foreign/ second languages you studied (you're a native francophone, right?)-- but it is also very possible you may have studied one or more of these with a basically 'grammar-translation' approach that was until recent generations used for modern languages as it is for classical ones. This is not necessarily awful, esp when the students are post-pubescent adolescents or adults-- it would be inappropriate for children. I use this method myself, but then again most of the langs I teach have been classical ones. It is however almost certainly true that no one could obtain real fluency in a modern language without significant immersion time in an L2 environment, best accomplished by living in a place where said language is spoken. This is the main reason why I have never fulfilled a long-time wish to learn Spanish, since I see no option for doing this. I have little to no doubt I could become, on my own, a fluent reader and writer of it in six weeks, but that is not the same as speaking it.
Thanks for that.
You are welcome.
It is also perhaps also a dirty little secret that most classicists, like it or not, are not really qualified to teach classical langs conversationally. I do not want to do this, for reasons I mentioned above, but it is true nonetheless that I have no training in it and would have to learn on the fly if I tried to do so. I tried to do some of this some years back when I had to teach a Latin class to 5th/6th grade kids, but my heart was not in it, largely because 1) I do not think kids that young belong in Latin class and 2) I do not have the chops to teach kids that young. I had a phone interview this winter with a business that teached online Latin classes to the homeschool market, and was not hired-- I thought I knew why, based on the interview, so I took the chance to write and ask for feedback. The guy essentially confirmed my impressions, namely that my unwillingness to do conversational Latin was not what they wanted. I get that this approach is probably more marketable to their target audience, but it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin, really, it just doesn't.
On the other hand, I have a classicist friend who is very into the "active Latin" or "living Latin" approach to language teaching and learning. There are organizations dedicated to this, not only in the Catholic Church. And they do indeed have podcasts and Twitter and Facebook accounts. I suspect that they would disagree that "it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin", though I don't know the relevant research myself. It sounded like my friend had some fun conversations with students about their feles who kept Zoom-bombing class this past semester, though!
To come back to the original topic of the thread, it sounds like a potentially useful tool for student engagement. Their classes seem to be quite popular.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 23, 2021, 10:05:49 PM
1) I tried to do some of this some years back when I had to teach a Latin class to 5th/6th grade kids.... I do not think kids that young belong in Latin class
They were a few years too old. As the nature receptivity to additional languages declines with age, the greater difficulty in learning also makes it sticking too it much harder. Especially when learning other things is getting easier.
QuoteI get that this approach is probably more marketable to their target audience, but it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin, really, it just doesn't.
If speaking the language keeps college-aged learners engaged, they will spend time on the deeper understanding. It can be acknowledged that they are not speaking in a way that would have been understood in ancient Rome, but some modern invention. Do you think that is a fair tradeoff for having more students learning serious classics?
As to speaking Latin, it was required on university campuses (including those in the New World) until some time in the 18th c.
John Dunster's trial for heterodoxy was held in spoken Latin, both by the prosecution and the defense (he defended his Anapaedobaptist beliefs himself).
And the course on Hildegaard's sermons, held on the same campus 350 years later, included twenty individuals fluently reading aloud as required to clear up a vexed transcription.
So it's not a useless skill to have, nor completely out of date....
M.
Quote from: namazu on April 24, 2021, 03:32:41 AM
On the other hand, I have a classicist friend who is very into the "active Latin" or "living Latin" approach to language teaching and learning. There are organizations dedicated to this, not only in the Catholic Church. And they do indeed have podcasts and Twitter and Facebook accounts. I suspect that they would disagree that "it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin", though I don't know the relevant research myself. It sounded like my friend had some fun conversations with students about their feles who kept Zoom-bombing class this past semester, though!
To come back to the original topic of the thread, it sounds like a potentially useful tool for student engagement. Their classes seem to be quite popular.
At the university library media center where I used to work I recall receiving a video entitled
Latin Laughs. It was a modern production, in Latin, of a play by Plautus. Student engagement in a threatened subject is good.
In all honesty, I feel horrible about what is happening with Classics even if it is sort of inevitable with any small field, at least during times when even academia seems focused on the hyper practical (understood some risk going under. If they don't). My brothers and I took Latin from 7th to 12th grade. One of my brothers took a few classes in college even though he knew he was going to be pre med (and yes, actually became a doc). We liked our teachers. I think we learned quite a lot about language, culture and history. I think my high school is still teaching Latin! Not sure what to do though. If someone is retiring or quitting and enrollments are down or in some cases non existent, how do we justify continuing if we have limited resources?
Quote from: mamselle on April 24, 2021, 05:17:45 AM
As to speaking Latin, it was required on university campuses (including those in the New World) until some time in the 18th c.
John Dunster's trial for heterodoxy was held in spoken Latin, both by the prosecution and the defense (he defended his Anapaedobaptist beliefs himself).
And the course on Hildegaard's sermons, held on the same campus 350 years later, included twenty individuals fluently reading aloud as required to clear up a vexed transcription.
So it's not a useless skill to have, nor completely out of date....
M.
Species descriptions in (biological) taxonomy were published in Latin until quite recently. Organism names are still in Latin, and a lot of the words to describe things are nominally English, but really mostly Latin (e.g. spatulate, cuneate, falcate, peltate, hastate are a few of the English words used to describe leaf shape (https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/termlf2.htm). Good luck with those if you don't know Botanical Latin!)
Biological Latin continue to be taught so to some extent. Latin names of organisms are pronounced in the local dialect. That is, Italians, Australians, Canadians and Texans all pronounce the Latin words in legitimately distinctive ways. There are various mutually exclusive conventions of pronunciation that are all considered valid. (Is your Forsythia blooming? One convention has you pronouncing that Forsythe-EE-ah because
Forsythe isn't Latin.)
The latest International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (https://code.iczn.org/introduction/?frame=1) notes that "Another major underlying policy issue currently being questioned is the adherence to Latin grammar which the Code requires in a number of its Articles; few zoologists today, or in the future, can be expected to have
any understanding of that language and many find the requirements burdensome." Why are not classics professors roaming the halls of the biology building telling professors and advisors that they do not have to give in the this deterioration of their science?
What is happening to classics departments internationally? What about medieval studies? Near Eastern Studies?
The scholarly study of these topics will still go on even if a lot of universities get rid of these departments. And students will be able to still do some study of these topics, even if it is in other departments. Students seem to love studying past cultures and that will draw some interest into past languages.
While those areas may not be thriving, it would he helpful to be clear on what is being lost as they decline.
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 24, 2021, 06:27:03 AM
In all honesty, I feel horrible about what is happening with Classics even if it is sort of inevitable with any small field, at least during times when even academia seems focused on the hyper practical (understood some risk going under. If they don't). My brothers and I took Latin from 7th to 12th grade. One of my brothers took a few classes in college even though he knew he was going to be pre med (and yes, actually became a doc). We liked our teachers. I think we learned quite a lot about language, culture and history. I think my high school is still teaching Latin! Not sure what to do though. If someone is retiring or quitting and enrollments are down or in some cases non existent, how do we justify continuing if we have limited resources?
I'm well aware of what is being lost, but if you lose a faculty member, don't replace them, and then consolidate the departments, then something *is* lost regarding the study of the subject. I also said I was clear that this is not as big of a thing amongst elite or flagship state schools (and probably some others).
I get that if a subject just doesn't have foot traffic, it will shrink in terms of the discipline as a whole. I know people won't stop studying (Ancient) Greek and Latin, but it will end its life as a pillar of many smaller schools.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 23, 2021, 10:05:49 PM
It is also perhaps also a dirty little secret that most classicists, like it or not, are not really qualified to teach classical langs conversationally.
Classicist here. This is absolutely true. But it is changing. Latin, and ancient Greek are being taught, successfully, as active languages, and the active Latin approach is becoming popular in grade school and also in post secondary, in particular at the University of Kentucky (home to a very successful undergrad and grad program taught in Latin, and home of a Conventiculum --- week-long immersion event in spoken Latin, and now also a Synoidos, which is their week-long immersion event in ancient Greek) and at U Mass Boston, and Oxford (to name just a few); the Pope's former Latinist now teaches active Latin at Cornell. There are lots more places where one can learn both an active command of the languages and how to use active language in the classroom.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 23, 2021, 10:05:49 PM
I get that this approach is probably more marketable to their target audience, but it does not help the students to actually learn to read real Latin, really, it just doesn't.
I respectfully disagree here. Learning a language, any language, as a *language* does help one to learn to read and understand the language in real time, rather than only after it's been decoded into English (or whatever your first language is). Training the brain to understand the language in real time means you can read and understand the original Latin authors. Active fluency in a language is something we should aim for, including Latin and ancient Greek.
Which is why, in addition to having my Firefox and Adobe language preferences set to "French," for day-to-day use, I've been thinking of getting my dual-page copy of the Vetus and the Vulgate down for morning prayers. (I already read Compline in French....)
M.
Quote from: Erictho on April 25, 2021, 08:07:46 AM
I respectfully disagree here. Learning a language, any language, as a *language* does help one to learn to read and understand the language in real time, rather than only after it's been decoded into English (or whatever your first language is). Training the brain to understand the language in real time means you can read and understand the original Latin authors. Active fluency in a language is something we should aim for, including Latin and ancient Greek.
Is it possible this approach might work better for some students and worse for others?
My admittedly limited experience with this is that I struggled with languages in high school and college. I took four years of Spanish and never acquired even rudimentary fluency. In college I took an old English class that was a lot of translation and while it wasn't easy, I had a much easier time studying a language that I was just trying to learn how to read, not converse in.
That said, Old English is only sort of a foreign language, which is why I continue to find it kind of fascinating, but maybe that part made it a lot easier than learning Latin would be.
Quote from: Caracal on April 25, 2021, 11:50:29 AM
Quote from: Erictho on April 25, 2021, 08:07:46 AM
I respectfully disagree here. Learning a language, any language, as a *language* does help one to learn to read and understand the language in real time, rather than only after it's been decoded into English (or whatever your first language is). Training the brain to understand the language in real time means you can read and understand the original Latin authors. Active fluency in a language is something we should aim for, including Latin and ancient Greek.
Is it possible this approach might work better for some students and worse for others?
Oh yes, absolutely. No one approach, whether it the living / active language approach or the traditional "G'n'T" (Grammar and Translation) approach works best for everyone.
Old English is not just "only sort of a foreign language"; it is entirely a foreign language, with a few words recognizable to modern English speakers, just as is the case in modern German. " Hafast þu gefered þæt ðe feor ond neah ealne wideferhþ weras ehtigað, efne swa side swa sæ bebugeð, windgeard, weallas" — that's not just "only sort of a foreign language" so that your average person on the street can tell you what it means — nor do undergrads pick it up without a lot of work.
It's especially fun at Kalamazoo when a whole group of early linguists get together and read a play or take turns reading a treatise of some kind in one of the after-dinner gatherings.*
The conference I just participated in a week ago, in its in-person incarnation, two years before, included a table full of Chaucer scholars going around and taking turns reading from the original of "The Wife of Bath."
Arguments over questionable pronunciations and interpretations got quite interesting.
M.
*Oh, and if you attend one of the monastic groups' sessions, they practically do start arguing in Latin--the length of the quotes they've memorized, from Aristotle to Augustine to Aquinas and on, become ripostes with hidden jests and responsive meanings as well. Heady stuff. - M.
Quote from: Hegemony on April 25, 2021, 12:36:15 PM
[. . .]
nor do undergrads pick it up without a lot of work.
The standard U.S. gen ed requirement of two semesters of a language other than modern English is not driving hordes of people into classics or other humanities graduate programs. Nor is it making bachelor's degrees in humanities fields more popular. Interest and proficiency in languages other than English is another example of K-12 failure. Trying to gin up interest in multilingualism and willingness to make the necessary effort is a fruitless exercise for the majority of U.S. undergraduates, especially when language courses are presented in curricula as a meaningless one-and-done requirement.
In our nascent curriculum review, the languages will likely get some cuts, but so will the sciences. Our gen ed requirements for both of those are a bit more rich than most places. At least at my school, they don't have very many majors, and if it weren't for the gen eds, they'd all be in some jeopardy (modern not being much better off that classics, without gen eds included).
Quote from: Hegemony on April 25, 2021, 12:36:15 PM
Old English is not just "only sort of a foreign language"; it is entirely a foreign language, with a few words recognizable to modern English speakers, just as is the case in modern German. " Hafast þu gefered þæt ðe feor ond neah ealne wideferhþ weras ehtigað, efne swa side swa sæ bebugeð, windgeard, weallas" — that's not just "only sort of a foreign language" so that your average person on the street can tell you what it means — nor do undergrads pick it up without a lot of work.
Old English is, indeed, an entirely different language. I found it extremely difficult, but I would be all for reinstituting the thorn and wynn.
Thought of this thread while reading this article about choosing one's college major. (https://magazine.scu.edu/magazines/spring-2021/value-proposition/)
Santa Clara University is located in the middle of Silicon Valley and has excellent local professional programs. What do fora readers think?
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 25, 2021, 07:55:00 PM
Thought of this thread while reading this article about choosing one's college major. (https://magazine.scu.edu/magazines/spring-2021/value-proposition/)
Santa Clara University is located in the middle of Silicon Valley and has excellent local professional programs. What do fora readers think?
The quote most pertinent to our discussion here is "the job students think they are preparing themselves for, by majoring in what appears to them to be a practical or immediately applicable field, they could have gotten that same job with a humanities degree," strikes me as untrue for many fields. The specific situation she's likely referring to is the original anecdote where someone studies "practical" tech that they hate and ultimately get a non-tech job that suits them.
The attitude seems right for getting humanities majors jobs when "the English Department has ramped up its internship program and brought in consultants to help students "identify and give names to the skills they had gained as English majors and learn to articulate them and translate them into language that would be of value in the job marketplace." Those internships are often with local tech firms as well as others.
They also have very good students. How many of your humanities majors think like this one? "Ultimately offered a job at Apple [7 mi from campus] after graduation, Yang says she hustled to take advantage of every career prep opportunity she could find at Santa Clara—from networking groups and mentorship circles to career fairs and student clubs. ... You have to learn skills that are attractive to recruiters. Taking classes wasn't enough, they're looking for leadership, technical skills ... you have to package it nicely, so an employer finds you valuable."
I think of Santa Clara as training and connecting a lot of the non-tech business leadership in the south bay. Construction companies, banks, law firms, government... Go the the successful ones around San José, and you will find Santa Clara alumni.
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 25, 2021, 07:55:00 PM
Thought of this thread while reading this article about choosing one's college major. (https://magazine.scu.edu/magazines/spring-2021/value-proposition/)
Santa Clara University is located in the middle of Silicon Valley and has excellent local professional programs. What do fora readers think?
Here's an interesting point:
Quote
As part of orientation a few years ago, Rose Nakamoto, director of Santa Clara's Career Center, says the vast majority of first-year students said they think about their future every single day.
That's consistent with the nationwide trend of people going to college not to expand their worldviews or become inquisitive scholars—at least, those aren't the primary reasons—Nakamoto says, citing UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute findings that 83.5% of college freshmen said the No. 1 reason was really "getting a better job."
Perhaps this provides a bit of nuance to these discussions about "job training" versus "expanding their worldviews". It's not specifically about getting "a" job, but getting a "better" job.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 04:07:48 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 25, 2021, 07:55:00 PM
Thought of this thread while reading this article about choosing one's college major. (https://magazine.scu.edu/magazines/spring-2021/value-proposition/)
Santa Clara University is located in the middle of Silicon Valley and has excellent local professional programs. What do fora readers think?
Here's an interesting point:
Quote
As part of orientation a few years ago, Rose Nakamoto, director of Santa Clara's Career Center, says the vast majority of first-year students said they think about their future every single day.
That's consistent with the nationwide trend of people going to college not to expand their worldviews or become inquisitive scholars—at least, those aren't the primary reasons—Nakamoto says, citing UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute findings that 83.5% of college freshmen said the No. 1 reason was really "getting a better job."
Perhaps this provides a bit of nuance to these discussions about "job training" versus "expanding their worldviews". It's not specifically about getting "a" job, but getting a "better" job.
Burnham's statement about "mindsets" indicates that she has very little knowledge of how, why, or what people learn in college.
That 19% decrease in education studies: if "education studies" means "programs for K-12 teaching licensure," low post-college salaries and curricular structure might explain some of the decrease (e.g., if you're capable of getting a B.A. in economics and teaching for a few years after college through Teach For America before exercising some other occupational option, why major in education?).
Quote from: Hegemony on April 25, 2021, 12:36:15 PM
Old English is not just "only sort of a foreign language"; it is entirely a foreign language, with a few words recognizable to modern English speakers, just as is the case in modern German. " Hafast þu gefered þæt ðe feor ond neah ealne wideferhþ weras ehtigað, efne swa side swa sæ bebugeð, windgeard, weallas" — that's not just "only sort of a foreign language" so that your average person on the street can tell you what it means — nor do undergrads pick it up without a lot of work.
Even in translation it's still "sort of a foreign language," until you figure out what phrases like "whale-road" and "wound-hoe" mean.
Hearing people speak Old English reminds me vaguely of the Swedish Chef. Which may well be what we modern English speakers sound like to non-speakers.
Provosts: liberal arts education is in decline.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-shows-how-provosts-faced-pandemic (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-shows-how-provosts-faced-pandemic)
Quote from: spork on April 26, 2021, 12:14:49 PM
Provosts: liberal arts education is in decline.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-shows-how-provosts-faced-pandemic (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-shows-how-provosts-faced-pandemic)
Interesting quote:
Quote
While 93 percent agree that a liberal arts education is central to undergraduate studies, 73 percent said that they expect to see the number of liberal arts colleges decline significantly over the next five years. Additionally, most (92 percent) say that liberal arts education is not well understood in the U.S.
For people who think "liberal arts education" is
central to undergraduate studies, they clearly aren't very competent at marketing if
liberal arts education is not well understood in the U.S.(And these are people in the business of education; i.e.
explaining things to people.) It's pretty ironic.
On edit: More of the same
Quote
On general education, the provosts are, again, strong supporters. Ninety-three percent said that general education is a crucial part of any college degree.
But only 26 percent agree that "students at my college understand the purpose of our general education requirements."
If they can't even explain the purpose of gen. ed. to
their own students, good luck explaining it outside the ivory tower.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 12:44:24 PM
For people who think "liberal arts education" is central to undergraduate studies, they clearly aren't very competent at marketing if liberal arts education is not well understood in the U.S.
(And these are people in the business of education; i.e. explaining things to people.) It's pretty ironic.
Quote
But only 26 percent agree that "students at my college understand the purpose of our general education requirements."
If they can't even explain the purpose of gen. ed. to their own students, good luck explaining it outside the ivory tower.
The irony is acute, no doubt about it. I wonder whether there is a disparity among colleges, as in all else.
There are places like Santa Clara just above and Columbia that draw thoughtful and driven students who seek out the liberal-arts experience, and that deliver a curriculum that is both true to the tradition and fully engaged in preparing students for a meaningful career.
The other group either attracts student to their liberal-arts curriculum who don't understand the purpose of their presence, or that are so high in the ivory tower that "getting a job after college" is a difficult-to-grasp concept that apparently applies to the ant-sized people one spies when looking out the windows.
I was interested in the comment that liberal arts colleges offer a high ROI, and looked at the corresponding report,
https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Liberal-Arts-ROI.pdf
To me, it seems like liberal arts colleges that offer a high ROI tend to be the small elite private liberal arts colleges, which do not have to content to significant numbers of low income students. The irony of course is that the "liberal arts" college with the highest ROI is Harvey Mudd, which is essentially the Clairemont Colleges' answer to Caltech.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 02:31:19 PM
I was interested in the comment that liberal arts colleges offer a high ROI, and looked at the corresponding report,
https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Liberal-Arts-ROI.pdf
To me, it seems like liberal arts colleges that offer a high ROI tend to be the small elite private liberal arts colleges, which do not have to content to significant numbers of low income students. The irony of course is that the "liberal arts" college with the highest ROI is Harvey Mudd, which is essentially the Clairemont Colleges' answer to Caltech.
How strong is the correlation between % engineering majors and post-graduation income among small colleges? Engineers tend to have significantly higher income out the gate, so that alone seems to be a big contributor to institutional means and medians.
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 04:39:40 PM
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Well, as above, if they can't explain to their own students, they probably can't explain to their own board members either.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 04:45:01 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 04:39:40 PM
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Well, as above, if they can't explain to their own students, they probably can't explain to their own board members either.
Who said we (or they) can't explain?
I think there have been lots of cogent, logical explanations.
What I see are obdurate mindsets based on misinformation and weird biases.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 04:45:01 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 04:39:40 PM
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Well, as above, if they can't explain to their own students, they probably can't explain to their own board members either.
Until local employers complain to the board members that students can't write, don't seem to have read any good books or know basic facts about American history.
Then of course everyone says they should have learned all this in high school. Or middle school. Oh wait, it's cultural competence that comes from being a middle-class white kid.
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 26, 2021, 05:38:15 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 04:45:01 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 04:39:40 PM
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Well, as above, if they can't explain to their own students, they probably can't explain to their own board members either.
Until local employers complain to the board members that students can't write, don't seem to have read any good books or know basic facts about American history.
Then of course everyone says they should have learned all this in high school. Or middle school. Oh wait, it's cultural competence that comes from being a middle-class white kid.
Except for the first issue, about students not being able to write, I'm not sure why employers would care. In any case, are you suggesting that engineers can't write?
Quote from: Hibush on April 26, 2021, 04:37:39 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 02:31:19 PM
I was interested in the comment that liberal arts colleges offer a high ROI, and looked at the corresponding report,
https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Liberal-Arts-ROI.pdf
To me, it seems like liberal arts colleges that offer a high ROI tend to be the small elite private liberal arts colleges, which do not have to content to significant numbers of low income students. The irony of course is that the "liberal arts" college with the highest ROI is Harvey Mudd, which is essentially the Clairemont Colleges' answer to Caltech.
How strong is the correlation between % engineering majors and post-graduation income among small colleges? Engineers tend to have significantly higher income out the gate, so that alone seems to be a big contributor to institutional means and medians.
Well, the same report did state there was a strong correlation between ROI and percentage of STEM (in particular engineering) majors. Although I'm not sure how many liberal arts colleges there are with engineering majors (maybe Harvey Mudd), so that seemed a bit strange.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 06:09:23 PM
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 26, 2021, 05:38:15 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 04:45:01 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 04:39:40 PM
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Well, as above, if they can't explain to their own students, they probably can't explain to their own board members either.
Until local employers complain to the board members that students can't write, don't seem to have read any good books or know basic facts about American history.
Then of course everyone says they should have learned all this in high school. Or middle school. Oh wait, it's cultural competence that comes from being a middle-class white kid.
Except for the first issue, about students not being able to write, I'm not sure why employers would care. In any case, are you suggesting that engineers can't write?
Engineers have to be able to write. Engineering students do not always know how to write. That's where I come in.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 06:11:38 PMEngineers have to be able to write. Engineering students do not always know how to write. That's where I come in.
Fair enough, but I still see that as a failing of K-12 education, if an engineering student does not possess the necessary level of language proficiency to function in an engineering setting.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 06:18:29 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 06:11:38 PMEngineers have to be able to write. Engineering students do not always know how to write. That's where I come in.
Fair enough, but I still see that as a failing of K-12 education, if an engineering student does not possess the necessary level of language proficiency to function in an engineering setting.
There was a study done some years ago for PMLA which looked at the beginnings of college composition----the first college comp class was at Harvard, and it was all the way back (I think late 19th century). I do remember that Harvard initiated this class only until local high schools could be brought up to snuff.
A 100 years later we are still waiting for the high schools to get up to snuff.
It amazes me that people who comprehend that you do not have a bona fide engineer without extensive training expect people to simply pick up something as difficult as writing, ptttthhh, pow-zoom! out of high school.
The author of the article came to the conclusion that 18 and 19 year olds generally do not write very well and never have. And yet we have magical thinking on the subject of teenage writers.
I'll see if I can locate it one of these days.
In other words, mleok, no, the high schools produce literate people. College fine-tunes them. It's always worked this way and it is magical thinking to believe otherwise.
It's also an iterative process. They learn the basics of writing, then continue writing as they learn about more complex subjects and how to express these concepts.
Hence, WAC - Writing Across the Curriculum. Is that still even a thing?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 06:32:21 PMIn other words, mleok, no, the high schools produce literate people. College fine-tunes them. It's always worked this way and it is magical thinking to believe otherwise.
Well, I guess the question is how well do engineers actually need to write. In my high school, based on the UK system of education, we had a subject called "General Paper," which I assure you is pitched at a higher level than most college writing courses in the US.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 06:09:23 PM
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 26, 2021, 05:38:15 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 26, 2021, 04:45:01 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 04:39:40 PM
Quote
Most provosts (84 percent) agree that a high-quality undergraduate education requires healthy departments in fields like English. But they also note that politicians and board members are prioritizing STEM and professional programs over general education (72 percent).
So, the professional educators have one opinion.
The politicians and board members have another.
Well, as above, if they can't explain to their own students, they probably can't explain to their own board members either.
Until local employers complain to the board members that students can't write, don't seem to have read any good books or know basic facts about American history.
Then of course everyone says they should have learned all this in high school. Or middle school. Oh wait, it's cultural competence that comes from being a middle-class white kid.
Except for the first issue, about students not being able to write, I'm not sure why employers would care. In any case, are you suggesting that engineers can't write?
Because you take a recent college grad out with an important client, and that client refers to Charles Dickens or James Baldwin or the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and the kid says "huh?"
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 26, 2021, 06:55:26 PMBecause you take a recent college grad out with an important client, and that client refers to Charles Dickens or James Baldwin or the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and the kid says "huh?"
That important client could also bring up the latest results from CERN that challenge the Standard Model of particle physics, what's your point again? And in any case, don't they cover Dickens and the Archduke Ferdinand in high school? Honestly, all I hear from this thread is evidence of how horrible K-12 education is, as opposed to need for humanities at the college level.
Quote from: ciao_yall on April 26, 2021, 06:52:37 PM
It's also an iterative process. They learn the basics of writing, then continue writing as they learn about more complex subjects and how to express these concepts.
Hence, WAC - Writing Across the Curriculum. Is that still even a thing?
Yes. It is still very much a thing, and for the very reason you articulate.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 06:54:11 PM
Well, I guess the question is how well do engineers actually need to write. In my high school, based on the UK system of education, we had a subject called "General Paper," which I assure you is pitched at a higher level than most college writing courses in the US.
I would assume, mleok, that you know that engineers have to be able to write very well and spend a fair amount of their professional time writing.
It is not poetry, but engineering writing needs to be very precise and cogent and capable of relaying complex information in a restraining format. I've taught a lot of engineers and worked with engineering professors on their students' writing. Engineers need to be a very particular kind of wordsmith.
I'm sure your "general paper" was aaaaammmmaaazing as these things always are in debates of this sort, but writing is like playing guitar.
I've played several instruments, and the guitar is by far the easiest, particularly if one strums the instrument (rather than classical or flamenco style) and particularly if one plays familiar pop-music which usually uses 3 to 5 chord progressions. You literally can have someone take a month or so's worth of lessons and have them playing guitar.
This is kind of like writing. In short order you can have native speakers writing in basic formats and forming basic arguments, summaries, explanations, etc. And most college kids are actually pretty good writers, all things considered, even at open-enrollment places like mine.
But if you want a good writer, like a good guitar player, it takes a great deal of work. You want to strum out a simple pop-culture tune? A couple of months will have you on your way. You want a sonata? You've got years, maybe decades, of steady work.
Professors want students who can play sonatas and deal with the really difficult material. What some professors don't want are all these pesky classes in which students are expected to read, diagnose, summarize, analyze and apply concepts which maybe teach them how to play a sonata. Some professors want a magical thing.
Our high schools are vast, complicated, expensive but underfunded things which incorporate all classes and socioeconomic groups in America. We want them to solve all our problems. We don't want to have to pay for them, of course, any more than we want to have to pay for our colleges. We just want the magic.
We want the sonata without the practice, and we don't want to pay for it or support each other as we work towards a common goal.
And again, I am looking for definitive proof that European-style (yes, thank you, I know there are differences between countries) education is axiomatically better than American education. Nor for that matter is there proof that Asian education models (yes, thank you, I know there are differences) are axiomatically better. I've seen the testing results for math etc. where America ranks somewhere in the middle, but I've also taught Chinese students who resent the rafts of facts they are forced to memorize without being allowed any creativity on their own parts (yes, thank you, I know I've simplified here----this is simply what my Chinese students told me).
So I don't know where that leaves us.
I'll settle for being able to identify an argument, its conclusion, and its premises. But that would require reading the text first. *old man grumble*
Or even just following instructions. *old man double grumble harrumph*
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 07:41:05 PMI would assume, mleok, that you know that engineers have to be able to write very well and spend a fair amount of their professional time writing.
It is not poetry, but engineering writing needs to be very precise and cogent and capable of relaying complex information in a restraining format. I've taught a lot of engineers and worked with engineering professors on their students' writing. Engineers need to be a very particular kind of wordsmith.
I'm sure your "general paper" was aaaaammmmaaazing as these things always are in debates of this sort, but writing is like playing guitar.
I've played several instruments, and the guitar is by far the easiest, particularly if one strums the instrument (rather than classical or flamenco style) and particularly if one plays familiar pop-music which usually uses 3 to 5 chord progressions. You literally can have someone take a month or so's worth of lessons and have them playing guitar.
This is kind of like writing. In short order you can have native speakers writing in basic formats and forming basic arguments, summaries, explanations, etc. And most college kids are actually pretty good writers, all things considered, even at open-enrollment places like mine.
But if you want a good writer, like a good guitar player, it takes a great deal of work. You want to strum out a simple pop-culture tune? A couple of months will have you on your way. You want a sonata? You've got years, maybe decades, of steady work.
Professors want students who can play sonatas and deal with the really difficult material. What some professors don't want are all these pesky classes in which students are expected to read, diagnose, summarize, analyze and apply concepts which maybe teach them how to play a sonata. Some professors want a magical thing.
Our high schools are vast, complicated, expensive but underfunded things which incorporate all classes and socioeconomic groups in America. We want them to solve all our problems. We don't want to have to pay for them, of course, any more than we want to have to pay for our colleges. We just want the magic.
We want the sonata without the practice, and we don't want to pay for it or support each other as we work towards a common goal.
And again, I am looking for definitive proof that European-style (yes, thank you, I know there are differences between countries) education is axiomatically better than American education. Nor for that matter is there proof that Asian education models (yes, thank you, I know there are differences) are axiomatically better. I've seen the testing results for math etc. where America ranks somewhere in the middle, but I've also taught Chinese students who resent the rafts of facts they are forced to memorize without being allowed any creativity on their own parts (yes, thank you, I know I've simplified here----this is simply what my Chinese students told me).
So I don't know where that leaves us.
I agree that engineers need to write precisely, I just don't think that most general education humanities requires come anywhere close to addressing that required competency. A writing across the curriculum approach might do more to address this need. And, maybe you should go learn more about alternative systems of education before you continue to opine in an uninformed fashion on this topic.
Caltech, for example, has a scientific writing requirement as part of its core curriculum, and it offers the following classes to satisfy that requirement,
https://catalog.caltech.edu/current/courses/department/SEC
but there are also discipline specific classes, like MATH 11. But, it's a fairly minimal requirement, because a typical class at Caltech is 9 units (9 hours of work per week), and the scientific writing requirement only requires one quarter long 3 unit class.
QuoteMa 11. Mathematical Writing. 3 units (0-0-3): third term. Prerequisites: Freshmen must have instructor's permission to enroll. Students will work with the instructor and a mentor to write and revise a self-contained paper dealing with a topic in mathematics. In the first week, an introduction to some matters of style and format will be given in a classroom setting. Some help with typesetting in TeX may be available. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the Hixon Writing Center's facilities. The mentor and the topic are to be selected in consultation with the instructor. It is expected that in most cases the paper will be in the style of a textbook or journal article, at the level of the student's peers (mathematics students at Caltech). Fulfills the Institute scientific writing requirement. Not offered on a pass/fail basis.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 26, 2021, 07:41:05 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 06:54:11 PM
Well, I guess the question is how well do engineers actually need to write. In my high school, based on the UK system of education, we had a subject called "General Paper," which I assure you is pitched at a higher level than most college writing courses in the US.
I would assume, mleok, that you know that engineers have to be able to write very well and spend a fair amount of their professional time writing.
It is not poetry, but engineering writing needs to be very precise and cogent and capable of relaying complex information in a restraining format. I've taught a lot of engineers and worked with engineering professors on their students' writing. Engineers need to be a very particular kind of wordsmith.
So are you arguing that engineering graduates in the US are significantly better writers than engineering graduates in *other countries,
or that high school in the US is so much worse than high school in other countries that their students need more post-secondary remedial writing?
*i.e. other countries that don't have special writing courses that people have to take beyond the courses within their own discipline
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 06:59:26 PMHonestly, all I hear from this thread is evidence of how horrible K-12 education is, as opposed to need for humanities at the college level.
And that, as much as anything, is why the humanities are in trouble at the college level. A big part of why there's little "market" for them is because students at the K-12 level are either not being made aware of them, or are learning about them in a way that fails to excite any sort of interest in learning more about them--or, it would appear, anything else. I don't know how much of this is the schools' fault. Our society places so very little value on work and learning of any kind, and at least half of our children are growing up in grossly dysfunctional household situations of a sort that place a serious drag on school achievement.
Some things seem not to have changed too much, then.
I still recall, as a high-school senior, sitting in Trigonometry class listening to our math instructor (who taught all but Algebra I in that small suburban high school) yell for about 10 min. at one of the high-strung, not-as-bright-as-he-thought-he-was guys in class who'd just been dumb enough to say under his breath, "Yeah, well, English, I don't need English, I'm going to be an Engineer...." after seeing his latest British Lit grade.
The point of the instructor's rant was that her husband, who taught engineering at OSU, up the road, always had several such students in his grad program, and he had to work with them on their writing whenever grants were due.
And he really hated that....so she wasn't having any nonsense from her students on the subject and they could just re-think their attitudes.
The kid (and his friends) sort of shuffled in their seats and shut up after that.
M.
Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style. I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication. I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful. I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?
Quote from: mamselle on April 27, 2021, 11:14:41 AM
I still recall, as a high-school senior, sitting in Trigonometry class listening to our math instructor (who taught all but Algebra I in that small suburban high school) yell for about 10 min. at one of the high-strung, not-as-bright-as-he-thought-he-was guys in class who'd just been dumb enough to say under his breath, "Yeah, well, English, I don't need English, I'm going to be an Engineer...." after seeing his latest British Lit grade.
The point of the instructor's rant was that her husband, who taught engineering at OSU, up the road, always had several such students in his grad program, and he had to work with them on their writing whenever grants were due.
My math teacher for the last two years of high school was a former English teacher, so he'd quote poetry in math class. He was great.
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 27, 2021, 12:05:08 PM
Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style. I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication. I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful. I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?
Judging from the tripe I see when reviewing manuscripts, many people with humanities PhDs also could have benefited from learning how to write.
Quote from: spork on April 27, 2021, 12:48:48 PM
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 27, 2021, 12:05:08 PM
Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style. I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication. I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful. I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?
Judging from the tripe I see when reviewing manuscripts, many people with humanities PhDs also could have benefited from learning how to write.
Definitely, if the goal of writing is to communicate as opposed to obfuscate.
Quote from: mleok on April 27, 2021, 01:23:31 PM
Quote from: spork on April 27, 2021, 12:48:48 PM
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 27, 2021, 12:05:08 PM
Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style. I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication. I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful. I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?
Judging from the tripe I see when reviewing manuscripts, many people with humanities PhDs also could have benefited from learning how to write.
Definitely, if the goal of writing is to communicate as opposed to obfuscate.
If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?
Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?
Having edited science-y stuff for awhile at one point, I'd say journalistic writing would be most useful for engineers.
It helps you clean out all the dusty adverbs, pare down the parallel phrases: you'd learn to reduce out the common elements, rather like reducing an algebraic equation [i.e.: ax + bx = (a+b)x], use active verbs, reverse out passive constructions to active ones, etc.
Those were the things I was most often correcting in grant submissions and article re-writes (one fellow let me edit while I was typing up his hand-written originals, if I clarified for him what I was doing and why, so he'd learn how to avoid them).
Since clear, brief, accurate communication is at a premium in both pursuits, that would be my thought.
M.
I think probably just a regular composition course, and then maybe a semester of science writing would be fine.
I wouldn't oppose creative writing or Lit for engineers, but in a stuffed curriculum that's going to have stiff competition for gen Ed slots, these slots should probably be fairly focused even if they aren't as "well rounded."
Quote from: Hibush on April 27, 2021, 02:15:51 PM
[. . .]
If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?
Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?
If we take it as a given that historians are charged with understanding the technological innovations that have altered human history, and that it is good for history curricula to include a course in technologies, what courses are valuable before taking the specialized technological understanding course?
I would say classical mechanics, calculus, principles of electromagnetism, organic and inorganic chemistry, maybe some basic genetics. That should be enough to understand the technology underlying events like the Industrial Revolution, electrification, the Green Revolution, vaccines, microprocessors, etc.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 10:04:56 PM
I agree that engineers need to write precisely, I just don't think that most general education humanities requires come anywhere close to addressing that required competency. A writing across the curriculum approach might do more to address this need.
I always know when I have an English major or a creative writer in my classes.
One of the biggest problems with describing a "more formal register" or "concision" or "fluency of style" is that a good many students have absolutely no idea what these are in any practical terms. They don't read.
It would be very hard to be Justin Bieber without having listened to a lot of pop music.
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 10:04:56 PM
And, maybe you should go learn more about alternative systems of education before you continue to opine in an uninformed fashion on this topic.
Actually I have been doing some Google, JStore, and Ebscohost searches. I don't really have time right now, but I am trying to learn about this very thing.
Perhaps you could educate me, professor. My mind is open.
Yeah... I don't doubt engineering students would enjoy the formal aspects of linguistics, but I'm not sure it'd be of much help where their own writing is concerned!
Quote from: spork on April 27, 2021, 03:06:04 PM
Quote from: Hibush on April 27, 2021, 02:15:51 PM
[. . .]
If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?
Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?
If we take it as a given that historians are charged with understanding the technological innovations that have altered human history, and that it is good for history curricula to include a course in technologies, what courses are valuable before taking the specialized technological understanding course?
I would say classical mechanics, calculus, principles of electromagnetism, organic and inorganic chemistry, maybe some basic genetics. That should be enough to understand the technology underlying events like the Industrial Revolution, electrification, the Green Revolution, vaccines, microprocessors, etc.
I may be wrong here, but I think Hibush's point was actually friendly to yours. So I'm not sure your
reductio is quite as
ad absurdum as you intended!
Also: our resident historians should feel free to correct me, but those courses all seem like they'd be a desirable foundation for someone
specializing in the history of science. I suspect you'd find a lot of agreement with historians on that front.
Quote from: Hibush on April 27, 2021, 02:15:51 PM
what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?
Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?
There is no one answer for this, of course.
We know that grammar needs to be taught in the context of writing, and linguistics is its own discipline.
Some students will respond to a structural course, some students will respond to creative courses.
Serious creative writers and journalists virtually always understand sentence structure and word usage better than other students.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 27, 2021, 03:16:43 PM
Yeah... I don't doubt engineering students would enjoy the formal aspects of linguistics, but I'm not sure it'd be of much help where their own writing is concerned!
Quote from: spork on April 27, 2021, 03:06:04 PM
Quote from: Hibush on April 27, 2021, 02:15:51 PM
[. . .]
If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?
Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?
If we take it as a given that historians are charged with understanding the technological innovations that have altered human history, and that it is good for history curricula to include a course in technologies, what courses are valuable before taking the specialized technological understanding course?
I would say classical mechanics, calculus, principles of electromagnetism, organic and inorganic chemistry, maybe some basic genetics. That should be enough to understand the technology underlying events like the Industrial Revolution, electrification, the Green Revolution, vaccines, microprocessors, etc.
I may be wrong here, but I think Hibush's point was actually friendly to yours. So I'm not sure your reductio is quite as ad absurdum as you intended!
Also: our resident historians should feel free to correct me, but those courses all seem like they'd be a desirable foundation for someone specializing in the history of science. I suspect you'd find a lot of agreement with historians on that front.
I'm not disagreeing with him/her/they/it. But why is the problem always framed as "engineers need to learn X" and not "Xers need to learn engineering"?
I'm in the middle of grading final exams written by U.S. undergraduates. They are not engineering majors. Yet they still are unable to provide written evidence in support of a proposed causal relationship. Many do not even spell or punctuate correctly in English, their native language. They almost certainly are also innumerate. They are in college because they generate net revenue for the institution they attend.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 27, 2021, 03:15:05 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 26, 2021, 10:04:56 PM
I agree that engineers need to write precisely, I just don't think that most general education humanities requires come anywhere close to addressing that required competency. A writing across the curriculum approach might do more to address this need.
I always know when I have an English major or a creative writer in my classes.
One of the biggest problems with describing a "more formal register" or "concision" or "fluency of style" is that a good many students have absolutely no idea what these are in any practical terms. They don't read.
It would be very hard to be Justin Bieber without having listened to a lot of pop music.
Do you assign scientific, engineering, and mathematical journal papers in your classes then? If not, how is what you do in class of relevance to the writing needs of STEM majors?
Quote from: mamselle on April 27, 2021, 03:01:46 PM
Having edited science-y stuff for awhile at one point, I'd say journalistic writing would be most useful for engineers.
It helps you clean out all the dusty adverbs, pare down the parallel phrases: you'd learn to reduce out the common elements, rather like reducing an algebraic equation [i.e.: ax + bx = (a+b)x], use active verbs, reverse out passive constructions to active ones, etc.
Those were the things I was most often correcting in grant submissions and article re-writes (one fellow let me edit while I was typing up his hand-written originals, if I clarified for him what I was doing and why, so he'd learn how to avoid them).
Since clear, brief, accurate communication is at a premium in both pursuits, that would be my thought.
M.
Yes, that makes sense that a course that focuses on clear, precise communication would be most valuable to engineering students. I do question whether any of the current writing requirements address that in any appreciable way though.
Our Engineers take a general Comp I class, and then follow it up with a course in Technical Writing.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on April 27, 2021, 04:26:12 PM
Our Engineers take a general Comp I class, and then follow it up with a course in Technical Writing.
That seems reasonable enough, but it goes to demonstrate that the goal of clear writing does not necessarily entail engineers taking a substantial general education requirement in the humanities.
Thanks for the very interesting thoughts on this topic. I don't work with either engineers or creative writers, but I do value clear writing by scientists. Engineers and creative writers make a good model since their archetypical personalities contrast.
I appreciate the common thread that a fairly conventional approach works. Have the student get basic competence in writing in whatever format motivates the student, then a specialized course in the particular style. Mamselle's unexpected endorsement of journalism is great. My scientific writing improved markedly after working with a former newspaper editor to develop some press releases. My initial attempts at those were completely backwards. "Don't bury the lede" is good advice for all technical writing.
For those who are curious, blueberry flowers have both sexes so the plural "they" might be the most appropriate pronoun. (No matter how hard you try to accommodate, somebody will move the target.) They plants are self-incompatible, so even those who are socially conservative on these matters can be assured that there is no...you know...going on.
Quote from: mleok on April 27, 2021, 04:28:15 PM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on April 27, 2021, 04:26:12 PM
Our Engineers take a general Comp I class, and then follow it up with a course in Technical Writing.
That seems reasonable enough, but it goes to demonstrate that the goal of clear writing does not necessarily entail engineers taking a substantial general education requirement in the humanities.
There will never be
one way to learn these sorts of skill-sets, something that STEM-types seem stuck on (is it because STEM people train very hard to do a specific thing that we get stuck on these sorts of assertions?).
And there are many people who have a natural facility for these sorts of skills and can write very well with very little training.
I am simply asserting that humanities training is very good for learning to write well and think holistically and complexly. It is not the ONLY way to learn to write or think (so spare me, Marshy), or do anything for that matter, simply that it deals with the principles of language and thought that so many people want out of college students.
This point has been made many times.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 27, 2021, 05:28:30 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 27, 2021, 04:28:15 PM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on April 27, 2021, 04:26:12 PM
Our Engineers take a general Comp I class, and then follow it up with a course in Technical Writing.
That seems reasonable enough, but it goes to demonstrate that the goal of clear writing does not necessarily entail engineers taking a substantial general education requirement in the humanities.
There will never be one way to learn these sorts of skill-sets, something that STEM-types seem stuck on (is it because STEM people train very hard to do a specific thing that we get stuck on these sorts of assertions?).
And there are many people who have a natural facility for these sorts of skills and can write very well with very little training.
I am simply asserting that humanities training is very good for learning to write well and think holistically and complexly. It is not the ONLY way to learn to write or think (so spare me, Marshy), or do anything for that matter, simply that it deals with the principles of language and thought that so many people want out of college students.
This point has been made many times.
That's a false narrative, STEM faculty are not suggesting that there is only one way of achieving these goals, in fact, it precisely the defenders of humanities in general education requirements who are doing so. For that matter, where in my statement do you infer that I am suggesting there is only one way to achieve a particular goal, I am saying the exact opposite, that the humanities requirements are not necessary to achieve the goal of teaching engineers to communicate clearly, which is the precise point of referring to other educational systems which have no such general education requirements in university. For a writing professor, you have a serious problem with reading comprehension.
I would also ask what evidence you have that humanities is a good way of teaching students in technical fields to write clearly?
The standard argument for teaching humanities to engineers have always centered around discussions of soft skills, oral and written communcation, creative problem solving, teamwork, and critical analysis, for example in this leaflet,
https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2019-11/soft-skills-and-humanities.pdf
and this short paper on the importance of the humanities in an engineering curriculum,
https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6052/download#
but it's almost a point of dogma that humanities courses actually help students achieve these goals. But, it's unclear to me how general education humanities classes actually address any of these skills.
Quote from: mleok on April 27, 2021, 07:00:00 PM
The standard argument for teaching humanities to engineers have always centered around discussions of soft skills, oral and written communcation, creative problem solving, teamwork, and critical analysis, for example in this leaflet,
https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2019-11/soft-skills-and-humanities.pdf
and this short paper on the importance of the humanities in an engineering curriculum,
https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6052/download#
but it's almost a point of dogma that humanities courses actually help students achieve these goals. But, it's unclear to me how general education humanities classes actually address any of these skills.
Presumably the idea is that humanities courses involve doing a lot of written and oral communication, critical analysis, etc., and that these topics are frequently excplicitly addressed in those courses.
If that's the idea, then it seems about as plausible as the point of dogma that engineering, physics, or mathematics help students to develop their mathematical abilities. I don't think an engineer will be super well-served with taking just a single comp class, but neither will the English student if they just take stats 1.
To the extent that we see humanities instructors emphasizing 'soft skills' or whatever, or claiming particular ability at instilling them (and I have my doubts for some subjects!), I think that's mostly driven by systematic attacks on the humanities and their value, which force them to articulate ill-fitting reasons for their "value" as compared to STEM and applied degrees.
I teach business and tech people to write. That's how I know. It is very frustrating trying to teach people who lack basic concepts. We all experience this in our disciplines.
Fine, if you believe in a plurality of learning experiences, great. That's what I was getting at. I suppose I am responding to the repeated insistences from certain posters who mischaracterize what we do and say in the humanities. Apologies.
The critical inquiry into teaching humanities and writing has been going on for years. If you are really, truly curious:
go to Ebscohost;
use the "Title" function for "literature" and "teaching writing" and maybe include a general key word like "reading" or "classroom."
Do the same thing with JStore and those title words.
It is exhausting to have to prove something that we academics are all capable of finding out ourselves.
And I suspect your challenge is exactly the challenge that college in general faces: how do we "prove" that college is worth anything? Gates and Zuckerberg both dropped out of the top college. Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed. The summary from Wikipedia is kind of funny:
Quote
Jobs later explained that he decided to drop out because he did not want to spend his parents' money on an education that seemed meaningless to him.
On the other hand, Bezos was summa from Princeton. Do we suppose he wouldn't have joined the other tech greats without the Ivies? Maybe he is brilliant because he looks like a tiny, kindly Lex Luthor. Musk, perhaps the most innovative of innovators, dropped out of a Stanford PhD program.
Philip Roth had a masters in English lit. Seamus Heaney was a school teacher. John Updike studied drawing. Our greatest writers---Frost, Hemingway, and Faulkner---barely had any college. Then there's T.S. Eliot who simply let the last requirement on his Harvard PhD languish and took a job at a British bank.
So one could make the argument, as many do, that there is nothing provably good about anything we do. One could just as easily achieve lasting, international success by doing your own thing as you could struggling and stumbling through all those stupid degrees.
I have never use the algebra or geometry I learned in high school. I suspect I learned a great deal, however.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 27, 2021, 07:14:02 PM
Presumably the idea is that humanities courses involve doing a lot of written and oral communication, critical analysis, etc., and that these topics are frequently excplicitly addressed in those courses.
If that's the idea, then it seems about as plausible as the point of dogma that engineering, physics, or mathematics help students to develop their mathematical abilities. I don't think an engineer will be super well-served with taking just a single comp class, but neither will the English student if they just take stats 1.
If a student takes stats 1 and gets a B or above, then s/he will have learned something useful. If s/he has been frog-marched through with a bare pass, s/he has probably learned essentially nothing, and the course was a waste of time.
Quote
To the extent that we see humanities instructors emphasizing 'soft skills' or whatever, or claiming particular ability at instilling them (and I have my doubts for some subjects!), I think that's mostly driven by systematic attacks on the humanities and their value, which force them to articulate ill-fitting reasons for their "value" as compared to STEM and applied degrees.
The fact is that STEM people don't spend
remotely the amount of time trying to force people to take quantitative classes to improve their numerical analysis skills that humanities people spend arguing that STEM people must take humanities courses. (In lots of places, students don't even have to take math in their last year or two of high school, and that's considered to be completely reasonable, as though to require them to do so would be placing some onerous burden on them.)
So when humanities people are as insistent on the "hard skills" that STEM requires as they are on the "soft skills" that they promote, then they'll have some credibility in explaining why their own courses are so important for
everyone.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 04:52:22 AM
The fact is that STEM people don't spend remotely the amount of time trying to force people to take quantitative classes to improve their numerical analysis skills that humanities people spend arguing that STEM people must take humanities courses. (In lots of places, students don't even have to take math in their last year or two of high school, and that's considered to be completely reasonable, as though to require them to do so would be placing some onerous burden on them.)
So when humanities people are as insistent on the "hard skills" that STEM requires as they are on the "soft skills" that they promote, then they'll have some credibility in explaining why their own courses are so important for everyone.
I am curious about the venues where you experience this intense insistence. At my university I don't see it at all. That said, I am in a fairly science-oriented college and the traditional humanities faculty are in a different college. Their influence on the curriculum in my college is nil. Nor do opinion pieces in CHE or IHE by hopeful humanities professors have any influence. To the extent we have humanities requirements, or expectations of competence in things offered in the humanities, it is because faculty in my college think they matter.
I get the impression that your context is different, and would like to understand it better.
Quote from: Hibush on April 28, 2021, 05:24:24 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 04:52:22 AM
The fact is that STEM people don't spend remotely the amount of time trying to force people to take quantitative classes to improve their numerical analysis skills that humanities people spend arguing that STEM people must take humanities courses. (In lots of places, students don't even have to take math in their last year or two of high school, and that's considered to be completely reasonable, as though to require them to do so would be placing some onerous burden on them.)
So when humanities people are as insistent on the "hard skills" that STEM requires as they are on the "soft skills" that they promote, then they'll have some credibility in explaining why their own courses are so important for everyone.
I am curious about the venues where you experience this intense insistence. At my university I don't see it at all. That said, I am in a fairly science-oriented college and the traditional humanities faculty are in a different college. Their influence on the curriculum in my college is nil. Nor do opinion pieces in CHE or IHE by hopeful humanities professors have any influence. To the extent we have humanities requirements, or expectations of competence in things offered in the humanities, it is because faculty in my college think they matter.
I get the impression that your context is different, and would like to understand it better.
Since we don't have the same general education requirements in Canada, the main context for my discussion is here. I find the whole discussion of the importance of general education, and humanities requirements in particular, like trying to nail Jello to the wall. The promoters insist on its vital importance, while at the same time avoiding being pinned down on
any specific, measurable outcomes by which the efficacy can be evaluated.
By contrast, in lots of STEM disciplines, it is common to have constant re-evaluation of curricula, addition of new more relevant courses and removable of outdated ones, and replacement of infrastructure for labs and computer software and hardware in order to provide up-to-date practical experience. It's understood that a course or even program that was good and popular in the past may be retired if it doesn't have perceived value for the students. In other words,
if enrollment is declining, figure out how to attract more students or be prepared to be shut down. Trying to legislate a "captive audience" is rarely an option. Arguing that this course, program, etc. has been established for decades doesn't matter.
A recent article (and I wish I could remember where it was) made an interesting case by noting that in countries with a substantial safety net, humanities enrollments are not in decline. It's not that all humanities graduates are unemployable and poverty-stricken, and only a safety net keeps them from starvation. It's that in societies where the safety net is weak, typical college students (and most importantly, the college students' parents) are full of anxiety about being left behind in the dog-eat-dog economy, where you do see people living under bridges and perishing for lack of health insurance. So they aim at the majors and professions that are perceived to be the surest at bringing in large incomes.
One problem with this is that these tend to be oversubscribed fields with clear, structured career paths — law and medicine, for instance. At least in my state, there is a huge oversupply of lawyers and many of them are having to switch careers. But law is perceived as a sure-fire money-making career, and so the pre-law majors are booming. The same is true of Computer Science, which is actually 13th on the list of majors where graduates do not find good jobs in the field. (Source: Business Insider.) Meanwhile, humanities majors go on to a wide range of careers, way too many to name — government, communications, television, arts organizations, corporations, all kinds of things. I remember going in to our local TV station and finding that every single person I met there — production, newscast writing, etc. — had been one of our English majors. But English is not perceived as leading to a lucrative career. I'm now used to parents and students not understanding this. But it's dismaying to find that other academics get it wrong too.
Incidentally, the major with the highest amount of later employment in the field is Religious Studies.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 27, 2021, 07:14:02 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 27, 2021, 07:00:00 PM
The standard argument for teaching humanities to engineers have always centered around discussions of soft skills, oral and written communcation, creative problem solving, teamwork, and critical analysis, for example in this leaflet,
https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2019-11/soft-skills-and-humanities.pdf
and this short paper on the importance of the humanities in an engineering curriculum,
https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6052/download#
but it's almost a point of dogma that humanities courses actually help students achieve these goals. But, it's unclear to me how general education humanities classes actually address any of these skills.
Presumably the idea is that humanities courses involve doing a lot of written and oral communication, critical analysis, etc., and that these topics are frequently excplicitly addressed in those courses.
If that's the idea, then it seems about as plausible as the point of dogma that engineering, physics, or mathematics help students to develop their mathematical abilities. I don't think an engineer will be super well-served with taking just a single comp class, but neither will the English student if they just take stats 1.
To the extent that we see humanities instructors emphasizing 'soft skills' or whatever, or claiming particular ability at instilling them (and I have my doubts for some subjects!), I think that's mostly driven by systematic attacks on the humanities and their value, which force them to articulate ill-fitting reasons for their "value" as compared to STEM and applied degrees.
This is a really good point. Obviously students can pick up all kinds of useful skills from any class or major. However, it isn't like humanities has some lock on writing. I like the model that some schools use of teaching writing "throughout the disciplines." This can involve STEM faculty teaching some sections of the intro writing course focusing on scientific topics. Most of the principles of good writing are the same whether you are writing a scientific paper or an English essay.
A required writing course can be incredibly useful, but only if it is done correctly. Writing courses work if you have small class sizes that allow instructors to assign multiple drafts and give extensive feedback throughout the process. If you have somebody teaching 4 sections with 30 students each, it won't be very useful.
The same applies to lots of gen ed requirements. I think it would be very useful for engineering students to take courses that exposed them to different perspectives on the disciplines from the humanities. There's lots of environmental history, for example, that is very relevant to engineering fields. You could imagine sequences of courses or team taught courses where faculty from different disciplines collaborated to give students a broader perspective on their fields. However, gen-ed requirements often are just done on the cheap and there's no reason for students to view them as anything but hoops to jump through.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 04:52:22 AM
If a student takes stats 1 and gets a B or above, then s/he will have learned something useful. If s/he has been frog-marched through with a bare pass, s/he has probably learned essentially nothing, and the course was a waste of time.
Surely the same is true of a student who gets a B or above in comp or any other writing- and reading-intensive class.
It also, as you note, doesn't amount to a ton in isolation. But, as I'm pointing out, this seems true across the curriculum. The humanities are not some specially-deficient outlier here. If you want mathematical skills, then there are several different paths to obtaining them, and the more you practice, the better you'll get. If you want reading and writing skills, then there are several different paths to obtaining them, and the more you practice, the better you'll get. If you want critical thinking skills, etc.
By the by, when I took stats 1 it was pretty much just duplicating HS-level content. Stats 2 introduced some new stuff, but now we're talking about the value of having taken
two classes, not just one.
Quote
The fact is that STEM people don't spend remotely the amount of time trying to force people to take quantitative classes to improve their numerical analysis skills that humanities people spend arguing that STEM people must take humanities courses. (In lots of places, students don't even have to take math in their last year or two of high school, and that's considered to be completely reasonable, as though to require them to do so would be placing some onerous burden on them.)
So when humanities people are as insistent on the "hard skills" that STEM requires as they are on the "soft skills" that they promote, then they'll have some credibility in explaining why their own courses are so important for everyone.
Like Hibush, I don't really see this going on. What I do see are persistent (and political!) attacks on the value of the humanities, widespread misinformation and suspicion about the humanities, and virtually no cognate attacks or suspicion about STEM subjects. When people demand that you come up with some value your subject is uniquely qualified to confer or face cutbacks, it's not surprising that people try to articulate some such value, even though the demand is misguided in the first place. And that's a demand that's been echoed in this thread, by the way.
It reminds me of the doctrine of medium-specificity in art. And like it, although it's plausible on its face, closer inspection reveals it to be full of shit.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 04:52:22 AMSo when humanities people are as insistent on the "hard skills" that STEM requires as they are on the "soft skills" that they promote, then they'll have some credibility in explaining why their own courses are so important for everyone.
Yes, this sums things up nicely. It is also worth noting that the STEM subjects that are least financially rewarding, like biology, tend to be the ones which are least quantitative or mathematical. At least in the United States, the reason why STEM majors tend to have a better ROI on their degree is because quantitative/mathematical skills seem to be so poorly emphasized in K-12 and college. This is also reflected in part in tests like the SAT and GRE, where the verbal part of the GRE is harder than the SAT, but the mathematical part of the GRE is easier than the SAT, suggesting that mathematics is relatively deemphasized in college.
Quote from: Caracal on April 28, 2021, 08:34:51 AMThis is a really good point. Obviously students can pick up all kinds of useful skills from any class or major. However, it isn't like humanities has some lock on writing. I like the model that some schools use of teaching writing "throughout the disciplines." This can involve STEM faculty teaching some sections of the intro writing course focusing on scientific topics. Most of the principles of good writing are the same whether you are writing a scientific paper or an English essay.
A required writing course can be incredibly useful, but only if it is done correctly. Writing courses work if you have small class sizes that allow instructors to assign multiple drafts and give extensive feedback throughout the process. If you have somebody teaching 4 sections with 30 students each, it won't be very useful.
The same applies to lots of gen ed requirements. I think it would be very useful for engineering students to take courses that exposed them to different perspectives on the disciplines from the humanities. There's lots of environmental history, for example, that is very relevant to engineering fields. You could imagine sequences of courses or team taught courses where faculty from different disciplines collaborated to give students a broader perspective on their fields. However, gen-ed requirements often are just done on the cheap and there's no reason for students to view them as anything but hoops to jump through.
I agree with everything you've said here. One can have writing intensive courses independent of the subject matter it is framed in, and there is certainly a strong case to be made for more "writing in the disciplines" type courses, involving a collaboration between subject matter experts and writing specialists. I also like the idea of a well thought out sequence of general education courses that show how different disciplines interact, as opposed to the traditionally siloed approach to general education. This is something which I think would be valuable to all students, be they in STEM, social sciences, or the humanities, and go a long way towards dispelling the often accurate perception that general education requirements are just hoops to jump through.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 05:52:25 AM
By contrast, in lots of STEM disciplines, it is common to have constant re-evaluation of curricula, addition of new more relevant courses and removable of outdated ones, and replacement of infrastructure for labs and computer software and hardware in order to provide up-to-date practical experience.
Oh Marshy, you know so little and are yet so sure of yourself...Dunning-Krueger.
The constant reevaluation of curricula in the humanities is one of the things that drives conservative thinkers nuts.
One can find all sorts of information on the performance of humanities degrees without much effort:
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-value-humanities-111018.pdf
You, Marshy, are simply an example of someone who, for some strange reason, resents the existence of the humanities disciplines. You are not interested in honest debate or reflection, you just want to attack based on misinformation and bias. You are not alone, and it is not something I understand.
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:15:25 AM
I also like the idea of a well thought out sequence of general education courses that show how different disciplines interact, as opposed to the traditionally siloed approach to general education. This is something which I think would be valuable to all students, be they in STEM, social sciences, or the humanities, and go a long way towards dispelling the often accurate perception that general education requirements are just hoops to jump through.
I think a lot of us would like this approach.
What would it look like? I see this frequently, but I see very few actual suggestions of how to literally, on-the-ground do this. Maybe that deserves its own thread.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 28, 2021, 08:35:34 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 04:52:22 AM
If a student takes stats 1 and gets a B or above, then s/he will have learned something useful. If s/he has been frog-marched through with a bare pass, s/he has probably learned essentially nothing, and the course was a waste of time.
Surely the same is true of a student who gets a B or above in comp or any other writing- and reading-intensive class.
It also, as you note, doesn't amount to a ton in isolation. But, as I'm pointing out, this seems true across the curriculum. The humanities are not some specially-deficient outlier here. If you want mathematical skills, then there are several different paths to obtaining them, and the more you practice, the better you'll get. If you want reading and writing skills, then there are several different paths to obtaining them, and the more you practice, the better you'll get. If you want critical thinking skills, etc.
By the by, when I took stats 1 it was pretty much just duplicating HS-level content. Stats 2 introduced some new stuff, but now we're talking about the value of having taken two classes, not just one.
I think at most colleges, most of the introductory classes are duplicative of high school level material, which in combination with the fact that one only develops some worthwhile understanding of the material through a substantive sequence, goes to illustrate that general education requirements, as they're currently framed at many US institutions, have little or no lasting effect on the vast majority of students. While they might have originally been motivated by lofty ideals about molding the well-rounded individual, it has quickly devolved into creating a captive audience for otherwise poorly subscribed courses. Put another way, in practice, I have not seen extremely popular general education courses which have a significant amount of intellectual rigor, unless the general education requirements are very specific about the classes which satisfy the requirements. In areas where a laundry list of classes can satisfy a given requirement, students tend to gravitate to fluff classes, with only minimal writing (even in humanities subjects) and easy grading.
Just go to your institution's subreddit, and you'll find students sharing information about what are the easiest, least intellectually demanding ways to fulfill the general education requirements. This is certainly true at the public R1 where I teach, and the only general education classes which seem to be able to demand a high level of rigor are those that are explicitly required without any alternative ways of satisfying the requirements.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 09:24:19 AM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:15:25 AM
I also like the idea of a well thought out sequence of general education courses that show how different disciplines interact, as opposed to the traditionally siloed approach to general education. This is something which I think would be valuable to all students, be they in STEM, social sciences, or the humanities, and go a long way towards dispelling the often accurate perception that general education requirements are just hoops to jump through.
I think a lot of us would like this approach.
What would it look like? I see this frequently, but I see very few actual suggestions of how to literally, on-the-ground do this. Maybe that deserves its own thread.
I think a big part of the problem is that, in practice, we don't interact that often across disciplines ourselves?
First of all, a particular school would have to be clear on its gen ed goals, whether its an engineering school that wants to teach engineers to be good writers or more culturally aware, or whether on a grander scale, wants to be a SLAC that presents students with a heavy core that is supposedly making students well rounded. The gen ed goals should probably be limited in that there shouldn't be too many of them, and should be expressed as a sentence. So, for instance, just as examples, 1. students should become clear, grammatical writers 2. students should be "numerate" and be able to understand presentation of numbers in social and natural sciences and so on.
Next, create courses that match the goals rather than create goals that match the courses unless there are pre-existing courses that are a very good match. This may lead to deleting some courses and adding others. Some probably need to be interdisciplinary.
Some practical challenges will be in creating schedules and such across departments and programs, but there are schools that do that already. It just takes some doing.
I've seen some programs that originate this way, and the devolve into hiring adjuncts because the tenure track profs want to teach either similar courses that are more specific to their discipline or just upper level stuff that has nothing to do with the gen ed goals. So, there have to be long term commitments.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 09:22:04 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 05:52:25 AM
By contrast, in lots of STEM disciplines, it is common to have constant re-evaluation of curricula, addition of new more relevant courses and removable of outdated ones, and replacement of infrastructure for labs and computer software and hardware in order to provide up-to-date practical experience.
Oh Marshy, you know so little and are yet so sure of yourself...Dunning-Krueger.
The constant reevaluation of curricula in the humanities is one of the things that drives conservative thinkers nuts.
One can find all sorts of information on the performance of humanities degrees without much effort:
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-value-humanities-111018.pdf
You, Marshy, are simply an example of someone who, for some strange reason, resents the existence of the humanities disciplines. You are not interested in honest debate or reflection, you just want to attack based on misinformation and bias. You are not alone, and it is not something I understand.
I'm looking at that list of transferrable and soft skills in the report, and I'm thinking to myself that a STEM focused education is equally capable of delivering on most, if not all, of those skills. Sure, there are STEM students who lack those skills, but I am sure the same is true of humanities students. In particular, it's unclear to me where one learns things like self-management, teamwork, and innovation explicitly, and why it would be the unique to humanities majors. The only evidence presented on this issue is Figure 2-5 and 2-6, which surveyed graduates from their bachelors and graduate programs, and asked them to self-rate their critical thinking, problem solving, communication, ability to tackle unfamiliar problems, and self-management.
There is also an argument being made that humanities graduates are better able to handle multidisciplinary policy problems, but that seems to be an unsubstantiated assertion. In particular, policies regarding public health, for example, have a multifaceted aspect that also requires an understanding of more technical fields like epidemiology and mathematical modeling, as well as the social, historical, and political aspects of the issue. I am not suggesting that STEM majors are necessarily better equipped to handle such complex problems, but I don't think that humanities students are either. In fact, it is common in engineering to have capstone design courses that are intended to force students to draw upon the entirety of their engineering education to address an interesting problem, and that is a critical way of addressing some of the siloing that is prevalent in our extremely modular system of higher education.
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 28, 2021, 09:37:23 AMI've seen some programs that originate this way, and the devolve into hiring adjuncts because the tenure track profs want to teach either similar courses that are more specific to their discipline or just upper level stuff that has nothing to do with the gen ed goals. So, there have to be long term commitments.
Yes, a well thought out and meaningful general education sequence requires strong commitment from faculty. In particular, as you say, a willingness to continue engaging students who will not major in their field and will never take enough classes in the subject to justify engaging at length on a professor's pet topic.
Quote from: Hibush on April 28, 2021, 05:24:24 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 04:52:22 AM
The fact is that STEM people don't spend remotely the amount of time trying to force people to take quantitative classes to improve their numerical analysis skills that humanities people spend arguing that STEM people must take humanities courses. (In lots of places, students don't even have to take math in their last year or two of high school, and that's considered to be completely reasonable, as though to require them to do so would be placing some onerous burden on them.)
So when humanities people are as insistent on the "hard skills" that STEM requires as they are on the "soft skills" that they promote, then they'll have some credibility in explaining why their own courses are so important for everyone.
I am curious about the venues where you experience this intense insistence. At my university I don't see it at all. That said, I am in a fairly science-oriented college and the traditional humanities faculty are in a different college. Their influence on the curriculum in my college is nil. Nor do opinion pieces in CHE or IHE by hopeful humanities professors have any influence. To the extent we have humanities requirements, or expectations of competence in things offered in the humanities, it is because faculty in my college think they matter.
I get the impression that your context is different, and would like to understand it better.
Here is my context: small enrollment university, no separate colleges. Math graduates ~1-2 majors per year, chemistry ~ 5, biology ~ 20. We do not have any engineering programs. Most students major in business, criminal justice, and nursing.
The general education requirements that all students must complete to graduate included 1 course each in English literature, history, math, a natural science, a social science, philosophy, and religious studies. There are other check-the-box requirements in addition to those.
The nursing majors are by far the best students we have. They gain zero benefit from taking 100-level U.S. history, a subject they've already taken multiple times during K-12, and in fact many of them take it online from a community college over the summer and transfer the credits.
The gen ed requirements add time and money to a bachelor's degree, which is deliberate on the university's part, because, given the business model, eight semesters of tuition and meal plans generate more revenue than six semesters. Faculty in particular departments support the gen ed requirements because for them the requirements function as job security.
Quote from: Caracal on April 28, 2021, 08:34:51 AM
The same applies to lots of gen ed requirements. I think it would be very useful for engineering students to take courses that exposed them to different perspectives on the disciplines from the humanities. There's lots of environmental history, for example, that is very relevant to engineering fields. You could imagine sequences of courses or team taught courses where faculty from different disciplines collaborated to give students a broader perspective on their fields. However, gen-ed requirements often are just done on the cheap and there's no reason for students to view them as anything but hoops to jump through.
On a slight tangent to this, I've thought that courses designed specifically would do a better job than picking from existing options.
In another thread, I suggested what I'd create as a a science literacy course for non-STEM students. If I wanted to create a useful humanities course to engage STEM students, I'd do something like this:
Take a subject like climate change, and then have units looking at it from the perspective of different humanities disciplines. For instance
- historical; i.e. how environmental damage and environmental stewardship have shifted over time
- geographical; how climate change affect various regions and communities
- anthropological; how the relationship between people and their environment has developed
(No doubt many disciplines could be involved; since it's not my area, I'm just thinking of ones that occur to me.)
In each case, some focus could be on how the way research is done in each discipline gives the insights that it does. Note:
None of these require going into flag-waving environmental activism mode; allowing students to see the complexity and the importance of unintended consequences has the most potential for them to think, rather than allowing them to just adopt a specific simplistic political viewpoint.As Caracal said above, this can't be done "on the cheap" if it's going to actually work. As a general rule, academia is often
backwards on this; courses for people
outside a discipline tend to be done as cheaply as possible, which virtually guarantees it will undermine whatever minimal interest they may have had originally.
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:57:09 AM
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 28, 2021, 09:37:23 AMI've seen some programs that originate this way, and the devolve into hiring adjuncts because the tenure track profs want to teach either similar courses that are more specific to their discipline or just upper level stuff that has nothing to do with the gen ed goals. So, there have to be long term commitments.
Yes, a well thought out and meaningful general education sequence requires strong commitment from faculty. In particular, as you say, a willingness to continue engaging students who will not major in their field and will never take enough classes in the subject to justify engaging at length on a professor's pet topic.
The other piece of this is a strong institutional commitment. If you wanted something like that to work you would need to have small class sizes, encourage faculty collaboration and innovation, and perhaps give faculty full credit for teaching team taught courses. Given the choice, I would never teach the gen ed humanities course at my school. It isn't much fun to teach a big class, mostly filled with students who are only there because the course fit into their schedule.
Did anyone else get an email from the National Humanities Alliance asking for a donation to promote their work? It included a link to their toolkit -- I guess trying to appeal to the language of utility.
https://www.studythehumanities.org/toolkit
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:51:25 AM
I'm looking at that list of transferrable and soft skills in the report, and I'm thinking to myself that a STEM focused education is equally capable of delivering on most, if not all, of those skills. Sure, there are STEM students who lack those skills, but I am sure the same is true of humanities students.
it is common in engineering to have capstone design courses that are intended to force students to draw upon the entirety of their engineering education to address an interesting problem, and that is a critical way of addressing some of the siloing that is prevalent in our extremely modular system of higher education.
See, this is the objection so often. No one says that you only get transferrable and soft skills ONLY from the humanities, simply that the humanities are very good for these. Posters have acknowledged this on this very thread. I've acknowledged that on this very thread. Last time I pointed this out you got snippy, but here we have it again. It is a strawman argument.
Why?
I disagree that high school offers enough quality "exposure" to a variety of subjects, and I am dubious that this is really accomplishable----but that's been gone over.
I am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Quote from: Caracal on April 28, 2021, 11:24:31 AM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:57:09 AM
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 28, 2021, 09:37:23 AMI've seen some programs that originate this way, and the devolve into hiring adjuncts because the tenure track profs want to teach either similar courses that are more specific to their discipline or just upper level stuff that has nothing to do with the gen ed goals. So, there have to be long term commitments.
Yes, a well thought out and meaningful general education sequence requires strong commitment from faculty. In particular, as you say, a willingness to continue engaging students who will not major in their field and will never take enough classes in the subject to justify engaging at length on a professor's pet topic.
The other piece of this is a strong institutional commitment. If you wanted something like that to work you would need to have small class sizes, encourage faculty collaboration and innovation, and perhaps give faculty full credit for teaching team taught courses. Given the choice, I would never teach the gen ed humanities course at my school. It isn't much fun to teach a big class, mostly filled with students who are only there because the course fit into their schedule.
Definitely, setting up the right incentive system, and providing the resources to encourage sustained engagement by faculty in different disciplines is critical to the success of such an endeavor. But, as others have alluded to, general education is typically done on the cheap, and has the net effect of driving out what little enthusiasm there is for a subject in non-majors, as opposed to sparking an interest.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:51:25 AM
I'm looking at that list of transferrable and soft skills in the report, and I'm thinking to myself that a STEM focused education is equally capable of delivering on most, if not all, of those skills. Sure, there are STEM students who lack those skills, but I am sure the same is true of humanities students.
it is common in engineering to have capstone design courses that are intended to force students to draw upon the entirety of their engineering education to address an interesting problem, and that is a critical way of addressing some of the siloing that is prevalent in our extremely modular system of higher education.
See, this is the objection so often. No one says that you only get transferrable and soft skills ONLY from the humanities, simply that the humanities are very good for these. Posters have acknowledged this on this very thread. I've acknowledged that on this very thread. Last time I pointed this out you got snippy, but here we have it again. It is a strawman argument.
Why?
I disagree that high school offers enough quality "exposure" to a variety of subjects, and I am dubious that this is really accomplishable----but that's been gone over.
I am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
My point is that without a capstone course, that draws upon multiple courses, individual courses in and of themselves are not going to achieve any of these higher level thinking skills that transcend the siloed view of the world that comes from our very modular system of higher education. In engineering, this takes the form of senior design classes, and I would be interested to hear what plays a similar role in the humanities? In any case, there are two distinct issues, whether humanities majors acquire these soft skills in the course of their education, which again is assuming facts not in evidence, and the question of whether humanities requirements as part of general education address that need for STEM majors, which I think the evidence is even weaker for.
Also, our current high school systems in the US are inadequate, and that general education of the kind we currently have in college is better achieved in a rigorous high school system (which we do not uniformly have). The American system of higher education is exceptional both in terms of how far a well prepared student can get bacause of its flexibilty, as well as how little a college education can mean for a student who enters with an inadequate level of high school preparation and is doing the bare minimum to satisfy general education and major requirements.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:30:51 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
Fine. Sounds expensive, but I think that sounds interesting.
My understanding of "Intro" courses is that it can be taken by majors and by non-majors. I took intro science courses and found them very accessible and very interesting. Whenever I plan an intro course I consider that I will be teaching a number of non-majors and I tailor the course accordingly figuring that the intro course will introduce a number of majors to the concepts as well.
I suppose colleges could craft intros-for-majors vs intros-for-non-majors? Okay.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 02:47:10 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:30:51 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
Fine. Sounds expensive, but I think that sounds interesting.
My understanding of "Intro" courses is that it can be taken by majors and by non-majors. I took intro science courses and found them very accessible and very interesting. Whenever I plan an intro course I consider that I will be teaching a number of non-majors and I tailor the course accordingly figuring that the intro course will introduce a number of majors to the concepts as well.
I suppose colleges could craft intros-for-majors vs intros-for-non-majors? Okay.
Sure, one can try to accommodate the fact that non-majors are taking the class as well, but it affects the range of topics that are covered, and tend to be a narrower and less holistic view of the field, since the expectation is that the majors will be taking more advanced classes that will fill in some of the gaps. I have similar issues with Associates degrees at community college, as they tend to take the requirements for a four year college degree and offer the first two years, which would be quite different in structure from the topics I might choose to cover knowing that many students will only be taking two years of college classes.
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:30:51 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
If faculty at mediocre institutions had any long term vision for student learning or their employer's financial viability, they would abandon the standard structure of separate discipline-based departments offering majors that few students care about and focus instead on a curriculum that trains students to tackle complex, interdisciplinary problems, like, as mentioned above, environmental degradation and climate change. Instead they stick to the approach that they were exposed to in their graduate programs.
Quote from: spork on April 28, 2021, 03:16:29 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:30:51 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
If faculty at mediocre institutions had any long term vision for student learning or their employer's financial viability, they would abandon the standard structure of separate discipline-based departments offering majors that few students care about and focus instead on a curriculum that trains students to tackle complex, interdisciplinary problems, like, as mentioned above, environmental degradation and climate change. Instead they stick to the approach that they were exposed to in their graduate programs.
There is a new university in Singapore, the Singapore University of Technology and Design, which is a technology and engineering focused university that is structured along broad themes as opposed to traditional engineering disciplines, which I think is a rather novel take on engineering education,
https://www.sutd.edu.sg/Admissions/Undergraduate/Unique-Curriculum/undergraduate-curriculum
Since they don't have humanities majors, their course offerings in humanities, arts, and social sciences are entirely geared towards non-majors, and seem to my untrained eye to have a more multidisciplinary feel than many introductory humanities courses offered at my institution,
https://hass.sutd.edu.sg/education/undergraduate-subjects/subjects-schedule/
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 03:45:37 PM
Quote from: spork on April 28, 2021, 03:16:29 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:30:51 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
If faculty at mediocre institutions had any long term vision for student learning or their employer's financial viability, they would abandon the standard structure of separate discipline-based departments offering majors that few students care about and focus instead on a curriculum that trains students to tackle complex, interdisciplinary problems, like, as mentioned above, environmental degradation and climate change. Instead they stick to the approach that they were exposed to in their graduate programs.
There is a new university in Singapore, the Singapore University of Technology and Design, which is a technology and engineering focused university that is structured along broad themes as opposed to traditional engineering disciplines, which I think is a rather novel take on engineering education,
https://www.sutd.edu.sg/Admissions/Undergraduate/Unique-Curriculum/undergraduate-curriculum
Since they don't have humanities majors, their course offerings in humanities, arts, and social sciences are entirely geared towards non-majors, and seem to my untrained eye to have a more multidisciplinary feel than many introductory humanities courses offered at my institution,
https://hass.sutd.edu.sg/education/undergraduate-subjects/subjects-schedule/
A friend who left a tenured humanities position at a U.S. R1 for a job in Asia wrote about this phenomenon last year:
https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/connectivities-employability-rankings-and-the-end-of-asian-studies-history/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/connectivities-employability-rankings-and-the-end-of-asian-studies-history/).
The above is a follow-up to something else that he wrote on the end of humanities programs in the U.S.:
https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/).
(I've previously posted the link to the above, but the implications of what he's talking about were ignored.)
I read your link the first time, Spork. Your author is pretty conjectural and not very convincing.
Quote from: spork on April 28, 2021, 04:25:20 PM
A friend who left a tenured humanities position at a U.S. R1 for a job in Asia wrote about this phenomenon last year:
https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/connectivities-employability-rankings-and-the-end-of-asian-studies-history/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/connectivities-employability-rankings-and-the-end-of-asian-studies-history/).
The above is a follow-up to something else that he wrote on the end of humanities programs in the U.S.:
https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/ (https://contentasianstudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/post-2008-knowledge-the-future-of-the-humanities-and-area-studies/).
(I've previously posted the link to the above, but the implications of what he's talking about were ignored.)
The author seems to be good are looking for the hot next new thing. Singapore is surely a place to find that! The two examples from there are universities that don't have some of the old traditions of European and North American universities, so there is less inertia when a new core curriculum is developed.
One thing this author emphasizes is something I see mentioned elsewhere even by humanities faculty. That US history faculty are so cocooned in their own world that they fail to respond when the world around them changes. There must be something to that. But it also seems impossible that a thoughtful historian would be unaware that historic changes happen continuously and that those who fail to adapt to new conditions become marginalized. Isn't that a consistent theme in any historic era?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 02:47:10 PM
My understanding of "Intro" courses is that it can be taken by majors and by non-majors. I took intro science courses and found them very accessible and very interesting. Whenever I plan an intro course I consider that I will be teaching a number of non-majors and I tailor the course accordingly figuring that the intro course will introduce a number of majors to the concepts as well.
I suppose colleges could craft intros-for-majors vs intros-for-non-majors? Okay.
First year physics is typically offered in two versions; calculus-based (for majors) and algebra-based (for non-majors). Non-majors often don't have a strong math background. (Ones that do, and want to take the calculus-based course, are usually fine in it.) The calculus version usually covers
fewer topics than the algebra version, since majors will have individual courses in specific topics. The algebra version often has basic introductions to several topics.
Even most of the people taking the algebra version tend to be from things like life sciences, so they have to take it. The number of people taking it as a complete elective is tiny. (I can't say I've
ever heard someone say taking the algebra version prompted them to switch to majoring in physics.)
As I've indicated earlier, I wouldn't recommend either version as a
compulsory science course for non-majors; if I wanted non-science people to take a science course, it would cover more about
science and less about any specific discipline
within the sciences.
What majors, (who will take
many courses in the discipline), and non-majors, (who may never even take another
science course), need is entirely different. A single course can't do a good job of serving both.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 28, 2021, 06:39:35 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 02:47:10 PM
My understanding of "Intro" courses is that it can be taken by majors and by non-majors. I took intro science courses and found them very accessible and very interesting. Whenever I plan an intro course I consider that I will be teaching a number of non-majors and I tailor the course accordingly figuring that the intro course will introduce a number of majors to the concepts as well.
I suppose colleges could craft intros-for-majors vs intros-for-non-majors? Okay.
First year physics is typically offered in two versions; calculus-based (for majors) and algebra-based (for non-majors). Non-majors often don't have a strong math background. (Ones that do, and want to take the calculus-based course, are usually fine in it.) The calculus version usually covers fewer topics than the algebra version, since majors will have individual courses in specific topics. The algebra version often has basic introductions to several topics.
Even most of the people taking the algebra version tend to be from things like life sciences, so they have to take it. The number of people taking it as a complete elective is tiny. (I can't say I've ever heard someone say taking the algebra version prompted them to switch to majoring in physics.)
As I've indicated earlier, I wouldn't recommend either version as a compulsory science course for non-majors; if I wanted non-science people to take a science course, it would cover more about science and less about any specific discipline within the sciences.
What majors, (who will take many courses in the discipline), and non-majors, (who may never even take another science course), need is entirely different. A single course can't do a good job of serving both.
Most universities also have two (or more) tracks for calculus, one aimed at math/physical science/engineering majors, and another aimed at majors in less/non technical fields. But, I think you raise an important point that courses aimed at non-majors should focus less on specific technical content, and more on higher level issues, like the scientific method, etc. I feel similarly, that humanities courses aimed at non-majors should focus less on specific content, and more on general skills, like writing, deep reading, dealing with multiple sources, etc.
Don't they?
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 28, 2021, 09:48:20 PM
Don't they?
Well, we do have a sequence of intensive writing courses that are designed like that, but students do not have the flexibility to chose an alternative to that sequence. The elective humanities courses do not however do that.
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 03:00:36 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 02:47:10 PM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:30:51 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 28, 2021, 01:58:26 PMI am reading people's observations of what a non-siloed, focused gen ed and I am not sure how what people suggest are particularly different from what we now have.
Do we have a good example of a school which has retooled gen eds so they fly free of their silos?
Do you truly believe that our current system of general education, where students often take the first course in a discipline that is also designed for majors is anything but siloed, and is anything but intended to make up attendance in fields with a small number of majors? We've had extensive discussions of how general education might be retooled to free them of their silos, the first mark of this is that they involve faculty from multiple disciplines team teaching the same class, and classes that are designed from the ground up for non-majors.
Fine. Sounds expensive, but I think that sounds interesting.
My understanding of "Intro" courses is that it can be taken by majors and by non-majors. I took intro science courses and found them very accessible and very interesting. Whenever I plan an intro course I consider that I will be teaching a number of non-majors and I tailor the course accordingly figuring that the intro course will introduce a number of majors to the concepts as well.
I suppose colleges could craft intros-for-majors vs intros-for-non-majors? Okay.
Sure, one can try to accommodate the fact that non-majors are taking the class as well, but it affects the range of topics that are covered, and tend to be a narrower and less holistic view of the field, since the expectation is that the majors will be taking more advanced classes that will fill in some of the gaps. I have similar issues with Associates degrees at community college, as they tend to take the requirements for a four year college degree and offer the first two years, which would be quite different in structure from the topics I might choose to cover knowing that many students will only be taking two years of college classes.
Quote from: spork on April 28, 2021, 03:16:29 PM
If faculty at mediocre institutions had any long term vision for student learning or their employer's financial viability, they would abandon the standard structure of separate discipline-based departments offering majors that few students care about and focus instead on a curriculum that trains students to tackle complex, interdisciplinary problems, like, as mentioned above, environmental degradation and climate change. Instead they stick to the approach that they were exposed to in their graduate programs.
This discussion has some valuable ideas for making humanities disciplines more impactful in the undergrad curriculum, and looks to me like something a smaller school could do particularly well. There is a chance of getting faculty from across campus to work together toward a more exciting teaching experience. They'd be less inclined than big-school faculty to replicate their graduate program in how they approach research and curriculum.
It also is a different solution than the Singapore examples.
Quote from: Hibush on April 28, 2021, 06:05:33 PM
One thing this author emphasizes is something I see mentioned elsewhere even by humanities faculty. That US history faculty are so cocooned in their own world that they fail to respond when the world around them changes. There must be something to that. But it also seems impossible that a thoughtful historian would be unaware that historic changes happen continuously and that those who fail to adapt to new conditions become marginalized. Isn't that a consistent theme in any historic era?
As a historian, I don't often see clear lessons from the past. My students often think in those terms. "Prohibition shows that banning a substance is ineffective." "The progressive movement shows that concerted effort can lead to solutions to fix aspects of society." I'm never so sure. Maybe they're right, but I tend to see contradictions and complications that muddy the picture. I always get annoyed when historians sign some statement about how the past tells us how to do deal with something in the present. I can tell you about what the arguments at the Constitutional Convention as a historian. That might or might not be useful historical context for deciding whether Trump should have been impeached, but I don't think knowing that context gives me any more authority than anyone else to tell you whether or not impeachment should have happened.
In this case, I'd be inclined to say that people often invoke historical progress or technological change to argue for something that they want. People's ideas about the direction of the world often aren't borne out by subsequent events.
To be clear, that isn't an argument for keeping things the way they are.
Quote from: Caracal on April 29, 2021, 05:15:11 AM
As a historian, I don't often see clear lessons from the past. My students often think in those terms. "Prohibition shows that banning a substance is ineffective." "The progressive movement shows that concerted effort can lead to solutions to fix aspects of society." I'm never so sure. Maybe they're right, but I tend to see contradictions and complications that muddy the picture.
Those "contradictions and complications that muddy the picture" are the
point of studying history, in my mind. It's the unintended consequences of all kinds of actions that lead to bad outcomes. In both cases mentioned above, draconian actions in one moment of history are not what matters; it's incremental change over time that can improve the situation. Prohibition is a good example of how the unintended consequences like bootlegging undermined the goals of dramtic intervention.
Quote
I always get annoyed when historians sign some statement about how the past tells us how to do deal with something in the present. I can tell you about what the arguments at the Constitutional Convention as a historian. That might or might not be useful historical context for deciding whether Trump should have been impeached, but I don't think knowing that context gives me any more authority than anyone else to tell you whether or not impeachment should have happened.
In this case, I'd be inclined to say that people often invoke historical progress or technological change to argue for something that they want. People's ideas about the direction of the world often aren't borne out by subsequent events.
The main thing that should come out of history is
humility; i.e. rather than a conviction of what the "right" course of action is, a realization that whatever is done, even with good intentions, is likely to have some undesirable consequences, while other actions, even done with bad intentions, will have some redeeming consequences.
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 02:04:48 PM
Quote from: Caracal on April 28, 2021, 11:24:31 AM
Quote from: mleok on April 28, 2021, 09:57:09 AM
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 28, 2021, 09:37:23 AMI've seen some programs that originate this way, and the devolve into hiring adjuncts because the tenure track profs want to teach either similar courses that are more specific to their discipline or just upper level stuff that has nothing to do with the gen ed goals. So, there have to be long term commitments.
Yes, a well thought out and meaningful general education sequence requires strong commitment from faculty. In particular, as you say, a willingness to continue engaging students who will not major in their field and will never take enough classes in the subject to justify engaging at length on a professor's pet topic.
The other piece of this is a strong institutional commitment. If you wanted something like that to work you would need to have small class sizes, encourage faculty collaboration and innovation, and perhaps give faculty full credit for teaching team taught courses. Given the choice, I would never teach the gen ed humanities course at my school. It isn't much fun to teach a big class, mostly filled with students who are only there because the course fit into their schedule.
Definitely, setting up the right incentive system, and providing the resources to encourage sustained engagement by faculty in different disciplines is critical to the success of such an endeavor. But, as others have alluded to, general education is typically done on the cheap, and has the net effect of driving out what little enthusiasm there is for a subject in non-majors, as opposed to sparking an interest.
Agree, and I'd argue the same is true for faculty. In theory, I like the idea of teaching a course I can design for non majors that tackles some issue of my own design. In practice, I teach those courses and mostly find them depressing because they are set up in a way that makes it very hard to really engage students and make the material feel relevant and interesting to them.
I prefer teaching courses in my discipline for majors because those students are far more interested and engaged.
Right, and of course that's what I indicated as a major obstacle in establishing core classes that are designed to fit the curriculum rather than the other way around. These classes will not be a giant fishnet for majors in any discipline...or maybe, if we take your idea, Caracal, they can be? That is, give faculty some freedom in designing courses that fit the curricular goals, whatever they might be.
Quote from: Hibush on April 29, 2021, 04:49:55 AMThis discussion has some valuable ideas for making humanities disciplines more impactful in the undergrad curriculum, and looks to me like something a smaller school could do particularly well. There is a chance of getting faculty from across campus to work together toward a more exciting teaching experience. They'd be less inclined than big-school faculty to replicate their graduate program in how they approach research and curriculum.
When I interviewed at Dartmouth many years ago, I came away with the impression that there was a great deal of interaction between faculty in different disciplines, and it seems like a place that might be able to implement such a team taught multidisciplinary course.
Do we have examples of schools that are incorporating these changes?
The ideas sound great, I just wonder if we have a model.
Quote from: Caracal on April 29, 2021, 06:59:06 AMAgree, and I'd argue the same is true for faculty. In theory, I like the idea of teaching a course I can design for non majors that tackles some issue of my own design. In practice, I teach those courses and mostly find them depressing because they are set up in a way that makes it very hard to really engage students and make the material feel relevant and interesting to them.
I prefer teaching courses in my discipline for majors because those students are far more interested and engaged.
Is that because you don't have full rein to design the course, or do you think it's because trying to silo it into a single discipline makes it less engaging for non-majors? There is no doubt that constructing an engaging, intellectually meaningful and rigorous class for non-majors is exceptionally challenging, but I think it is critical if one wishes to continue requiring a significant core curriculum for all students.
What are the parameters? That is, how much of the curriculum would be interdisciplinary and meet general education goals?
There are probably a few SLACs that already do this with one course, and then kind of open up the rest of the curriculum to be pretty standard, but I don't know if that is what you are looking for.
At many universities, the definition of "significant core curriculum" is "a core curriculum that forces students to take a course delivered by my department."
Quote from: spork on April 29, 2021, 09:46:55 AM
At many universities, the definition of "significant core curriculum" is "a core curriculum that forces students to take a course delivered by my department."
Yes, pretty much that, except that I would change "many" to "most."
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 29, 2021, 09:45:58 AM
What are the parameters? That is, how much of the curriculum would be interdisciplinary and meet general education goals?
To me, the goal would be quality instead of quantity; instead of requiring people to just fill some shopping list of random courses from outside their discipline, only require one or two but make them
targeted to non-majors to give real long-term value.
Quote from: mleok on April 29, 2021, 09:41:35 AM
Quote from: Caracal on April 29, 2021, 06:59:06 AMAgree, and I'd argue the same is true for faculty. In theory, I like the idea of teaching a course I can design for non majors that tackles some issue of my own design. In practice, I teach those courses and mostly find them depressing because they are set up in a way that makes it very hard to really engage students and make the material feel relevant and interesting to them.
I prefer teaching courses in my discipline for majors because those students are far more interested and engaged.
Is that because you don't have full rein to design the course, or do you think it's because trying to silo it into a single discipline makes it less engaging for non-majors? There is no doubt that constructing an engaging, intellectually meaningful and rigorous class for non-majors is exceptionally challenging, but I think it is critical if one wishes to continue requiring a significant core curriculum for all students.
Some of it is on me, I haven't been able to figure out a way to really make it work. I think to make the course really work, I probably need to teach and structure the course very differently than I do my other courses in the major. Maybe a big emphasis on a project, a lot of independent and group work, etc. The problem is that the class is structured and situated in ways that would make it very difficult to make this kind of stuff work. In my other classes, when I have students do group work, most of them engage readily enough and usually a few groups have really interesting discussions. When I do the same things in my gen ed courses, many students just sit there and I have to go prod them to have a discussion. It doesn't help that I always have 50 students in the class. Any kind of multi stage tiered project would be a logistical nightmare.
It comes down to student engagement. The courses are set up in a way that encourages students to see it as something completely separate from the rest of their studies and an annoying hoop to jump through and that's how most of them approach it. I'm not very good at engaging students who don't particularly want to be engaged...
Editorial by two Howard U. professors about the eliminations of its classics department:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/opinion/howard-university-classics-department.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/opinion/howard-university-classics-department.html).
CHE has another installment i (https://www.chronicle.com/article/are-humanities-professors-moral-experts)n this genre, so this is a pro forma post.
Quote from: Michael Clune, Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University. CHE May 3, 2021
Why should students listen to me?
What claim do I have on the public?
When these questions can no longer be answered clearly and convincingly, a discipline risks extinction. This fate looms for literary studies.
The crisis long manifest at every level of the profession — from the decline in majors to the collapse of the job market — has complex causes, but is surely exacerbated by the profession's incapacity to answer the basic questions.
I agree that all faculty should have some ready answer to those questions. WHat is the nature of the "incapacity" Is it that literary studies faculty don't think the answer is yes? Or that they do have answers, but are temperamentally prevented from offering them? Or is the author not talking about literary-studies professors in general, just the two or three in his department that annoy him?
Skipping to the end, we find this:
QuoteMy hope is that these reflections will inspire someone to make the case for literature professors as moral experts, to describe the skills and knowledges that underlie this expertise, to show what the moral expertise of literature professors can teach us that we don't already know, and to exemplify moral approaches to literary works.
Then, faced with these alternative models of expertise, perhaps literature professors will finally be in a position to decide what we are. Our students, states, and colleagues are curious to know.
Yes, we are indeed curious to know.
Any branch of the academy that fails to continuously demonstrate its importance will find itself doomed regardless of its intrinsic value.
Does Professor Clune add any insight to the discussion?
I should think that ethicists are the academy's moral experts.
Or do we think he means something else by 'moral'?
Quote from: Hibush on May 04, 2021, 03:48:53 PM
[. . . ]
Does Professor Clune add any insight to the discussion?
No. He laboriously discusses the problem but leaves it to others to come up with solutions. And by "laboriously," I mean the essay could have been cut by at least half.
The tendency to engage in pedantic verbosity is one of the reasons the humanities are doomed.
Quote from: spork on May 04, 2021, 04:47:24 PM
Quote from: Hibush on May 04, 2021, 03:48:53 PM
[. . . ]
Does Professor Clune add any insight to the discussion?
No. He laboriously discusses the problem but leaves it to others to come up with solutions. And by "laboriously," I mean the essay could have been cut by at least half.
The tendency to engage in pedantic verbosity is one of the reasons the humanities are doomed.
I admit to skipping the middle 80% because he appeared not to be providing the answer. Why does he fail to heed his own call for acts of essential self-preservation?
Quote from: Hibush on May 04, 2021, 03:48:53 PM
QuoteMy hope is that these reflections will inspire someone to make the case for literature professors as moral experts, to describe the skills and knowledges that underlie this expertise, to show what the moral expertise of literature professors can teach us that we don't already know, and to exemplify moral approaches to literary works.
Then, faced with these alternative models of expertise, perhaps literature professors will finally be in a position to decide what we are. Our students, states, and colleagues are curious to know.
Sounds like an incredibly pompous assertion to make.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 04, 2021, 03:55:24 PM
I should think that ethicists are the academy's moral experts.
If we're talking about people to
suggest frameworks for making moral decisions, then perhaps. But if the suggestion is that
any group of academics has,
by virtue of their profession, some sort of moral superiority to members of the public, then that's as pompous and self-righteous as any claim by any religious zealot.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 05, 2021, 05:23:51 AM
But if the suggestion is that any group of academics has, by virtue of their profession, some sort of moral superiority to members of the public, then that's as pompous and self-righteous as any claim by any religious zealot.
I would never suggest such a thing (indeed, there's even a little bit (https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthBehBlackwell.htm) of evidence against the claim). I don't know whether that's what this guy is suggesting, because the paywall is in my way. I doubt it, since it seems like a silly claim to make, and one ought to be charitable to others' arguments and not set up straw men.
I would have thought that whatever goes into 'moral expertise' involved thinking long and hard about the nature of morality, about different ethical frameworks, about moral decision-making, and about applying moral theory to particular cases. In which case, there is indeed one group of humanists who have those skills and that training, and who get it explicitly from their education, but they're not in the English department.
If there are two cases for English literature, and one is as artistic education and the other as moral education, then I would think that the case for the former is much stronger than the latter. (Indeed, I think that the case for the former suffices.)
Quote from: spork on May 04, 2021, 04:47:24 PMThe tendency to engage in pedantic verbosity is one of the reasons the humanities are doomed.
I couldn't agree more. Not to mention that if the best argument he can come up with for the continued justification for the study of humanities is that humanities professors are moral experts, and not even try to make that case, then this article is just one more nail in coffin of humanities.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 05, 2021, 07:52:27 AMIf there are two cases for English literature, and one is as artistic education and the other as moral education, then I would think that the case for the former is much stronger than the latter. (Indeed, I think that the case for the former suffices.)
The essence of the article is that artistic education is depreciated in modern society because, de gustibus non est disputandum, and attempting to justify the study of literature on the basis of both artistic and moral education is fundamentally contradictory. The argument that literature professors are in the business of moral education is asinine though. If anything, the last part of the article seems to make the case that literature professors aren't necessarily the best equipped to handle the task of moral education.
Quote from: mleok on May 05, 2021, 09:13:22 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 05, 2021, 07:52:27 AMIf there are two cases for English literature, and one is as artistic education and the other as moral education, then I would think that the case for the former is much stronger than the latter. (Indeed, I think that the case for the former suffices.)
The essence of the article is that artistic education is depreciated in modern society because, de gustibus non est disputandum, and attempting to justify the study of literature on the basis of both artistic and moral education is fundamentally contradictory. The argument that literature professors are in the business of moral education is asinine though.
Thanks. I guess there's not much to recommend it then, eh?
I can't help but wonder if part of the problem here stems from the project of trying to find a common essence for all the humanities. 'English prof speaks for everyone' is a pretty common thread with these sorts of defences.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 05, 2021, 09:18:47 AM
Quote from: mleok on May 05, 2021, 09:13:22 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 05, 2021, 07:52:27 AMIf there are two cases for English literature, and one is as artistic education and the other as moral education, then I would think that the case for the former is much stronger than the latter. (Indeed, I think that the case for the former suffices.)
The essence of the article is that artistic education is depreciated in modern society because, de gustibus non est disputandum, and attempting to justify the study of literature on the basis of both artistic and moral education is fundamentally contradictory. The argument that literature professors are in the business of moral education is asinine though.
Thanks. I guess there's not much time recommend it then, eh?
I can't help but wonder if part of the problem here stems from the project of trying to find a common essence for all the humanities. 'English prof speaks for weveryone' is a pretty common thread with these sorts of defences.
If one is looking for a reason why we need to study literature, then this article does nothing to advance the case for it. On the contrary, it makes a far better case for why literature, and literature professors, have not relevant expertise in modern society.
Edit: To get a better sense of Michael Clune's motivations, all one needs to realize is that his new book, "A Defense of Judgement" is an attempt to reassert the central role of aesthetic education in the teaching of literature. That, for me, helps to explain why the entire discussion of literature as a means of moral education seems so half-hearted. In essence, he's setting up a strawman argument, and is making a case, in an extremely disingenuous and deceptive manner about why literature should be about aesthetic education.
Thanks to Forumites with disciplinary knowledge! It sounds as if Clune illustrates the problem that is leading to a decline in the academic humanities, rather than offering a sustainable direction.
I think there is a good case for engaging people in moral issues through literature. You can learn a lot if the character you identify with faces a moral dilemma and makes choices that have bad consequences that you only know from seeing into the other characters. Real life doesn't offer the same opportunities. Those stories can be fun and a great teacher can really make you work through the hard stuff.
It's not that lit profs have a unique authority to teach morality, but they have a unique mode of exploring morality that should be attractive to many students. It seems easier than for scholars of baskets, or blueberries.
I like seeing ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology--maybe peppered with logic--in a balanced conversation.
That was the earlier formula, expressed as "The true, the good, and the beautiful" that served as a starting point, as I recall. That's not to say those are exclusively sufficient or necessary as topics for a broadly-based education, they're not.
But once set into interactive consideration, each with each other, the resulting study would have some chance of dimensionality and playfulness as well as creating a steady, satisfying train of thought to take you through life,'s Himalayas of doubt and decrepitude.
M.
At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience.
I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.
Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings.
Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 05, 2021, 09:17:53 PM
At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience.
I don't think that's right at all. It's a nice idea, but I don't think it's at all plausible.
For one thing, it doesn't really capture non-representational art or art forms (e.g. suprematism, colour-field or action-paintings, music, dance) very well at all (the mimetic theory of art shares this failing, incidentally). More importantly, it's far too reductive, and offers a really impoverished analysis of art, its use, and its value. I am reminded, in this respect, of the literary Darwinists' analysis of genre as the play between tragedy and comedy, or of science fiction as being about species survival (or whatever trite thing it is they say--it's the end of a long day and I don't quite remember offhand. There's only so much garbage a chap can have ready to hand with a hatchling around).
Some art
is about ethics at its core. A lot of Ursula K. LeGuin's work comes to mind--not least
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, although I think almost everything she wrote has a deep and rich moral underpinning. And some art is conversational, especially in the sense of trying to spark something inside its viewers, such as conceptual art or lots of avant-garde fun and nonsense.
But it needn't be and, frankly, most art for most of art history--especially 'art' with a lower-case 'a', though this applies to 'Art' too--didn't, and doesn't. Aestheticians pretty much gave up on the project of finding a common essence for art twenty years ago, and rightly so: the field has really flourished since.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 05, 2021, 09:17:53 PM
Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?
Every field of study needs to justify its existence in the academy on a continuous basis. Fields that fail to do so because they think they have some kind of "lifetime membership" are going to lose resources to fields that keep reporting their worth. How pervasive is the idea among humanities faculty that ancient human pursuits are automatically justified?
I'm in an applied science field. Some faculty and administrators in my institution are truly embarrassed about the "applied" part. There is a significant faction that would boot us if they could. That puts pressure on delivering and documenting value in terms they understand or we'd be starved of resources. The administrators are usually persuaded by the money, but sometimes the satisfaction of knowing that their academic work makes regular people's lives better through the work of the applied faculty.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 05, 2021, 09:17:53 PM
At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience.
I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.
Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings.
Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?
1) Are you advocating bringing hunting and prayers into curriculum? The latter actually was a foundation for many old European universities.
2) The question is not about justifying existence per se. It is about justifying existence on the scale some people used to and in the specific form. Coal geology does not warrant a separate course in many places anymore.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on May 06, 2021, 06:22:01 AM
2) The question is not about justifying existence per se. It is about justifying existence on the scale some people used to and in the specific form. Coal geology does not warrant a separate course in many places anymore.
Once-hot fields do indeed disappear. Nuclear engineering is gone already. Campus reactors are expensive to maintain. It turns out that the resulting lack of workforce is one reason it would be difficult to expand the nuclear energy industry.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 05, 2021, 09:17:53 PM
At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience.
I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.
Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings.
Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?
At one level I'd like to say that its justification should be self-evident. But in practice, Hibush is right. Every field needs to earn its keep in some way. I'm a great believer in the value and utility of public libraries, but I've long since accepted the necessity of justifying our existence through service to the community that supports us, adapting in any way necessary to continue performing that mission. Any institution that wants to survive in a changing world has to adapt to show that it is still relevant.
That said, it is depressing to see how narrowly value is determined in our society. If something's contribution can't be reduced to dollars and cents--revenue generated, or workforce utility, etc.--then it's assumed that it doesn't deserve support. And that anybody who wants to argue for continued support is doing so only out of a cynical motivation to preserve employment. An awful lot of decision makers' and ordinary people's minds are so imprisoned by that sort of thinking, and so unable to understand any motivation that can't be boiled down to dollars and cents, that they just can't think outside that box.
It shouldn't be that way. But it's the reality that we have to deal with. It means that those of us who advocate for things that don't have an obvious dollars-and-cents justification have to work that much harder to make the case to a skeptical world that these things are useful.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 05, 2021, 10:00:02 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 05, 2021, 09:17:53 PM
At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience.
I don't think that's right at all. It's a nice idea, but I don't think it's at all plausible.
For one thing, it doesn't really capture non-representational art or art forms (e.g. suprematism, colour-field or action-paintings, music, dance) very well at all (the mimetic theory of art shares this failing, incidentally). More importantly, it's far too reductive, and offers a really impoverished analysis of art, its use, and its value. I am reminded, in this respect, of the literary Darwinists' analysis of genre as the play between tragedy and comedy, or of science fiction as being about species survival (or whatever trite thing it is they say--it's the end of a long day and I don't quite remember offhand. There's only so much garbage a chap can have ready to hand with a hatchling around).
Some art is about ethics at its core. A lot of Ursula K. LeGuin's work comes to mind--not least The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, although I think almost everything she wrote has a deep and rich moral underpinning. And some art is conversational, especially in the sense of trying to spark something inside its viewers, such as conceptual art or lots of avant-garde fun and nonsense.
But it needn't be and, frankly, most art for most of art history--especially 'art' with a lower-case 'a', though this applies to 'Art' too--didn't, and doesn't. Aestheticians pretty much gave up on the project of finding a common essence for art twenty years ago, and rightly so: the field has really flourished since.
I just have too much to do at the moment to really respond, and I wouldn't want to hijack the thread, but maybe this should be it's own post.
You are a bit literal here.
This is not to say that
ONLY ethics and experience are part of Art-with-a-capital-"A," but at the very DNA of any artistic endeavor is human experience----how can there not be?----and on some level there is an ethical overtone---we have to make choices about it.
Even a Pollock splatter painting engenders a reaction, often predicated on experience and exposure, and simply reacting to the colors in their abstraction is human experience. The human brain can conceive of abstraction and patterns---that is an experience at the heart of art. He does not have a moral in the way
Omalas or
The Hobbit do, but the fact that Pollock spattered house paint over massive canvases and called it "art," and museums, collectors, and admirers also call it "art," is an ethical choice to accept abstraction, something which would never have been accepted before in history.
As far as Art in the academy, fair enough, it must be justified to scale and purpose. I simply see an attack on the part of some posters (and in my life outside of the Fora) on the very existence of Art in the academy. Some people simply do not value its contribution. Some are here on these boards.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 06, 2021, 08:36:14 AM
I just have too much to do at the moment to really respond, and I wouldn't want to hijack the thread, but maybe this should be it's own post.
You are a bit literal here.
This is not to say that ONLY ethics and experience are part of Art-with-a-capital-"A," but at the very DNA of any artistic endeavor is human experience----how can there not be?----and on some level there is an ethical overtone---we have to make choices about it.
Even a Pollock splatter painting engenders a reaction, often predicated on experience and exposure, and simply reacting to the colors in their abstraction is human experience. The human brain can conceive of abstraction and patterns---that is an experience at the heart of art. He does not have a moral in the way Omalas or The Hobbit do, but the fact that Pollock spattered house paint over massive canvases and called it "art," and museums, collectors, and admirers also call it "art," is an ethical choice to accept abstraction, something which would never have been accepted before in history.
As far as Art in the academy, fair enough, it must be justified to scale and purpose. I simply see an attack on the part of some posters (and in my life outside of the Fora) on the very existence of Art in the academy. Some people simply do not value its contribution. Some are here on these boards.
We're butting up against one of my areas of expertise, so you can imagine I have a lot to say on the matter. But you're right, there's a danger of getting too far afield. I'd be happy to contribute to a new post, however, if you care to start it.
For now, I'll just say this, by way of explanation: I think that the use of 'ethics' or 'moral' here is,
at best, so overgeneral as to be entirely trivial (narrower characterizations, I think, would just be false). There's a lot more going on there, and it's a lot more interesting, than a characterization of it in terms of the 'moral' allows.
UK Education secretary Gavin Williamson is proposing a 50% cut to university arts programs starting this fall (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic). That proposal spells doom, so I'm adding it to this thread.
The univeristies' main argument seems to be that this cut is bad because it will reduce the number of low-income students. Choosing that as the main justification is not what forumites have been bringing forth. Has it been the argument at North American universities?
In contrast, a physics professor wrote a letter to the Guardian editor (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/07/dont-underestimate-the-value-of-arts-degrees) to protest the societal consequences of not having as many arts alumni in society. That angle is not quite the same as i'm used to hearing here. Will this argument have more influence on the Tories who look at education spending with a cash-flow accounting mindset?
Quote from: Hibush on May 08, 2021, 06:31:15 AM
UK Education secretary Gavin Williamson is proposing a 50% cut to university arts programs starting this fall (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic). That proposal spells doom, so I'm adding it to this thread.
The univeristies' main argument seems to be that this cut is bad because it will reduce the number of low-income students. Choosing that as the main justification is not what forumites have been bringing forth. Has it been the argument at North American universities?
In contrast, a physics professor wrote a letter to the Guardian editor (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/07/dont-underestimate-the-value-of-arts-degrees) to protest the societal consequences of not having as many arts alumni in society. That angle is not quite the same as i'm used to hearing here. Will this argument have more influence on the Tories who look at education spending with a cash-flow accounting mindset?
In the USA, low-income students do not go to college to study art. Overwhelmingly they major in whatever field they think will secure them a middle class lifestyle and that they are capable of completing. Nor is a university degree required to be a practitioner of that art. In fact I think it's a fairly safe assumption that most people who earn a livelihood as an artist do not have graduate degree in whatever their art field is, and probably many don't even have an arts baccalaureate degree in it either.
The same situation applies if one expands "art" to "humanities" generally (i.e., philosophy, history, etc.) when looking at why low-income students go to college in the USA.
Quote from: Hibush on May 08, 2021, 06:31:15 AM
UK Education secretary Gavin Williamson is proposing a 50% cut to university arts programs starting this fall (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic). That proposal spells doom, so I'm adding it to this thread.
The actual proposal linked in the article defines area subject to cuts as "
High-cost subject funding: performing arts; creative arts; media studies; archaeology". It also explicitly mentions that
"... courses in the performing arts, creative arts, media studies and archaeology are very important, bringing huge benefit to society and our culture, as well as to the individuals who take them.
...
However, they [Students studying design, and creative and performing arts] are less likely than average to be mature (aged 21 or over) or to come from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background."
Quote from: Hibush on May 08, 2021, 06:31:15 AMIn contrast, a physics professor wrote a letter to the Guardian editor (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/07/dont-underestimate-the-value-of-arts-degrees) to protest the societal consequences of not having as many arts alumni in society. That angle is not quite the same as i'm used to hearing here. Will this argument have more influence on the Tories who look at education spending with a cash-flow accounting mindset?
I don't know, I found the "argument" in the letter to be pretty weak,
QuoteBut on top of vocational training, what the UK desperately needs is people who can think critically and analytically, who can use their imagination, and who can communicate. We get such people when they are allowed to study the subjects they really enjoy, because all subjects will teach such important and transferable skills.
It boils down to let people do what they like, the actual subject they study is unimportant, as all subjects teach important transferrable skils. I will point out that the last statement actually undermines some of the claims faculty in the humanities make, which allude to the primal role of their subject in teaching students to "think critically and analytically, who can use their imagination, and who can communicate."
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on May 08, 2021, 09:02:54 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 08, 2021, 06:31:15 AM
UK Education secretary Gavin Williamson is proposing a 50% cut to university arts programs starting this fall (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic). That proposal spells doom, so I'm adding it to this thread.
The actual proposal linked in the article defines area subject to cuts as "High-cost subject funding: performing arts; creative arts; media studies; archaeology". It also explicitly mentions that
"... courses in the performing arts, creative arts, media studies and archaeology are very important, bringing huge benefit to society and our culture, as well as to the individuals who take them.
...
However, they [Students studying design, and creative and performing arts] are less likely than average to be mature (aged 21 or over) or to come from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background."
It is worth noting that, as with the recent Florida scholarship limitations, such proposals have a pretty big backlash.
As is so typical of human thinking, there is a herd mentality when it comes to designating some fault or enemy in society. Right now it is doom-to-the-arts because they don't make us rich enough.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 08, 2021, 10:04:41 AM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on May 08, 2021, 09:02:54 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 08, 2021, 06:31:15 AM
UK Education secretary Gavin Williamson is proposing a 50% cut to university arts programs starting this fall (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic). That proposal spells doom, so I'm adding it to this thread.
The actual proposal linked in the article defines area subject to cuts as "High-cost subject funding: performing arts; creative arts; media studies; archaeology". It also explicitly mentions that
"... courses in the performing arts, creative arts, media studies and archaeology are very important, bringing huge benefit to society and our culture, as well as to the individuals who take them.
...
However, they [Students studying design, and creative and performing arts] are less likely than average to be mature (aged 21 or over) or to come from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background."
It is worth noting that, as with the recent Florida scholarship limitations, such proposals have a pretty big backlash.
As is so typical of human thinking, there is a herd mentality when it comes to designating some fault or enemy in society. Right now it is doom-to-the-arts because they don't make us rich enough.
Right.
Imagine Twitter, Snapchat, or TikTok without graphic designers to make a user interface.
Imagine Apple without musicians to sell music on their site.
Imagine Facebook without well-written articles that people are interested in sharing.
Nope, don't need artists, musicians or writers. Not at all.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 08, 2021, 10:04:41 AM
As is so typical of human thinking, there is a herd mentality when it comes to designating some fault or enemy in society. Right now it is doom-to-the-arts because they don't make us rich enough.
It's not "doom-to-the-arts" to say that students should be able to
choose their courses; if they want to take arts, fine. If not, they shouldn't have to. (Same goes for STEM).
If the passionate proponents of a discipline can't present it to prospective students in a way that convinces them of its value, they're not very creative.
Quote from: mleok on May 08, 2021, 09:40:55 AM
Quote from: Hibush on May 08, 2021, 06:31:15 AMIn contrast, a physics professor wrote a letter to the Guardian editor (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/07/dont-underestimate-the-value-of-arts-degrees) to protest the societal consequences of not having as many arts alumni in society. That angle is not quite the same as i'm used to hearing here. Will this argument have more influence on the Tories who look at education spending with a cash-flow accounting mindset?
I don't know, I found the "argument" in the letter to be pretty weak,
QuoteBut on top of vocational training, what the UK desperately needs is people who can think critically and analytically, who can use their imagination, and who can communicate. We get such people when they are allowed to study the subjects they really enjoy, because all subjects will teach such important and transferable skills.
It boils down to let people do what they like, the actual subject they study is unimportant, as all subjects teach important transferrable skils. I will point out that the last statement actually undermines some of the claims faculty in the humanities make, which allude to the primal role of their subject in teaching students to "think critically and analytically, who can use their imagination, and who can communicate."
Nope.
It is still a perfectly valid premise for the lib arts. All along we have said that the lib arts train people to do the things they will need. Never has anyone said the lib arts are the only way to do that.
The LA critical and analytical raison d'être is a response to the 'what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that-degree' deflection.
For some weird reason, you just want to undermine the lib arts and stick to the above strawman.
Quote from: ciao_yall on May 08, 2021, 10:10:42 AM
[. . . ]
Nope, don't need artists, musicians or writers. Not at all.
To me, this statement is a total logic fail, one that completely undermines the argument about "liberal arts teach important, transferable critical thinking skills." No one is saying artists aren't needed. The supposition is instead that one need not get a university degree to be an artist.
I'm not going to hire someone who views himself or herself exclusively, or even primarily, as a poet to fix the boiler in my basement. I'm going to hire a plumber who fixes boilers. Whatever poetry the plumber might write in his or her off hours is not my concern.
Neither repairing plumbing nor writing poetry requires a four-year university degree.
Quote from: spork on May 08, 2021, 10:31:39 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on May 08, 2021, 10:10:42 AM
[. . . ]
Nope, don't need artists, musicians or writers. Not at all.
To me, this statement is a total logic fail, one that completely undermines the argument about "liberal arts teach important, transferable critical thinking skills." No one is saying artists aren't needed. The supposition is instead that one need not get a university degree to be an artist.
I'm not going to hire someone who views himself or herself exclusively, or even primarily, as a poet to fix the boiler in my basement. I'm going to hire a plumber who fixes boilers. Whatever poetry the plumber might write in his or her off hours is not my concern.
Neither repairing plumbing nor writing poetry requires a four-year university degree.
You have your Picassos and your Faulkners and Wesley Willises, but most Artists-with-a-Capital-A are university educated. This is where artists find mentors. All professional classical musicians go through top-notch music schools. I love Motley Crue (despite their apparent misogyny) but you don't need a university for that. Tchaikovsky or Berg, you need a university trained musician.
Sorry for the apparently classism, but most plumbers do not write poetry.
And once again, we assume that LA pursuits only gain validity through direct degree-to-job dynamics.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 08, 2021, 10:43:18 AMYou have your Picassos and your Faulkners and Wesley Willises, but most Artists-with-a-Capital-A are university educated. This is where artists find mentors. All professional classical musicians go through top-notch music schools. I love Motley Crue (despite their apparent misogyny) but you don't need a university for that. Tchaikovsky or Berg, you need a university trained musician.
Sorry for the apparently classism, but most plumbers do not write poetry.
And once again, we assume that LA pursuits only gain validity through direct degree-to-job dynamics.
Does Juilliard have math and science general education requirements?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 08, 2021, 10:12:18 AMNope.
It is still a perfectly valid premise for the lib arts. All along we have said that the lib arts train people to do the things they will need. Never has anyone said the lib arts are the only way to do that.
The LA critical and analytical raison d'être is a response to the 'what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that-degree' deflection.
For some weird reason, you just want to undermine the lib arts and stick to the above strawman.
Mathematics is part of the liberal arts, and I have no issue who students who choose to major in whatever they choose to. My issue is with general education requirements that requires every college student taking classes they don't want to, and the practical reality that students try to do the bare minimum to satisfy them, and this often entails a path of least resistance that goes through classes that have little intellectual rigor or content and significant grade inflation, and which make a mockery of the claim that it develops a well-rounded individual.
If its just a menu to be picked from three divisions, then it is pointless because the content and rigor will differ wildly. Unless the point is to "get exposure to a bunch of wildly different stuff with only tenuous connections", then, yeah, that kind of gen ed is fine. But IMHO, its better to a have a smaller and pointed gen ed requirement, if you believe in it and, after a time you can shows that people are learning what you want them to learn.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 08, 2021, 10:43:18 AM
Quote from: spork on May 08, 2021, 10:31:39 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on May 08, 2021, 10:10:42 AM
[. . . ]
Nope, don't need artists, musicians or writers. Not at all.
To me, this statement is a total logic fail, one that completely undermines the argument about "liberal arts teach important, transferable critical thinking skills." No one is saying artists aren't needed. The supposition is instead that one need not get a university degree to be an artist.
I'm not going to hire someone who views himself or herself exclusively, or even primarily, as a poet to fix the boiler in my basement. I'm going to hire a plumber who fixes boilers. Whatever poetry the plumber might write in his or her off hours is not my concern.
Neither repairing plumbing nor writing poetry requires a four-year university degree.
You have your Picassos and your Faulkners and Wesley Willises, but most Artists-with-a-Capital-A are university educated. This is where artists find mentors. All professional classical musicians go through top-notch music schools. I love Motley Crue (despite their apparent misogyny) but you don't need a university for that. Tchaikovsky or Berg, you need a university trained musician.
Sorry for the apparently classism, but most plumbers do not write poetry.
And once again, we assume that LA pursuits only gain validity through direct degree-to-job dynamics.
Another logic fail. I never said that artistic pursuits gain validity -- whatever definition you might be applying to that word -- only through employment derived from formal university education.
As for classical composers, or other types of artists whose works are held in high regard by certain segments of certain societies, whatever expertise they gain from being mentored during post-secondary education is not coming from Music Appreciation 101 and Art History Survey 101. Generally those people (in the 21st century) are attending institutions that are essentially dedicated arts training academies, like the New England Conservatory or Royal Academy.
Edited to add: the humanities-centric gen ed requirements commonly seen across U.S. undergraduate programs are a vestige of the days when college was for clerical training and the members of the clergy were expected to know Greek and Latin as exegetical/liturgical languages. Degree-to-job dynamic for the elite. Then preparation for a career in law was added as a reason to attend a university; lawyers were also expected to know Greek and Latin. Another degree-to-job dynamic for the elite. Universities today are expected to serve very different populations and very different functions than they were a century or two or three or four ago, regardless of what today's university faculty want those populations and functions to be.
Quote from: Ruralguy on May 08, 2021, 11:39:05 AM
If its just a menu to be picked from three divisions, then it is pointless because the content and rigor will differ wildly. Unless the point is to "get exposure to a bunch of wildly different stuff with only tenuous connections", then, yeah, that kind of gen ed is fine. But IMHO, its better to a have a smaller and pointed gen ed requirement, if you believe in it and, after a time you can shows that people are learning what you want them to learn.
That's an interesting point, it's certainly easier to measure outcomes if one has a more coherent and consistent general education requirement.
I think so, yes. Clear goals. Measurable outcomes. I'm not a huge fan of "Learn about the great philosophers and world art because both have value." I agree that they both have value, but I'd rather see it sold as more of a skill (and I have seen appreciation of world culture, etc. expressed as a skill to be measured).
Quote from: Ruralguy on May 08, 2021, 12:54:53 PM
I think so, yes. Clear goals. Measurable outcomes. I'm not a huge fan of "Learn about the great philosophers and world art because both have value." I agree that they both have value, but I'd rather see it sold as more of a skill (and I have seen appreciation of world culture, etc. expressed as a skill to be measured).
Can you point me toward any publicly-available rubrics or other documentation about how this is done? We are in the process of "revising" our gen ed requirements, and I have no faith that whatever the different committees tasked with this project will come up with anything substantially different than what we have now.
I wish I did. I thought our Assessment Committee had devised such a thing. I'll ask around. If I find something substantive, I will PM you, Spork. But I do think its important to try pretty hard, and get assessment of any gen ed core (as well as anything else) nailed down.
Yeah, many people are going over to the "skills-based" assessment of the value of humanities. The fundamental assumption here is that it's not particularly worthwhile to learn about art history or to read Shakespeare, but those activities give you skills you can use in actually valuable things. Analyzing Hamlet or even Mad Max: Fury Roadhelps you analyze things in a way that society values: you can get a job that involves analysis, you can analyze public policy and become a more informed voter, etc. But knowing about actual works of literature or art is not something society sees much point in, apart from the transferable skills. So our place has gone from requiring stuff like a course in basic literature to a course in Analysis. Many of the new courses fulfilling this Analysis requirement are not anything like literature. I think the idea of becoming "cultured" — widely acquainted with important works — has lost favor entirely. If the students could get through their courses entirely without having any content, but only practice in "skills," I think everyone but a few humanities prof would feel that is an ideal solution.
Thanks Hegemony, I think that's helpful.
Quote from: Hegemony on May 08, 2021, 03:21:55 PM
Yeah, many people are going over to the "skills-based" assessment of the value of humanities. The fundamental assumption here is that it's not particularly worthwhile to learn about art history or to read Shakespeare, but those activities give you skills you can use in actually valuable things. Analyzing Hamlet or even Mad Max: Fury Roadhelps you analyze things in a way that society values: you can get a job that involves analysis, you can analyze public policy and become a more informed voter, etc. But knowing about actual works of literature or art is not something society sees much point in, apart from the transferable skills. So our place has gone from requiring stuff like a course in basic literature to a course in Analysis. Many of the new courses fulfilling this Analysis requirement are not anything like literature. I think the idea of becoming "cultured" — widely acquainted with important works — has lost favor entirely. If the students could get through their courses entirely without having any content, but only practice in "skills," I think everyone but a few humanities prof would feel that is an ideal solution.
I'm not sure that it's not particularly worthwhile to learn about art history or read Shakespeare, but I would certainly have issue requiring everyone to do so, especially if it reduces access due to the actual cost and opportunity cost of effectively increasing the time to degree by a year or so.
Quote from: spork on May 02, 2021, 04:28:31 PM
Editorial by two Howard U. professors about the eliminations of its classics department:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/opinion/howard-university-classics-department.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/opinion/howard-university-classics-department.html).
Just this morning they interviewed a Howard Univ. classics professor on NPR. I forgot her name but she have an eloquent defense for the importance of her department.
New CHE article: Can Yale Reform Its Humanities Doctoral Programs? (http://'https://www.chronicle.com/article/can-yale-reform-its-humanities-doctoral-programs')
Highlights:
- "the majority of Yale doctoral students do not land on the tenure track"
-"The numbers add up to a demand that Yale change its humanities culture to match the reality that its graduate students already face"
- programs declining to reform will get less doctoral students
I wish the concept of "if a humanities department doesn't do right by its doctoral students, it will get fewer of them." was widely applied (and not limited to humanities for that matter)
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on May 16, 2021, 06:59:07 PM
New CHE article: Can Yale Reform Its Humanities Doctoral Programs? (http://'https://www.chronicle.com/article/can-yale-reform-its-humanities-doctoral-programs')
Highlights:
- "the majority of Yale doctoral students do not land on the tenure track"
-"The numbers add up to a demand that Yale change its humanities culture to match the reality that its graduate students already face"
- programs declining to reform will get less doctoral students
I wish the concept of "if a humanities department doesn't do right by its doctoral students, it will get fewer of them." was widely applied (and not limited to humanities for that matter)
Paywalled.
OTOH, I'm not TT and I reap some advantages of that even as I lose a lot too. If Yalies are looking strictly for the prestigious elite or R1 2/2 with lots of time off to research they are going to run into a lot of dead ends. And the Yalies may not be attractive to a lot of teaching colleges which are paranoid about having an Ivy Leaguer ready to jump ship or look down their noses.
Nevertheless, if Yale is tanking, the needle on the hope meter is in the red. Bad moon rising.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on May 16, 2021, 06:59:07 PM
New CHE article: Can Yale Reform Its Humanities Doctoral Programs? (http://'https://www.chronicle.com/article/can-yale-reform-its-humanities-doctoral-programs')
Highlights:
- "the majority of Yale doctoral students do not land on the tenure track"
-"The numbers add up to a demand that Yale change its humanities culture to match the reality that its graduate students already face"
- programs declining to reform will get less doctoral students
I wish the concept of "if a humanities department doesn't do right by its doctoral students, it will get fewer of them." was widely applied (and not limited to humanities for that matter)
Maybe Yale should start pitching its law school to its humanities doctoral students as an "alt-ac" path. "You've already gone into debt and not had a full-time job for the last seven years, what's three more?"
Link to the report referenced above:
Report of the Humanities Doctoral Education Advisory Working Group, Yale University (https://image.message.yale.edu/lib/fe311570756405787c1278/m/1/0bfeafd2-c069-43b3-b529-bd6a7460fb89.pdf)
Lots of blah, blah, blah. Nothing explicit about reducing the number of students to match the availability of full-time faculty positions.
Quote from: spork on May 28, 2021, 05:09:30 AM
Link to the report referenced above:
Report of the Humanities Doctoral Education Advisory Working Group, Yale University (https://image.message.yale.edu/lib/fe311570756405787c1278/m/1/0bfeafd2-c069-43b3-b529-bd6a7460fb89.pdf)
Lots of blah, blah, blah. Nothing explicit about reducing the number of students to match the availability of full-time faculty positions.
The critical paragraph in that report's summary states, "Humanities doctoral education operates in relation to a specific market for academic employment. Fewer than half of the humanities doctoral students who matriculate at Yale obtain tenure-track jobs. Yale has an important role to play in the training of humanists and hiring of junior faculty. The Dean of Humanities of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) commits to the recruitment of a large number of assistant professors in the humanities over the next several years. The GSAS commits to support doctoral education in humanities."
The second sentence could imply that Yale's spectacularly good placement rate means that the specific market for academic employment is strong for Yalies. If one interprets it that way, their response of hiring more faculty so they can train more students makes a lot of sense.
On the other hand, Yale's expectation may be that 100% of matriculating students get TT jobs. Then the logic of their response is that they will assure full placement by hiring all the ones who fail to get jobs elsewhere.
For an executive summary, this section leaves a lot to the reader's imagination.
Quote from: spork on May 28, 2021, 05:09:30 AM
Link to the report referenced above:
Report of the Humanities Doctoral Education Advisory Working Group, Yale University (https://image.message.yale.edu/lib/fe311570756405787c1278/m/1/0bfeafd2-c069-43b3-b529-bd6a7460fb89.pdf)
Lots of blah, blah, blah. Nothing explicit about reducing the number of students to match the availability of full-time faculty positions.
There some items in the admissions sections that would contribute to this (if implemented):
- "
Consider developing a master's program in its units through the exchange of doctoral admissions slots for fully funded master's slots."
- "
The more successful a department is in mentoring its students to full-time, fulfilling jobs, the more gSaS might reward that department with the authorization to admit graduate students. Correlatively, the more attrition—especially late attrition—there is among graduate students in the department or the less successful the department is in guiding its students to completion, the more its future admissions might be limited. The working group agrees that program size and therefore annual admissions targets should be tied to fluctuating metrics rather than to historical entitlements."
- "
The working group suggests recording and assessing student outcomes beginning at three years out from their doctorate in four categories: (1) those who place in non-tenure-track academic positions, whether as adjuncts, lecturers, or visiting assistant professors; (2) those who work in positions related to and enhanced by the skills in research and teaching developed by doctoral training; (3) those who work in positions with no clear relationship to doctoral training; and (4) those who leave Yale without completing the doctoral degree."
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on May 28, 2021, 08:35:17 AM
Quote from: spork on May 28, 2021, 05:09:30 AM
- "The working group suggests recording and assessing student outcomes beginning at three years out from their doctorate in four categories: (1) those who place in non-tenure-track academic positions, whether as adjuncts, lecturers, or visiting assistant professors; (2) those who work in positions related to and enhanced by the skills in research and teaching developed by doctoral training; (3) those who work in positions with no clear relationship to doctoral training; and (4) those who leave Yale without completing the doctoral degree."
The fact that they have "historical entitlements" is interesting. We have to earn each assistantship annually from a great diversity of sources, so that concept is long gone. It definitely results in greater responsiveness, but not necessarily responses to strategic priorities.
Tying future assistantships to career success, and recognizing success as "positions related to and enhanced by the skills in research and teaching developed by doctoral training" seem reasonable. It should provide admissions committees and advisors some motivation to invest assistantships and advising time in students with likelihood of success.
The text above suggests that late attrition is a significant problem. That strikes me as a big concern. Are these students failing out of the program so late, or are they simply disillusioned by the poor prospects and changing direction? Is that late attrition a consequence of poor advising, or lax admission? Both of those problems can arise if faculty feel that assistantships are an entitlement.
Quote from: Hibush on May 28, 2021, 08:52:18 AM
The fact that they have "historical entitlements" is interesting. We have to earn each assistantship annually from a great diversity of sources, so that concept is long gone. It definitely results in greater responsiveness, but not necessarily responses to strategic priorities.
Tying future assistantships to career success, and recognizing success as "positions related to and enhanced by the skills in research and teaching developed by doctoral training" seem reasonable. It should provide admissions committees and advisors some motivation to invest assistantships and advising time in students with likelihood of success.
I wonder if "historical entitlements" may refer to "number of students normally accepted" as opposed to "number of fully-funded positions available". Departments may respond to reduced funding available by decreasing funding per student instead of reducing enrollment (e.g. recent "big mistake" thread (https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=2329.0)). Vice versa, a department awash in cash would not necessarily increase enrollment.
So, for me it looks like as if they want to add a new constraint on enrollment semi-independent of funding (hopefully, preventing departments from getting a bunch of underfunded students so that somebody can teach an "advanced basket weaving" seminar).
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
I'm glad you posted this. I was going to respond to a comment from a month ago to the effect that the largest percentage of degrees awarded in my (large) state CC system is in Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Quote from: dr_codex on June 14, 2021, 06:36:35 AM
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
I'm glad you posted this. I was going to respond to a comment from a month ago to the effect that the largest percentage of degrees awarded in my (large) state CC system is in Liberal Arts and Sciences.
From the article:
Quote
In 2018, the nation's community colleges conferred 413,246 associate degrees in liberal arts and the humanities, the highest level on record. The number of associate degrees conferred in these disciplines increased almost every year from 1987 to 2018, rising by an average of 4.3 percent annually.
Unlike the humanities degrees conferred at the baccalaureate level, almost all of the degrees counted here were classified by the conferring institution as being in "liberal arts" and "liberal studies" rather than specific humanities disciplines.
To me, "associate degree" with
no specific discipline sounds an awful lot like box-checking credential for jobs that "require" a degree, rather than for any preference by students.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 14, 2021, 07:10:06 AM
Quote from: dr_codex on June 14, 2021, 06:36:35 AM
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
I'm glad you posted this. I was going to respond to a comment from a month ago to the effect that the largest percentage of degrees awarded in my (large) state CC system is in Liberal Arts and Sciences.
From the article:
Quote
In 2018, the nation's community colleges conferred 413,246 associate degrees in liberal arts and the humanities, the highest level on record. The number of associate degrees conferred in these disciplines increased almost every year from 1987 to 2018, rising by an average of 4.3 percent annually.
Unlike the humanities degrees conferred at the baccalaureate level, almost all of the degrees counted here were classified by the conferring institution as being in "liberal arts" and "liberal studies" rather than specific humanities disciplines.
To me, "associate degree" with no specific discipline sounds an awful lot like box-checking credential for jobs that "require" a degree, rather than for any preference by students.
Could be.
Could also be that a large number of students attend Community Colleges, and pursue these degrees, because they don't share your preferences about higher education.
It can be a challenge to get an associate's degree in a specific field up and running. You need the faculty and the upper-level courses, and to get those you need the enrollments. Most of the time it's probably easier for an institution to bundle its existing courses into a catchall like Liberal studies. Doing so requires basically no work. Of course, it's also not super attractive to students if you want to retain them. But if you're doing fine as a transfer school...
Quote from: dr_codex on June 14, 2021, 07:32:12 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 14, 2021, 07:10:06 AM
From the article:
Quote
In 2018, the nation's community colleges conferred 413,246 associate degrees in liberal arts and the humanities, the highest level on record. The number of associate degrees conferred in these disciplines increased almost every year from 1987 to 2018, rising by an average of 4.3 percent annually.
Unlike the humanities degrees conferred at the baccalaureate level, almost all of the degrees counted here were classified by the conferring institution as being in "liberal arts" and "liberal studies" rather than specific humanities disciplines.
To me, "associate degree" with no specific discipline sounds an awful lot like box-checking credential for jobs that "require" a degree, rather than for any preference by students.
Could be.
Could also be that a large number of students attend Community Colleges, and pursue these degrees, because they don't share your preferences about higher education.
I'd be interested to know how holders of those degrees stack up against graduates of good high schools. Much of the "requirement" of an unspecified degree for a job is probably because the high variability of high schools makes a diploma unreliable as a measure of basic literacy and numeracy.
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
Is a major in "Liberal Studies" at a community college really a humanities degree? Or is it more of a general education category? The article says the explicit humanities majors, like English and History, are down. So either humanities enrollment is down at CCs as well, or it is up but not as narrow as individual majors.
Quote from: Hibush on June 14, 2021, 09:18:07 AM
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
Is a major in "Liberal Studies" at a community college really a humanities degree? Or is it more of a general education category? The article says the explicit humanities majors, like English and History, are down. So either humanities enrollment is down at CCs as well, or it is up but not as narrow as individual majors.
You'd have to look at the HEGIS codes to know for sure. Often these degrees are subcategorized, especially for education streams, but also to separate arts-flavored from math/science-flavored.
Quote from: Hibush on June 14, 2021, 09:18:07 AM
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
Is a major in "Liberal Studies" at a community college really a humanities degree? Or is it more of a general education category? The article says the explicit humanities majors, like English and History, are down. So either humanities enrollment is down at CCs as well, or it is up but not as narrow as individual majors.
This is not my corner of higher ed, but I do not know of any occupation that specifically requires, or confers a benefit of higher wages because of, an associate's degree in English, history, or liberal studies. I would not be surprised if most recipients of liberal studies associate's degrees are actual or intended transfers to four-year universities who are completing gen ed requirements at CCs prior to transfer.
Many of these are just transfer degrees. The student completes their general eds in a CC, then transfers their units to a 4-year school and declares a major.
Quote from: Hibush on June 14, 2021, 09:18:07 AM
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
Is a major in "Liberal Studies" at a community college really a humanities degree? Or is it more of a general education category? The article says the explicit humanities majors, like English and History, are down. So either humanities enrollment is down at CCs as well, or it is up but not as narrow as individual majors.
Could be anything at my school (a university in name only), including sciences, because we have almost no degrees (associate's or otherwise). Pretty much the only things it can't be are music, animation, or graphic design, which
do have degrees attached.
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 10:08:02 AM
Quote from: Hibush on June 14, 2021, 09:18:07 AM
Quote from: spork on June 14, 2021, 01:53:57 AM
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/06/14/study-finds-community-colleges-are-only-colleges-world-growing-humanities)
Is a major in "Liberal Studies" at a community college really a humanities degree? Or is it more of a general education category? The article says the explicit humanities majors, like English and History, are down. So either humanities enrollment is down at CCs as well, or it is up but not as narrow as individual majors.
This is not my corner of higher ed, but I do not know of any occupation that specifically requires, or confers a benefit of higher wages because of, an associate's degree in English, history, or liberal studies. I would not be surprised if most recipients of liberal studies associate's degrees are actual or intended transfers to four-year universities who are completing gen ed requirements at CCs prior to transfer.
Matt Reed agrees with me: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/gen-ed-and-humanities-majors (https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/gen-ed-and-humanities-majors).
IHE has another column (https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/fixing-humanities-phd-job-crisis) along the same lines as the one that inspired this thread.
"You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the cries of anguish from graduate students, especially those in the humanities, who feel that their prospects of ever getting a full-time tenure-track job are negligible."
We must be a stone-hearted bunch here who expect graduate students to make some sort of data-based interpretation that they can apply to their own professional trajectory.
The author, Steven Mintz, professor of history at UT, seems to work in a bubble where expectations are quite different from mine where we have long ago achieve his dream, where "those of us fortunate enough to teach in a Ph.D.-granting department have assumed a big ethical responsibility: to do everything we possibly can to prepare our graduates for a fulfilling career, whether inside or outside the academy." But we also expect students to take primary responsibility for identifying and developing a career path that is realistic.
I dunno about you, but I can feel anguish for people who got left behind, or whose prospects are dim, even if they knew what they were getting into, or when they should have done.
Similarly, it exasperates me and makes me angry when people forgo vaccination for bad reasons, but that doesn't usually prevent me from feeling sorry for them when they become ill.
It seems right to me that those in PhD-granting departments have particular duties of care towards their students--and my impression is that they often fail to live up to those obligations.
That said, doesn't Mintz write that column every year?
Quote from: Hibush on September 15, 2021, 09:53:35 AM
The author, Steven Mintz, professor of history at UT, seems to work in a bubble where expectations are quite different from mine where we have long ago achieve his dream, where "those of us fortunate enough to teach in a Ph.D.-granting department have assumed a big ethical responsibility: to do everything we possibly can to prepare our graduates for a fulfilling career, whether inside or outside the academy." But we also expect students to take primary responsibility for identifying and developing a career path that is realistic.
This illustrates the importance of distinguishing which bubble the specific professor is in. However, such information is nearly impossible for prospective students to come by.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 15, 2021, 10:35:20 AM
[. . .]
That said, doesn't Mintz write that column every year?
Approximately monthly at this point; IHE seems to have hired him as a regular columnist.
A more optimistic view comes in a Sept. 2 interview in CHE with Leon Botstein of Bard. (https://www.chronicle.com/article/we-as-humanists-are-not-a-monopoly)
One of the questions is who appropriately pays for a humanities education. This course of study should not a pursuit solely for the idle rich.
QuoteThere is no doubt that the system of financing higher education, public and private, in the United States is completely irrational and broken. You can't push the cost of higher education onto the consumer. There has to be much more tax-based support for the public universities. I would refinance all the public universities and also private institutions.
The inequality of wealth we live with is incompatible with democracy and incompatible, in my view, with a free society. But who's going to have the will to change that without being tarred and feathered as a Socialist? So now that we have the superrich, we're back to a period similar to when John D. Rockefeller single-handedly put the University of Chicago into business — the time of Leland Stanford, Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon. The history of great wealth investing in the public interest is long in the United States, and it's an admirable history.
In my view, philanthropy is no longer going to be based on nostalgia — "I went there, my child went there" — that brought a lot of colleges into wealth. I think the future will be on mission, on ideas, on what contribution private institutions can make to the public welfare.
That quote speaks to the practical need to cozy up to the superrich in ways that are consistent with the institutional mission. That dilemma is a big challenge, but one each school has to undertake because the financial principles we operate under requires it.
Botstein speaks to his own experience in showing that humanists can not only court the superrich, they can do so on the basis of the humanities' contribution to the public welfare.
The conclusion also speaks to the moral imperative to keep the public funding coming if the financial principles are to be made more equitable.
Don't know if it is going to save anything, but the AAUP listserve is touting the Build Back Better Act. (https://newdealforhighered.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Build-Back-Better-Fact-Sheet.pdf?link_id=0&can_id=c9d9bc7e6ae758c0c0bfd7b541f2942e&source=email-take-action-44&email_referrer=email_1291078&email_subject=tell-your-representative-help-higher-ed-build-back-better)
I always thought America had the wealth to save higher ed if it just had the will.
Usually I was castigated for daring to dream.
CHE has what I see as a hopeful sign. Small but apprently noteworthy.
Leonard Cassuto, Fordham, reports (https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-do-we-teach-graduate-students-in-the-humanities-to-collaborate) that the new chair of history at Michigan instituted a new grad seminar that involves...cooperation with other graduate students. And they liked it. And learned a lot.
OK, so I'm being a bit snide about so obvious an activity being national news.
The project involved a team of students working do produce a real museum exhibit for a real "client". Sounds really good.
Here are two of the take home lessons:
1) Doctoral students and their professors can collaborate without betraying the core values of our disciplines, and
(2) we should design graduate courses based on what students need to learn, not just around the specific research we happen to be doing.
Will these notions propagate to more courses in the history department? To other departments at Michigan? To other schools?
Does it help that it is happening at one of the biggest and best regarded history programs in the country.
Quote from: Hibush on December 06, 2021, 03:41:10 PM
Here are two of the take home lessons:
...
(2) we should design graduate courses based on what students need to learn, not just around the specific research we happen to be doing.
...
Will these notions propagate to more courses in the history department? To other departments at Michigan? To other schools?
I wouldn't be so optimistic.
Article mentions 9 students recently taking class. Department's web-site lists 166 grad students (72 of the listing "Europe" as one of their fields of study). Even though 166 includes few already graduated in 2020-2021, it still means that only a small fraction of grad students there took the class.
So,
"only small fraction of students going through the class" +
"professor on the museum's board" looks to me a lot like
"designing the course around the specific research we happen to be doing", while advertising it as a trailblazer
How many of that 166 are still in coursework, though?
9 will probably still seem small, but at least the comparison class will be more appropriate.
(Also: wow, that's five times the size of my PhD program.)
Ok, I get that the admin had to make hard choices, but the student has to think about what is best for him, because, well, he has only 4 years or so to be an undergrad, and if he went to St. Rose in order to study in a major/ program, that the school had to make the 'hard choice' to eviscerate, well he is certainly going to feel like he's been bait-and-switched, and has no choice but to act now in his best interests. Similar to what pro jock unions, such as the MLBPA, do, when they play hardball with ownership, because their pro careers are almost all going to be really short, and they need to look out for number one asap.
Quote from: kaysixteen on December 06, 2021, 10:05:14 PM
Ok, I get that the admin had to make hard choices, but the student has to think about what is best for him, because, well, he has only 4 years or so to be an undergrad, and if he went to St. Rose in order to study in a major/ program, that the school had to make the 'hard choice' to eviscerate, well he is certainly going to feel like he's been bait-and-switched, and has no choice but to act now in his best interests. Similar to what pro jock unions, such as the MLBPA, do, when they play hardball with ownership, because their pro careers are almost all going to be really short, and they need to look out for number one asap.
Is this supposed to be on the Dire Straits thread?
Quote from: lightning on December 06, 2021, 10:14:50 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on December 06, 2021, 10:05:14 PM
Ok, I get that the admin had to make hard choices, but the student has to think about what is best for him, because, well, he has only 4 years or so to be an undergrad, and if he went to St. Rose in order to study in a major/ program, that the school had to make the 'hard choice' to eviscerate, well he is certainly going to feel like he's been bait-and-switched, and has no choice but to act now in his best interests. Similar to what pro jock unions, such as the MLBPA, do, when they play hardball with ownership, because their pro careers are almost all going to be really short, and they need to look out for number one asap.
Is this supposed to be on the Dire Straits thread?
This is one of the reasons that humanities crawl off to die.
Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/12/07/proposal-would-give-liberal-arts-faculty-second-class-status)
"Administrators at Texas A&M University have proposed a sweeping reorganization of the liberal arts and science programs at the Qatar campus that would dissolve existing faculty contracts in favor of nine-month teaching- and service-focused appointments and would prohibit faculty members in those fields from applying as lead principal investigators for research grants, essentially relegating them to second-class status."
"Faculty who oppose the plan say the proposed changes would undermine the quality of education that the campus's approximately 600 engineering students receive."
Does a political science class from a tenured professor instead of an instructor make one a better engineer?
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on December 09, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/12/07/proposal-would-give-liberal-arts-faculty-second-class-status)
"Administrators at Texas A&M University have proposed a sweeping reorganization of the liberal arts and science programs at the Qatar campus that would dissolve existing faculty contracts in favor of nine-month teaching- and service-focused appointments and would prohibit faculty members in those fields from applying as lead principal investigators for research grants, essentially relegating them to second-class status."
"Faculty who oppose the plan say the proposed changes would undermine the quality of education that the campus's approximately 600 engineering students receive."
Does a political science class from a tenured professor instead of an instructor make one a better engineer?
I'm always surprised at how many people truncate LAS to Liberal Arts.
This would mean no research in math, chemistry, geology, physics, and more. I would imagine that this might be of interest to an aspiring petrochemical engineer.
Alternately, you might argue that engineering courses are just as well taught by adjuncts and term faculty.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on December 09, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/12/07/proposal-would-give-liberal-arts-faculty-second-class-status)
"Administrators at Texas A&M University have proposed a sweeping reorganization of the liberal arts and science programs at the Qatar campus that would dissolve existing faculty contracts in favor of nine-month teaching- and service-focused appointments and would prohibit faculty members in those fields from applying as lead principal investigators for research grants, essentially relegating them to second-class status."
"Faculty who oppose the plan say the proposed changes would undermine the quality of education that the campus's approximately 600 engineering students receive."
Does a political science class from a tenured professor instead of an instructor make one a better engineer?
TAMU's presence in Qatar is likely to have something to do with supporting the oil industry and bringing oil money to Texas. It that is the motivator, the policies on the campus might reflect the priorities quite closely. A political science class of any kind might be iffy.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on December 09, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/12/07/proposal-would-give-liberal-arts-faculty-second-class-status)
"Administrators at Texas A&M University have proposed a sweeping reorganization of the liberal arts and science programs at the Qatar campus that would dissolve existing faculty contracts in favor of nine-month teaching- and service-focused appointments and would prohibit faculty members in those fields from applying as lead principal investigators for research grants, essentially relegating them to second-class status."
"Faculty who oppose the plan say the proposed changes would undermine the quality of education that the campus's approximately 600 engineering students receive."
Does a political science class from a tenured professor instead of an instructor make one a better engineer?
Gee whiz. I have been saying this for a while. This is no surprise.
Biz & Engineering job schools. It's what people in our era want. Qatar is just ahead of the curve.
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on December 09, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/12/07/proposal-would-give-liberal-arts-faculty-second-class-status)
"Administrators at Texas A&M University have proposed a sweeping reorganization of the liberal arts and science programs at the Qatar campus that would dissolve existing faculty contracts in favor of nine-month teaching- and service-focused appointments and would prohibit faculty members in those fields from applying as lead principal investigators for research grants, essentially relegating them to second-class status."
"Faculty who oppose the plan say the proposed changes would undermine the quality of education that the campus's approximately 600 engineering students receive."
Does a political science class from a tenured professor instead of an instructor make one a better engineer?
To the last question, "Yes, where the tenured professor is safer in making political observations about that particular country, precisely because of protections within their tenured status.
A friend, as I've said before, went to a similar place, he thought on a lark, to teach calculus to undergrads, and HE was followed, his rooms searched, and his passport held against his displeasing the PTB. (He finally got out.)
But. Calculus. Not even Poli Sci, but Calculus.
If they see a threat in a simple advanced math class, they'll definitely be impairing the freedom of discussion in a Poli Sci class, or a History class, or even a Global Affairs and Events class. (Oh, yeah, I forgot to say. Guys with guns sat in the back of his classroom.)
An adjunct, like my friend, is too easily in a position to be intimidated, and thus the quality of their teaching is, most directly, affected.
They wouldn't dare, for example, teach a class on, say, "fake news"...
M.
Quote from: mamselle on December 09, 2021, 08:28:56 PM
Quote from: Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert on December 09, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/12/07/proposal-would-give-liberal-arts-faculty-second-class-status)
"Administrators at Texas A&M University have proposed a sweeping reorganization of the liberal arts and science programs at the Qatar campus that would dissolve existing faculty contracts in favor of nine-month teaching- and service-focused appointments and would prohibit faculty members in those fields from applying as lead principal investigators for research grants, essentially relegating them to second-class status."
"Faculty who oppose the plan say the proposed changes would undermine the quality of education that the campus's approximately 600 engineering students receive."
Does a political science class from a tenured professor instead of an instructor make one a better engineer?
To the last question, "Yes, where the tenured professor is safer in making political observations about that particular country, precisely because of protections within their tenured status.
A friend, as I've said before, went to a similar place, he thought on a lark, to teach calculus to undergrads, and HE was followed, his rooms searched, and his passport held against his displeasing the PTB. (He finally got out.)
But. Calculus. Not even Poli Sci, but Calculus.
If they see a threat in a simple advanced math class, they'll definitely be impairing the freedom of discussion in a Poli Sci class, or a History class, or even a Global Affairs and Events class. (Oh, yeah, I forgot to say. Guys with guns sat in the back of his classroom.)
An adjunct, like my friend, is too easily in a position to be intimidated, and thus the quality of their teaching is, most directly, affected.
They wouldn't dare, for example, teach a class on, say, "fake news"...
M.
Do you really think tenure would have made a big difference in that case? It seems to me, in a place like that, the PTB aren't going to have any problem dealing with
any foreigner who rubs them the wrong way.
But a tenured person (foreigner or not)--IF such a system had such a category--would matter.
I agree, it might not exist there to begin with.
But it is one of the ways that tenure does influence quality of instruction where ideological pressures might otherwise be brought to bear.
Which was the whole idea to begin with, right?
M.
Quote from: mamselle on December 10, 2021, 08:33:18 AM
But a tenured person (foreigner or not)--IF such a system had such a category--would matter.
I strongly doubt so:
Quote from: mamselle on December 09, 2021, 08:28:56 PM
If they see a threat in a simple advanced math class, they'll definitely be impairing the freedom of discussion in a Poli Sci class, or a History class, or even a Global Affairs and Events class. (Oh, yeah, I forgot to say. Guys with guns sat in the back of his classroom.)
Discussion requires students to participate. Having a tenured expat professor in front of them is not a sufficient condition (even it being a necessary condition remains unproven)
Quote from: dr_codex on December 09, 2021, 06:03:33 PM
This would mean no research in math, chemistry, geology, physics, and more. I would imagine that this might be of interest to an aspiring petrochemical engineer.
Cursory review of the faculty directory indicates that relevant faculty resides in engineering departments.
E.g. geology courses are taught by petroleum engineering person with relevant background.
Quote from: dr_codex on December 09, 2021, 06:03:33 PM
Alternately, you might argue that engineering courses are just as well taught by adjuncts and term faculty.
Indeed. So, a [relatively] privileged position of the engineering faculty here is likely to simply reflect their labour market power. Hence my question about this being a possible future for other places, where the same power dynamics apply.
Quote from: mamselle on December 09, 2021, 08:28:56 PMA friend, as I've said before, went to a similar place, he thought on a lark, to teach calculus to undergrads, and HE was followed, his rooms searched, and his passport held against his displeasing the PTB. (He finally got out.)
But. Calculus. Not even Poli Sci, but Calculus.
If they see a threat in a simple advanced math class, they'll definitely be impairing the freedom of discussion in a Poli Sci class, or a History class, or even a Global Affairs and Events class. (Oh, yeah, I forgot to say. Guys with guns sat in the back of his classroom.)
I'm curious as to why calculus was perceived as a threat, what was the class supposed to be about?
It was for engineers.
Think a country with a well-to-do oil-based economy in the 1990s, with a strong military, somewhere around the Mediterranean.
He had a background in electronics and physics as well (and was working on some thingummy here in the states for a contractor; the whole team was laid off after they delivered the designs that were wanted), and he was footloose, so he decided, against several friends' advice, to sell up everything-- including his house to his long-time renters--and see where the wind would blow him.
However, there were several things that my friend was not told when he signed on. Or, more accurately, things he stipulated he did not want to have happen, that did.
He specifically said he would not teach in a military school, wanted nothing to do with guns or other weapons, and expected to be housed privately, since he could afford to pay for a place himself. He wanted to teach professionals, not draftees who had to be there, and he wanted to set up his syllabus himself.
Instead, they put him in an apartment they controlled (and bugged it), they followed him around openly on the streets going to and from class, or to dinner, or anywhere else, and they had these goons in the back with their guns. They dictated the syllabus, and the goons-with-guns would (he knew) have reported him if he'd gone away from it...and they had no sense of humor, so even jokes made them restive...their English was mottled at best.
It was clear from the students' attitudes (and the fatigues they wore to class each day) that they were the very draftees he'd asked to avoid, and they definitely didn't want to be there. He'd been told he'd get his passport back the day after he handed it in "for processing," and then had a three-month hassle getting it back (because within a couple of weeks he'd decided to break his contract and get out).
He wasn't even teaching (or apparently ever asked for) the kinds of seriously savvy stuff he could have taught, which had low-grade munitions uses, apparently.
They were just into control, and that meant in every way, and he couldn't teach a thing on his own, really.
He did get out, finally, came back with nothing, and fortunately, his long-term-renting-house-buyers let him stay with them while he got back on his feet.
M.
Tenure does not protect against apartment being bugged or against being followed by security officers.
So, I still don't understand how this story supports the notion that
Quote from: mamselle on December 10, 2021, 08:33:18 AM
But a tenured person (foreigner or not)--IF such a system had such a category--would matter.
Texas A&M needs Qatar more than Qatar needs Texas A&M. I suspect Georgetown would never agree to this.
I'm not sure tenure has protected people in say Singapore when they are blacklisted from the country. But it does protect against silly administrators.
Here's one way to boost the Humanities.
Make classics a shelter for neofascists and create jobs for far right wing academics.
https://www.salon.com/2022/05/31/exclusive-now-the-far-right-is-coming-for-college-too--with-taxpayer-funded-classical-education/
Quote from: downer on May 31, 2022, 10:14:38 AM
Here's one way to boost the Humanities.
Make classics a shelter for neofascists and create jobs for far right wing academics.
https://www.salon.com/2022/05/31/exclusive-now-the-far-right-is-coming-for-college-too--with-taxpayer-funded-classical-education/
Now, now. They
earned those jobs, and it's not their fault the women and Black people stole all the regular jobs.
This from an Australian paper:
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-simon-during-on-the-demoralisation-of-the-humanities-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-186111
M.
Quote from: mamselle on July 16, 2022, 06:48:23 AM
This from an Australian paper:
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-simon-during-on-the-demoralisation-of-the-humanities-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-186111
M.
From the article:
Quote
As George Orwell noted decades ago in The Road to Wigan Pier, there is something repugnant about a progressivism embraced by those who have no experience of the struggles and the sheer physical grind of those who don't hold the right certificates. Or about those who want to decolonise the culture while enjoying all colonialism's fruits. In the popular view, the humanities academic embodies such gilded radicalism.
Of course, it is not as though all humanities academics have signed up to the whole post-sixties left program. In the old humanities at sandstone universities, courses such as those on Elizabethan drama, the history of medieval Korea, or the grammatical structures of Indo-European languages are still taught. Such courses need not be organised around progressive sensitivities.
Nonetheless, those academics – a small fraction – who wish to push back on, say, denunciations of the white man's historical role, or who wish to praise the "great books" canon, tend not talk in public or even in the classroom. They are afraid to.
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/02/college-major-regrets/) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
One graph shows that humanities bachelor degrees have dropped from 9% in the 1980s to 7% today. that is a drop but hardly the cliff it is described as. Comater that to the burgeoning Computer Science which is up from 5% to 6 1/2%. That's right, the major that is blowing everything else out of the water has almost caught up with the humanities. (The last 10 years look worse, and there is a graph of that as well.)
Quote from: Hibush on September 06, 2022, 10:12:07 AM
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/02/college-major-regrets/) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
As the article points out, there's a feedback loop problem. If you ask people if they regret doing something, what they tell you isn't necessarily going to be based on an objective examination of their past choices and current situation. Instead, people are influenced by all these stories about how getting a humanities major is a bad idea and believe that if they had majored in something else they would be making more money. I suspect they are often wrong. It's easy to imagine you could have been a computer science major, but that doesn't mean you would have been successful if you didn't have the skills.
There's a feedback loop with the earnings as well. If college students believe that majoring in the humanities is going to mean they can't get higher paying jobs, than those who value that highly will major in other things. The students left in the humanities are going to be those who have other priorities, and when they graduate many of them will become teachers, go into the non profit sector or do other things that aren't likely to pay terribly well. That doesn't mean that a student who majors in business instead of philosophy is actually going to earn more money because of their degree.
Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2022, 11:20:42 AMThere's a feedback loop with the earnings as well. If college students believe that majoring in the humanities is going to mean they can't get higher paying jobs, than those who value that highly will major in other things. The students left in the humanities are going to be those who have other priorities, and when they graduate many of them will become teachers, go into the non profit sector or do other things that aren't likely to pay terribly well. That doesn't mean that a student who majors in business instead of philosophy is actually going to earn more money because of their degree.
You'd have to do an experiment where you randomly assigned students to majors, but then that would not be predictive of the real world.
To what extent is the feedback from faculty as well. In business (at least in my college) the faculty emphasize the value that you want to maximize economic returns, including personal income. So they attract the students with that mindset and reinforce it. The graduates have high incomes, but I wonder about their fulfillment and value to society.
In my field, we realize that stuff costs money, so you are going to need enough of it. But that is usually the means to the end that you are trying to reach.
In some fields, this business of thinking of money is considered distasteful. If faculty emphasize the value that one should focus on the scholarship alone despite the inability to monetize it (they don't use that word obvs), then they will attract students who are detached from personal finance and like it that way. That attitude is only manageable if one has a reliable and sufficient income from somewhere. But that is not characteristic of the students. How would one counter that feedback loop?
Quote from: Hibush on September 06, 2022, 10:12:07 AM
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/02/college-major-regrets/) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
One graph shows that humanities bachelor degrees have dropped from 9% in the 1980s to 7% today. that is a drop but hardly the cliff it is described as. Comater that to the burgeoning Computer Science which is up from 5% to 6 1/2%. That's right, the major that is blowing everything else out of the water has almost caught up with the humanities. (The last 10 years look worse, and there is a graph of that as well.)
The big difference is what the
requirements are for those majors. Usually computer science (like most STEM things) has a lot of math requirements that all kinds of students don't have from high school, so even if they wanted to do computer science, they couldn't. On the other hand, many humanities majors don't require much beyond high school English, which everyone has, so virtually everyone is eligible.
You have to determine what proportion of high school graduates
who possess the admission requirements for each program actually major in it to determine "popularity" of each program.
Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2022, 11:20:42 AM
Quote from: Hibush on September 06, 2022, 10:12:07 AM
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/02/college-major-regrets/) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
There's a feedback loop with the earnings as well. If college students believe that majoring in the humanities is going to mean they can't get higher paying jobs, than those who value that highly will major in other things. The students left in the humanities are going to be those who have other priorities, and when they graduate many of them will become teachers, go into the non profit sector or do other things that aren't likely to pay terribly well. That doesn't mean that a student who majors in business instead of philosophy is actually going to earn more money because of their degree.
But the students who didn't prioritize high income won't have any reason to regret their choice unless their earnings are below
what they expected. If they didn't expect to get rich, but wound up with what they thought was reasonable, then they wouldn't be unhappy. However, if they wound up struggling to make ends meet, they would be disillusioned, and probably feel they'd been misled.
Grad students and prospective grad students show up in my Twitter feed because they somehow go viral with a question or hot take. It pains me to find out some of them aren't funded or going an online route for a European Ph.D. These folks also tend to think they would be competitive on the job market; no thanks to "supportive" academics who cheer them on.
Quote from: Hibush on September 06, 2022, 10:12:07 AM
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
One graph shows that humanities bachelor degrees have dropped from 9% in the 1980s to 7% today. that is a drop but hardly the cliff it is described as. Comater that to the burgeoning Computer Science which is up from 5% to 6 1/2%. That's right, the major that is blowing everything else out of the water has almost caught up with the humanities. (The last 10 years look worse, and there is a graph of that as well.)
I only skimmed the article and did a search/find on this material in the actual report.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf
The commentary and graph with the information the article uses is found, I believe, on pages 75 and 76 of the report.
A quarter of the participants regret their engineering degrees----which I cannot see, knowing as many engineers as I have and knowing how much these people make----and then I notice that among everyone else between 32% and 48% wish they had studies something different.
Geeze. Roughly a third to a half of all fields have unhappy people (if this info is an accurate picture).
But I also notice this qualifier among the participants: "Among adults who completed at least some college who are not currently enrolled." So we have people who have dropped out without a degree?
Wahoo: I read the article a few days ago, and also looked where you did. All of that made me lose interest and faith in that article, so I didn't post a link to it. I would prefer to see data sets that are only for people who graduated in that major.
FWIW, we've had a slew of engineers who didn't like that career once they started, and went back for a teaching license. However, it wasn't clear to me this and not unhappy engineers made up the group that was surveyed.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 06, 2022, 08:22:06 PM
Wahoo: I read the article a few days ago, and also looked where you did. All of that made me lose interest and faith in that article, so I didn't post a link to it. I would prefer to see data sets that are only for people who graduated in that major.
FWIW, we've had a slew of engineers who didn't like that career once they started, and went back for a teaching license. However, it wasn't clear to me this and not unhappy engineers made up the group that was surveyed.
Got'cha. Thanks.
Having done a little journalism you are always looking for the "angle," something that makes people want to read it. This seemed like that.
Glad to know I wasn't completely misunderstanding.
Gosh, half the people who fail at a thing which they had done something different. Who knew?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 06, 2022, 08:27:31 PM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 06, 2022, 08:22:06 PM
Wahoo: I read the article a few days ago, and also looked where you did. All of that made me lose interest and faith in that article, so I didn't post a link to it. I would prefer to see data sets that are only for people who graduated in that major.
FWIW, we've had a slew of engineers who didn't like that career once they started, and went back for a teaching license. However, it wasn't clear to me this and not unhappy engineers made up the group that was surveyed.
Got'cha. Thanks.
Having done a little journalism you are always looking for the "angle," something that makes people want to read it. This seemed like that.
Glad to know I wasn't completely misunderstanding.
Gosh, half the people who fail at a thing which they had done something different. Who knew?
Heck, in my experience, many if not
most students are rethinking things around third year. For all kinds of programs, first year is getting everyone to the same level; second year is filling in background, and fourth year allows people to branch out into lots of areas, so lots of hard stuff is jammed into third year. That pressure makes it a lot less "fun" for most people. (By fourth year, having more choice usually brings the magic back.)
So yeah, people who dropped out will
most likely have regrets.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 06, 2022, 03:02:51 PM
Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2022, 11:20:42 AM
Quote from: Hibush on September 06, 2022, 10:12:07 AM
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/02/college-major-regrets/) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
There's a feedback loop with the earnings as well. If college students believe that majoring in the humanities is going to mean they can't get higher paying jobs, than those who value that highly will major in other things. The students left in the humanities are going to be those who have other priorities, and when they graduate many of them will become teachers, go into the non profit sector or do other things that aren't likely to pay terribly well. That doesn't mean that a student who majors in business instead of philosophy is actually going to earn more money because of their degree.
But the students who didn't prioritize high income won't have any reason to regret their choice unless their earnings are below what they expected. If they didn't expect to get rich, but wound up with what they thought was reasonable, then they wouldn't be unhappy. However, if they wound up struggling to make ends meet, they would be disillusioned, and probably feel they'd been misled.
I just doubt that most people have a stable, strictly rational, calculation of their past choices, current situation and future prospects. If you know people who majored in computer science working in tech who make a lot of money, it could be easy to think "I should have majored in computer science" without considering that you didn't major in computer science because you have no aptitude or particular interest in it. Or someone might have been unconcerned about money during undergrad and chosen to major in the humanities, but then wish they made more money a few years after graduating. Would they actually make more money if they had majored in business? Not necessarily. It's possible they are conflating their choice of major with the choices they have made after graduating.
And the option to still do both remains.
I'm happy with my humanities education.
I also earned decently when working as an academic EA, using a lot of science-y stuff I either learned along the way, or on-the-job, as well.
I didn't need a science background to do most of the EA stuff, just had to pay attention to what was needed and what I was asked to do, and do it correctly.
Refrain: Your education need not be the only path to a well-paying job.
M.
Quote from: Caracal on September 07, 2022, 09:02:23 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 06, 2022, 03:02:51 PM
But the students who didn't prioritize high income won't have any reason to regret their choice unless their earnings are below what they expected. If they didn't expect to get rich, but wound up with what they thought was reasonable, then they wouldn't be unhappy. However, if they wound up struggling to make ends meet, they would be disillusioned, and probably feel they'd been misled.
I just doubt that most people have a stable, strictly rational, calculation of their past choices, current situation and future prospects. If you know people who majored in computer science working in tech who make a lot of money, it could be easy to think "I should have majored in computer science" without considering that you didn't major in computer science because you have no aptitude or particular interest in it. Or someone might have been unconcerned about money during undergrad and chosen to major in the humanities, but then wish they made more money a few years after graduating.
Students may not think much about their future
income explicitly, but they do likely have some idea of their future
lifestyle expectations. How they feel about their income will be a reflection of how close to (or far from) their expectations they are. Regret will reflect their inability to have the kind of lifestyle they imagined. The better programs do at giving students realistic post-graduation expectations, the less of their graduates will regret their choice.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 07, 2022, 11:41:42 AM
Quote from: Caracal on September 07, 2022, 09:02:23 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 06, 2022, 03:02:51 PM
But the students who didn't prioritize high income won't have any reason to regret their choice unless their earnings are below what they expected. If they didn't expect to get rich, but wound up with what they thought was reasonable, then they wouldn't be unhappy. However, if they wound up struggling to make ends meet, they would be disillusioned, and probably feel they'd been misled.
I just doubt that most people have a stable, strictly rational, calculation of their past choices, current situation and future prospects. If you know people who majored in computer science working in tech who make a lot of money, it could be easy to think "I should have majored in computer science" without considering that you didn't major in computer science because you have no aptitude or particular interest in it. Or someone might have been unconcerned about money during undergrad and chosen to major in the humanities, but then wish they made more money a few years after graduating.
Students may not think much about their future income explicitly, but they do likely have some idea of their future lifestyle expectations. How they feel about their income will be a reflection of how close to (or far from) their expectations they are. Regret will reflect their inability to have the kind of lifestyle they imagined. The better programs do at giving students realistic post-graduation expectations, the less of their graduates will regret their choice.
What expectations would be realistic? I don't really think average or median salary numbers are a particularly useful measure of what any particular humanities major should expect. What expectations are reasonable is going to depend on a particular person's career goals. It doesn't make much sense to lump in people who are going to be teachers with those who are going to be going into real estate investing.
Quote from: mamselle on September 07, 2022, 10:48:39 AM
Refrain: Your education need not be the only path to a well-paying job.
M.
Now, now, mamselle, let's not start thinking of education as anything other than a job passport. That opens up too many messy cans of worms.
Let's just continue to focus on "R.O.I." and other incompatible business jargons and remind ourselves constantly that humanities majors do not make as much money as we think they should.
Don't they say, "Teach a person to fish...?"
So....
No fishing without worms...
;--}
M.
Quote from: mamselle on September 08, 2022, 12:01:41 PM
Don't they say, "Teach a person to fish...?"
So....
No fishing without worms...
;--}
M.
Well put.
Thanks.
Maybe, too, the real question isn't about the doomed humanities as a study, but about what that dooms humanities scholars to...
Time to get those fishing poles out!!
;--}
M.
Isn't it "Build a man a fire and he'll be warm al night; set a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life"?
Maybe I'm paraphrasing...
;--》
M.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 06, 2022, 06:56:07 PM
Quote from: Hibush on September 06, 2022, 10:12:07 AM
The same old theme in WaPo (https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf) today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".
The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.
On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".
One graph shows that humanities bachelor degrees have dropped from 9% in the 1980s to 7% today. that is a drop but hardly the cliff it is described as. Comater that to the burgeoning Computer Science which is up from 5% to 6 1/2%. That's right, the major that is blowing everything else out of the water has almost caught up with the humanities. (The last 10 years look worse, and there is a graph of that as well.)
I only skimmed the article and did a search/find on this material in the actual report.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf
The commentary and graph with the information the article uses is found, I believe, on pages 75 and 76 of the report.
A quarter of the participants regret their engineering degrees----which I cannot see, knowing as many engineers as I have and knowing how much these people make----and then I notice that among everyone else between 32% and 48% wish they had studies something different.
Geeze. Roughly a third to a half of all fields have unhappy people (if this info is an accurate picture).
But I also notice this qualifier among the participants: "Among adults who completed at least some college who are not currently enrolled." So we have people who have dropped out without a degree?
Nice response to this and similar articles: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/25/college-major-regret-student-debt/
Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 26, 2022, 09:29:43 AM
Nice response to this and similar articles: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/25/college-major-regret-student-debt/
From the article:
Quote
Delve deeper into the Federal Reserve report and one quote stands out: "Perceptions of higher education are linked to whether individuals had to borrow for their education, and whether the returns on their education were sufficient for them to repay their student loans."
It's the bad return on investment — or an ROI lower than expected — that's causing the deepest dissatisfaction.
What's not clear, and was probably not even asked, was
what level of income the dissatisfied people would have considered a reasonable payoff. Obviously drowning in debt will make people regretful, but what would be good to know is what sort of lifestyle people expect to have
whether they have debt or not.
Good question. I would also have liked to see the question: 'Did you obtain a professional position commensurate with your degree and expectations for that degeee?'
Quote from: polly_mer on June 07, 2019, 10:35:00 AM
Quote from: apl68 on June 07, 2019, 08:02:49 AM
I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.
Actually, we have a very frustrating recruitment problem in that people who are very curious and capable often will settle on a humanities major very early in life and say nice things about science fan activities, but not then continue on the path to be, say, highly specialized engineers or engineering faculty. Many of the people who could do very well in those areas are also very capable people in many other areas. Even the very capable people who pick the broad category of STEM often go the medical route instead of an engineering route.
Instead, we have droves of folks who like the idea of a lot of money right out of college, but don't have either the passion to do something interesting or the diligence to plod along. Thus, the retention problem we have at the college level isn't trying to keep people who never should have been in certain majors in the first place through graduation. After all, even with huge attritions, we graduate many engineers every year.
The biggest retention problem discussed in areas I frequent is the women who complete an engineering BS and then go do something completely unrelated to engineering for their entire careers. After all, if college major doesn't matter to the job, then someone who has a solid math background, some computer skills, and some work experience (not just a good GPA) is a great candidate for all kinds of jobs that rely more on personal interest, diligence, and willing to learn new things that often have liberal arts majors, but don't rely on in-depth specific knowledge.
One very readable article: https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engineering-leave-the-field
That's me. Graduated top of my class from engineering. Hated the misogyny in the profession, so did a second bachelors in a healthcare profession, as well as a master's and now a PhD. I loved engineering (math, physics, engineering, calculus, programming) but hated the misogyny I encountered.
ABD in healthcare.
I'm sorry you had to experience that. I witnessed a fair amount of misogyny in my subfield all the way from undergrad until past full prof., and all that time, many things actually got better, but still some men, even younger men, still can't seem to fully accept women in the field. Its very weird, and I don't get it. I can say that a lot of these men also didn't really appreciate most other men either, but their feelings toward women were worse.
Hmmm... I hated the misandry in library school, and especially since library school over the years in library hiring circles, but I cannot do anything about it. This sort of sad bias will likely regularly occur in any field that happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by one gender. But I am open to suggestions.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 29, 2022, 06:31:46 PM
Hmmm... I hated the misandry in library school, and especially since library school over the years in library hiring circles, but I cannot do anything about it. This sort of sad bias will likely regularly occur in any field that happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by one gender. But I am open to suggestions.
I wasn't going to say anything, but now that kay has brought it up...misandry is not unknown in the library profession. I recall one occasion in particular when it was bad enough at a conference session that I and another male colleague quietly walked out.
In my experience, though, there's honestly not that much of it. I'm sure that women in some professions have had to deal with a lot worse. Men in the library profession can sometimes feel like the odd man out because we, you know,
are men, but actual gender-based disrespect or insensitivity is rare in my experience.
I will add, all of my education has been in Canada. During my undergraduate degree in engineering, the only humanities courses I completed were two French courses (I had completed French immersion in high school, so these came naturally), both of which were free electives (so could have been anything outside of engineering) and a required history of science course. No gen ed. My second undergrad degree, in a health care profession, my only humanities course was a free elective, and I chose Introduction to Ancient Rome, as I had always been fascinated with the ancient Romans. Again, no gen ed, just electives and restricted electives. Yet I had profs, in both degrees, praise me for my writing, despite never have taken a comp course. I did graduate at the top of my large (>1000 graduates) high school.
My undergrad, masters, and PhD universities have all had variations of biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, statistics, anatomy, physiology, and nutrition, depending on whether one was majoring in the subject or an adjacent subject, or whether one just needed basic knowledge. So people with kinesiology, dietetics, biomedicine majors take the "intense" physiology, whereas biomedical engineers and gerontology majors take the "light" physiology. Engineering, physics, and some chemistry majors take the calculus-based physics. Bio and some psych/neuro take the algebra based physics. Two organic chemistry courses as well, one for the chemistry majors, the other for all the other majors that need basic org chemistry to get to biochemistry.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 29, 2022, 06:31:46 PM
Hmmm... I hated the misandry in library school, and especially since library school over the years in library hiring circles, but I cannot do anything about it. This sort of sad bias will likely regularly occur in any field that happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by one gender. But I am open to suggestions.
I'm sorry you experienced that. I admire the women in engineering who could deal with the misogyny, but I chose a different route since I was a good student with scholarships available to pay my tuition. As working class, I wouldn't have been able to pursue any higher education without scholarships. I'm also first gen, so still, as a PhD candidate, have to navigate through things that others take for granted. I'm fortunate to have had my studies funded through scholarships. I'm extremely glad I found a profession that didn't automatically discount me due to my gender. I still treasure my engineering education, especially when there are, to me, rather simple calculations to make, but others struggle. (No. I'm not in nursing but another health care profession)
For clarification, the libraryland misandry I am referring to is mostly the occasional overt, explicitly stated biases against male applicants in library hiring situations. I have personal experience with three such job appls, where variations on the question of 'how would you deal with all the women around here', were asked. In the most recent case, from 2019, I applied for a position as asst director of a rural pl in a town near my city. I was interviewed... in the town manager's office, with him, the 60-something female library director, the town HR director, and an elderly man who sat on the library board. They had a list of questions to ask me, each having a copy and going around the table asking questions in turn. After this, they gave me the standard opp to ask questions of my own, and then the director asked me if she could ask me a question not on the list. I said yes, of course, and then she asked me how I would deal with having a female boss. I started to answer (saying that I have had such bosses before and no problem, etc.), but before I finished, the town manager, who looked like he was having a stroke, told her she could not ask such a question and I was not to answer it. I got up very early that day to go to this interview. Ah well.
IHE Opinion: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/11/17/humanities-majors-should-pay-lower-tuition-opinion)
Quote
...commentators have missed an essential part of the picture, namely the structure of tuition fees in most American universities. By this I don't simply mean the astronomical costs of tuition—although this is also clearly a problem—but the fact that universities don't routinely price tuition for different majors in relation to what it actually costs to educate a student in any given discipline.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on November 17, 2022, 10:08:22 AM
IHE Opinion: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/11/17/humanities-majors-should-pay-lower-tuition-opinion)
Quote
...commentators have missed an essential part of the picture, namely the structure of tuition fees in most American universities. By this I don't simply mean the astronomical costs of tuition—although this is also clearly a problem—but the fact that universities don't routinely price tuition for different majors in relation to what it actually costs to educate a student in any given discipline.
Be careful for what you wish for. Bigger class sizes then become the easy way to lower tuition. Huge classes ---> free tuition. Is that really what the writer wants?
ETA: Autograded assignments means lower costs than hand-graded. Hand-graded (especially by the prof) means
higher cost. Think of which disciplines fall into each category.......
Charging the same price for chemistry majors and humanities majors is a form of price discrimination to increase revenue, something at which universities excel! While the cost of educating a humanities major is indeed lower than educating a chemistry major, clearly the willingness to pay of the humanities major is at least as high as that of the chemistry major.
Why might that be?
--the humanities major likes his field more intensely than the chemistry major;
--the humanities major likes the socio-cultural environment of universities enough to be willing to pay;
--humanities majors are poorer than chemistry majors and get more non-loan financial aid;
--humanities majors have higher incoming SAT's and get more non-loan financial aid.
I do not know the answer, but I do know that colleges and universities are very good at squeezing money out of their students. Once again, to implement cost based pricing, the money then not coming form humanities majors would have to come from somewhere else.
This article, though surely well intentioned, misses much of what higher ed discussion also avoids, including what is being discussed on two other threads at the moment -- the money's gotta come from somewhere!
'Twould be nice if it were specified from whence it will come.
From what I've seen of the financial mechanisms at work, tuition-funded schools don't use a cost-plus approach to pricing. At all.
It is more, how much will students pay (net financial aid) for this major if we had N students, or 2N students. Could we get that many? Only then do they ask, what would it cost us to offer this to N students, or to 2N students?
The ability to attract students and the cost of the program depends a great deal on non-program resources, reputation and other stuff. So those questions actually take into account institution-level priorities and synergies.
I in no way endorse the elimination of the business major----it is a popular major and students should have as many options for study as we can justify and afford----but this article makes the case about the humanities, including the all-important R.O.I., that has been made here before only better and with links.
Of course, by this point the discussion is largely academic (no play on words), perhaps self-serving (on behalf of the author), and quixotic (in that the biz major, like college football, is going nowhere), but this is worth discussion (maybe) in context of this thread.
CHE (2019): Abolish the Business Major! (https://archive.ph/2022.12.29-131738/https://www.chronicle.com/article/abolish-the-business-major/)
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on December 29, 2022, 09:33:05 PM
I in no way endorse the elimination of the business major----it is a popular major and students should have as many options for study as we can justify and afford----but this article makes the case about the humanities, including the all-important R.O.I., that has been made here before only better and with links.
Of course, by this point the discussion is largely academic (no play on words), perhaps self-serving (on behalf of the author), and quixotic (in that the biz major, like college football, is going nowhere), but this is worth discussion (maybe) in context of this thread.
CHE (2019): Abolish the Business Major! (https://archive.ph/2022.12.29-131738/https://www.chronicle.com/article/abolish-the-business-major/)
I am compelled to cut-and-paste my previous rant about this same topic.
Quote from: lightning on May 16, 2022, 12:27:02 AM
What I don't get is how a lot of these business programs get a free pass, when it comes to scrutinizing programs.
EVERYTHING is a business. When everything is a business, every and any business school graduate who gets a job--any job--is a "job placement." A business school curriculum is a very generalized curriculum to supposedly satisfy the workforce needs of EVERY business. Common sense tells me that is impossible. Yet, kids and their parents flock to business programs thinking that a business degree* is a practical degree that leads to a job. Well, duh. A business degree leads to a job, because EVERYTHING is a business. There are graduates of our business school who are receptionists at real estate offices, entry level help desk for IT companies, telemarketers, night managers of a big box retail store or hotel, sole proprietors of their start-up lawn service, used car salesmen, and other jobs that where one does not really need a business degree to get a job and be successful. And the business school can call them "placements" or "working alumni in the business field" or "gainfully employed" because EVERYTHING is a business.
But when you try to apply the same logic to Humanities programs, where the graduates are receptionists at real estate offices, entry level help desk for IT companies, telemarketers, night managers of a big box retail store or hotel, sole proprietors of their start-up lawn service, used car salesmen, and other jobs that where one does not really need a Humanities degree to get a job and be successful, all of a sudden those students are seen as unemployed in their field of training in the Humanities.
What's even more unfair is when those aforementioned graduates do go on and get high paying jobs in finance, business administration, marketing/sales, or start their own successful company, etc. they are seen as Humanities folk who succeeded despite their Humanities background and the successful person's Humanities degree program is given no credit for their graduate's success (vs if they had a business degree where the business school can take credit for preparing their graduates for these important high-paying jobs).
I have a similar rant for IT programs, but this post is getting too long.
* I am excluding Accounting degrees in this discussion.
A lot of information on which alums are doing what and how X job correlates with Y major comes from faculty. If you want a student with a certain job to be seen as a successful humanities grad, than you should characterize it that way in assessments for accreditors, in letters to institutional advancement and research people, etc..
IHE: Can the English Major Be Saved? (https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/can-english-major-be-saved)
Lower Deck:
Quote
Have academic professionalization and specialization harmed the study of literature?
Quote
For nearly a century, academic critics of literature—from I. A. Richards and Cleanth Brooks and Lionel Trilling to Derrida, de Man, Foucault and Lyotard, to Judith Butler, Stanley Fish and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak today—have been regarded, in large parts of the discipline, as more important than the literature they write about.
Of course, the rise of academic theorists and college-based critics occurred at the very time that public readership of academic literary criticism has fallen precipitously. Maybe that isn't an accident or coincidence. It seems like an ideal time for a stocktaking. Such an assessment has now appeared.
I've heard this argument before, but as someone who has taken and taught a great many classes on literature, the great theorists are seldom taught in undergrad classes, and only as a compliment to the literature in graduate programs unless we are specifically studying "literary criticism." The theorists do tend to dominate actual scholarship, however, or are considered a necessary component.
And these theorists have said a great many interesting things that deserve a moment or two if one is a serious reader.
IHE: Preaching to, and Challenging, the Liberal Arts Choir (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/10/role-liberal-arts-era-skills-based-hiring#at_pco=cfd-1.0)
Lower Deck:
Quote
In a conversation with presidents of small private colleges, tech company executives praise graduates' leadership and critical thinking ability but say they need to develop skills for a first job, too.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on January 31, 2023, 10:46:19 AM
IHE: Can the English Major Be Saved? (https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/can-english-major-be-saved)
Quote
Perhaps as an undergraduate you read Oscar Wilde's mirthful, satiric essay "The Critic as Artist." Subtitled "Upon the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything," it contains some of Wilde's most memorable quips and witticisms:
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
When people agree with me, I always feel that I must be wrong.
There is no sin except stupidity.
Yes: the public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Ironically, it's the essay's major source of satire—the primacy of criticism over the art that it interprets and evaluates—that has, to a surprising extent, been realized. For nearly a century, academic critics of literature—from I. A. Richards and Cleanth Brooks and Lionel Trilling to Derrida, de Man, Foucault and Lyotard, to Judith Butler, Stanley Fish and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak today—have been regarded, in large parts of the discipline, as more important than the literature they write about.
Of course, the rise of academic theorists and college-based critics occurred at the very time that public readership of academic literary criticism has fallen precipitously. Maybe that isn't an accident or coincidence. It seems like an ideal time for a stocktaking. Such an assessment has now appeared.
If there is a more thoughtful, penetrating, insightful, trenchant, acerbic, scathing or original analysis of a scholarly discipline than John Guillory's Professing Criticism, I have yet to see it. Partly a history and in part a sociology of English as a profession, Professing Criticism is an extraordinary book, truly a landmark work of scholarship and interpretation, without a doubt the most important intellectual and sociocultural study of a humanities field that I have encountered.
It should be read not only by the English professoriate, but by its counterparts in art and music history, history and philosophy. Consider it a red alert, a cautionary tale, a fire bell in the night and an omen and admonition about how professionalization, specialization and bureaucratization can damage a field of study, even as it has benefited those with tenure, especially those who teach at the more selective institutions.
The book covers a host of topics:
.
.
.
How graduate training in English might evolve to better serve those without academic job prospects.
Am wondering if anyone read about the increase in humanities majors at UC Berkeley?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/06/uc-berkeley-sees-increase-in-humanities-majors-is-it-a-trend-or-just-an-exception/?sh=33afcebfd8b4 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/06/uc-berkeley-sees-increase-in-humanities-majors-is-it-a-trend-or-just-an-exception/?sh=33afcebfd8b4)
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/02/humanities-stem-college (https://www.axios.com/2023/02/02/humanities-stem-college)
The Axios piece also cites a marked uptick in humanities majors for U of Arizona, Arizona State, and U of Washington.
It's obviously too early to declare this a "post-pandemic revival" of the humanities. At the very least, though, it's a glimmer of hope for us in these fields.
(I was a music major in college but haven't studied music further.)
One of the features of music theory as a profession is that is has always stayed fairly close to practice. (Classical) performers learn music theory to better structure their performances. Composers learn music theory to help them write music.
If you go through university course schedules and look at who teaches the music theory courses, you'll find most of them taught by composers, not theorists. Even among the theorists, most of them are also composers and or performers, though perhaps at a less professional level.
The music history courses are mostly taught by people who are music historians, though they are again frequently aimed at performers and composers. Also, musical philology (is that really an A or an A# in the Hammerklavier Sonata?) is alive and well, though it is a small part of music historical scholarship.
I wonder what literary theory courses would look like if they were mostly taught by writers.
Quote from: quasihumanist on February 20, 2023, 09:54:52 AM
I wonder what literary theory courses would look like if they were mostly taught by writers.
Generally speaking, unless they also have a Ph.D., creative writers are unconcerned with literary theory.
Creative writers tend to do well when they teach literature. They have a different relationship to literature than do the purely academic experts on literature, although not all creative writers have read broadly in literature. Writers read to learn to write, so they tend to read based on personal taste. I remember an interview with Stephen King in which he admitted to having read almost none of the "classic" novels of the literary canon but had read "everything by Dean Koontz."
Overall, the Ph.D.s do fine in the humanities classroom from what I have seen.
What I find strange is how divorced literary theory is from the philosophy of literature (the same is less true in the other direction, although I'll admit that there's a certain contempt that tends to flow freely). They intersected a little, briefly, around the mid-century mark, but that seems to be as far as it went. And that's too bad, because the contemporary philosophy of literature has a lot to say about interpretation, story-content, genre definition and formation, and so on, and it's quite rigorous. (That's perhaps part of the trouble, of course; it's more fun to prattle on poetically spouting garbage like literary Darwinism, psychoanalysis, etc.) Even to the extent that literary theorists do engage with philosophical work (/are inspired by it), they frankly tend to do a fairly poor job of reading the philosopher in question (doubtless because they're read in relative isolation).
The same is true in art history and theory, where philosophers of art are quite familiar with work in art history and theory, but art historians' and theorists' engagement with philosophy stops at, like, Kant. (And that's not a good place for it to start, let alone stop.)
The situation in dance and music is, surprisingly, much better, with a respectable amount of cross-pollination in both directions.
Quote from: lilyb on February 20, 2023, 09:22:37 AM
Am wondering if anyone read about the increase in humanities majors at UC Berkeley?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/06/uc-berkeley-sees-increase-in-humanities-majors-is-it-a-trend-or-just-an-exception/?sh=33afcebfd8b4 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/06/uc-berkeley-sees-increase-in-humanities-majors-is-it-a-trend-or-just-an-exception/?sh=33afcebfd8b4)
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/02/humanities-stem-college (https://www.axios.com/2023/02/02/humanities-stem-college)
The Axios piece also cites a marked uptick in humanities majors for U of Arizona, Arizona State, and U of Washington.
It's obviously too early to declare this a "post-pandemic revival" of the humanities. At the very least, though, it's a glimmer of hope for us in these fields.
I wonder if this a sign of labour market strength making post-graduation job search less of a concern. I.e., students are back to looking for a college degree in general (preferably, math-light), as opposed to a specific (if imaginary) path to employment implied by vocationally-branded degrees.
Though, Axios has a curious statement by an MLA official:
"
Biology majors aren't making any more money than we do, and they're getting all this press like they're some sort of golden tickets."
Given that biology majors are notorious for their poor pay, it feels that humanities promoters are either delusional, or intentionally misleading.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 20, 2023, 10:14:31 AM
Quote from: quasihumanist on February 20, 2023, 09:54:52 AM
I wonder what literary theory courses would look like if they were mostly taught by writers.
Generally speaking, unless they also have a Ph.D., creative writers are unconcerned with literary theory.
Here's one difference. There is essentially zero non-academic (or at least not academic-adjacent) market for new "classical" music, so most composers have DMAs and or PhDs (in composition). Most professional composers are university professors. In addition, these degrees, as well as undergrad degrees in music, tend to have fairly significant music theory requirements (including conservatory degrees for performers). This means a composer teaching music theory has had significant academic exposure to music theory, even though most of them haven't done research in the subject.
Have most MFAs in creative writing had at least 2 or 3 semesters of literary theory under their belt? (One might argue that music theory courses start at a more basic level than literary theory, so possibly that number is not the right comparison. However, it's also true that macro-level structure tends to get taught in music history classes as well.)
Quote from: quasihumanist on February 20, 2023, 11:29:03 AM
Have most MFAs in creative writing had at least 2 or 3 semesters of literary theory under their belt?
Yes.
Literary theory is built into most MFA in creative writing degrees.
But again (and maybe there is confusion on this subject), "literary theory" is generally its own area of study within English lit. A great deal of academic writing about literature itself involves literary theory / philosophy, but if you go into a class on Shakespeare you generally study the plays and sonnets, not so much the "literary theory" surrounding Shakespeare's work (although history and theories like, for instance, the Monomyth, theories of comedy or tragedy, and "the green world" are often incorporated in secondary reading). "Lit theory" is not used in the study or creation of literature in the same measure that music theory is part of composition or musical performance. These two humanities fields are not direct counterparts.
No literary theory to offer today.
Just another datum that may be related to doom.
Marymount University cancelled nine humanities majors, including English, history, math, economics, and the arts. (CHE link (https://www.chronicle.com/article/9-humanities-majors-are-on-the-chopping-block-at-marymount-u))
The article misleadingly tells only that these are one sixth of the majors without saying what proportion of students major in those subjects. If students have already voted with their feet (or major-declaration forms), then the administration is merely recognizing that rather than making a value judgement about the scholarly value of the subjects.
The administration's statement points to the last, citing these as "majors with consistently low enrollment, low graduation rates, and lack of potential for growth." Is that true, or just the standard claim?
I have to agree with Prof. Economos on this point: "If they want to change the mission, then say that and say what that change is. But getting rid of theology and religious studies at a Catholic university, that doesn't fit with the mission."
Economos appears to have done a more thorough evaluation, with a strategic view of the whole institution, than the president. She may even have better numbers on the quantitative factors cited in the presser. Alas, we don't get a copy of that evaluation.
There was a professor a few months ago who was blatantly lying about the number of majors in their program when the major was cut. They got plenty of "How dare the school do this?!" replies, but if only one student graduates per year in the major, it's going to get cut.
QuoteThe article misleadingly tells only that these are one sixth of the majors without saying what proportion of students major in those subjects.
That's 91 majors of about 4000+ students, stock. And, sources differ, math, econ, and sociology, are being cut and these subjects are not part of the humanities. Voting by the feet has already taken place and it's not a humanities problem. The cost per student of those nine majors with an average of 10 students each must be enormous. Speaking with Bismarck: The trick is knowing when to stop! :-)
Quote from: dismalist on February 20, 2023, 02:09:04 PM
QuoteThe article misleadingly tells only that these are one sixth of the majors without saying what proportion of students major in those subjects.
That's 91 majors of about 4000+ students, stock. And, sources differ, math, econ, and sociology, are being cut and these subjects are not part of the humanities. Voting by the feet has already taken place and it's not a humanities problem. The cost per student of those nine majors with an average of 10 students each must be enormous.Speaking with Bismarck: The trick is knowing when to stop! :-)
I don't quite understand the bolded bit. Surely what matters is enrollment in the upper-level courses majors need, not the brute number of majors. If a department with little in terms of equipment costs had just one major, but could enroll 30+ students in all of its courses, it would presumably be just fine, financially. As I see it, what matters is the break-even point for courses. Majors and minors help you ensure bum will be in seats, but if the bums are there on their own, then the number of majors and minors doesn't much matter.
Incidentally, mathematics is sometimes classed with the humanities.
Quote from: quasihumanist on February 20, 2023, 09:54:52 AM
(I was a music major in college but haven't studied music further.)
One of the features of music theory as a profession is that is has always stayed fairly close to practice. (Classical) performers learn music theory to better structure their performances. Composers learn music theory to help them write music.
If you go through university course schedules and look at who teaches the music theory courses, you'll find most of them taught by composers, not theorists. Even among the theorists, most of them are also composers and or performers, though perhaps at a less professional level.
The music history courses are mostly taught by people who are music historians, though they are again frequently aimed at performers and composers. Also, musical philology (is that really an A or an A# in the Hammerklavier Sonata?) is alive and well, though it is a small part of music historical scholarship.
I wonder what literary theory courses would look like if they were mostly taught by writers.
I don't know about other places, but here you have to have achieved a specific *level of instrumental proficiency to get admitted to
any music program, even composition or other "non-performance" options.
(* with audition)
Imagine if people had to have a specific level of
adjudicated creative writing to get
admitted to an English program. That would probably thin the herd of those who want to be "critics".
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 02:21:50 PM
Quote from: dismalist on February 20, 2023, 02:09:04 PM
QuoteThe article misleadingly tells only that these are one sixth of the majors without saying what proportion of students major in those subjects.
That's 91 majors of about 4000+ students, stock. And, sources differ, math, econ, and sociology, are being cut and these subjects are not part of the humanities. Voting by the feet has already taken place and it's not a humanities problem. The cost per student of those nine majors with an average of 10 students each must be enormous.Speaking with Bismarck: The trick is knowing when to stop! :-)
I don't quite understand the bolded bit. Surely what matters is enrollment in the upper-level courses majors need, not the brute number of majors. If a department with little in terms of equipment costs had just one major, but could enroll 30+ students in all of its courses, it would presumably be just fine, financially. As I see it, what matters is the break-even point for courses. Majors and minors help you ensure bum will be in seats, but if the bums are there on their own, then the number of majors and minors doesn't much matter.
Incidentally, mathematics is sometimes classed with the humanities.
Enrollment in upper-level courses and the number of majors is surely highly, highly correlated, even without prerequisites and all. With prerequisites, the correlation must be near one.
I'm glad to hear about the sometime location of math, but the notion of STEM pushes all before it.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 20, 2023, 02:33:13 PM
Imagine if people had to have a specific level of adjudicated creative writing to get admitted to an English program. That would probably thin the herd of those who want to be "critics".
You've read C.S. Lewis, obviously, but what else have you read, Marshy? How much do you know about literature and creativity?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 20, 2023, 11:39:24 AM
Quote from: quasihumanist on February 20, 2023, 11:29:03 AM
Have most MFAs in creative writing had at least 2 or 3 semesters of literary theory under their belt?
Yes.
Literary theory is built into most MFA in creative writing degrees.
But again (and maybe there is confusion on this subject), "literary theory" is generally its own area of study within English lit. A great deal of academic writing about literature itself involves literary theory / philosophy, but if you go into a class on Shakespeare you generally study the plays and sonnets, not so much the "literary theory" surrounding Shakespeare's work (although history and theories like, for instance, the Monomyth, theories of comedy or tragedy, and "the green world" are often incorporated in secondary reading). "Lit theory" is not used in the study or creation of literature in the same measure that music theory is part of composition or musical performance. These two humanities fields are not direct counterparts.
MFA creative writer here. I know I'm late to the party, but yes, I studied literary theory. Loved it, too. I don't think about it, however, when I'm writing a poem or working on my novel.
Quote from: lilyb on February 20, 2023, 09:22:37 AM
Am wondering if anyone read about the increase in humanities majors at UC Berkeley?
The Axios piece also cites a marked uptick in humanities majors for U of Arizona, Arizona State, and U of Washington.
You know, I was thinking about this. Was it Polly_mere who floated the theory that, as the small colleges and less-prestigious schools shutter their liberal arts programs, the really inspired lib arts students will flock to the big schools? Or was that just a general observation? I know that we have lost at least one English major who became angry that her classes were being eliminated. She transferred to the bigger state school nearby.
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 20, 2023, 04:16:45 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 20, 2023, 02:33:13 PM
Imagine if people had to have a specific level of adjudicated creative writing to get admitted to an English program. That would probably thin the herd of those who want to be "critics".
You've read C.S. Lewis, obviously, but what else have you read, Marshy? How much do you know about literature and creativity?
I know that as someone who has never written a book, or created a piece of music, or produced a film, there's no reason anyone should consider
me as a serious candidate for a
professional critic of any of those. My opinions are no more valid than those of any other person on the street, and should be seen in that light. As noted above, in music people almost always have to be able to
perform at a high level to be in a program that allows them to pontificate about
other people's music. That makes sense as a standard for all kinds of people who wish to make a living evaluating the work of others.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 21, 2023, 05:14:30 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 20, 2023, 04:16:45 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 20, 2023, 02:33:13 PM
Imagine if people had to have a specific level of adjudicated creative writing to get admitted to an English program. That would probably thin the herd of those who want to be "critics".
You've read C.S. Lewis, obviously, but what else have you read, Marshy? How much do you know about literature and creativity?
I know that as someone who has never written a book, or created a piece of music, or produced a film, there's no reason anyone should consider me as a serious candidate for a professional critic of any of those. My opinions are no more valid than those of any other person on the street, and should be seen in that light. As noted above, in music people almost always have to be able to perform at a high level to be in a program that allows them to pontificate about other people's music. That makes sense as a standard for all kinds of people who wish to make a living evaluating the work of others.
Well no, literary critics are not reading texts the way that a reviewer for _The New York Times_ might. We are thinking about new ways to see them from different theoretic perspectives, in different cultural/historical contexts, in relation to contemporary concerns such as environmentalism or disability studies. I don't need to publish a novel to do these things well.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 21, 2023, 05:14:30 AM
[ As noted above, in music people almost always have to be able to perform at a high level to be in a program that allows them to pontificate about other people's music. That makes sense as a standard for all kinds of people who wish to make a living evaluating the work of others.
Quite a few music critics are excellent at listening to music, but not at performing it. They may have more context in which to understand various pieces and how they are performed than an individual performer.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 07:43:14 PM
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Polly was an advocate for concentrating resources into one or two good, big programs in each state rather than fostering poor, mediocre, duplicate programs in lots of different places. Even though this would probably mean fewer jobs for people like me (what a damn bummer everything new thing is!), it makes some sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and could maybe resolve the conundrum of the adjunct army.
The flipside is that students like ours, who are often anchored to our town for various reasons, may not have access to a major they might be interested in.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 21, 2023, 02:11:23 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 07:43:14 PM
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Polly was an advocate for concentrating resources into one or two good, big programs in each state rather than fostering poor, mediocre, duplicate programs in lots of different places. Even though this would probably mean fewer jobs for people like me (what a damn bummer everything new thing is!), it makes some sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and could maybe resolve the conundrum of the adjunct army.
The flipside is that students like ours, who are often anchored to our town for various reasons, may not have access to a major they might be interested in.
Honest question: If the local choice is a "poor, mediocre, duplicate program", how much benefit are they likely to get from it?
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 22, 2023, 05:26:33 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 21, 2023, 02:11:23 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 07:43:14 PM
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Polly was an advocate for concentrating resources into one or two good, big programs in each state rather than fostering poor, mediocre, duplicate programs in lots of different places. Even though this would probably mean fewer jobs for people like me (what a damn bummer everything new thing is!), it makes some sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and could maybe resolve the conundrum of the adjunct army.
The flipside is that students like ours, who are often anchored to our town for various reasons, may not have access to a major they might be interested in.
Honest question: If the local choice is a "poor, mediocre, duplicate program", how much benefit are they likely to get from it?
The small, local programs weren't always poor and mediocre. Henderson State University, for example, gave a perfectly respectable liberal arts education to students in its region for many years. Alma Mater is a private school that did much the same. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons having to do with changing demographics, changing student interests, and the tendency of pretty much everything to consolidate in a few bit places with little left over for everywhere else, most of the small, local programs have been pushed into decline.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 22, 2023, 05:26:33 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 21, 2023, 02:11:23 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 07:43:14 PM
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Polly was an advocate for concentrating resources into one or two good, big programs in each state rather than fostering poor, mediocre, duplicate programs in lots of different places. Even though this would probably mean fewer jobs for people like me (what a damn bummer everything new thing is!), it makes some sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and could maybe resolve the conundrum of the adjunct army.
The flipside is that students like ours, who are often anchored to our town for various reasons, may not have access to a major they might be interested in.
Honest question: If the local choice is a "poor, mediocre, duplicate program", how much benefit are they likely to get from it?
And another honest question (one part of a two-part question) that never gets answered, how do we *know* for sure that eliminating duplicate programs in a state will truly result in the re-direction of funds from the redundant program to the remaining program? And part two of the previous question, how do we *know* that that the remaining program will be strengthened, who gets to decide if the elimination of the redundant program did result in a more successful remaining program, and who gets smacked around & sacked if the idea of closing the duplicate program doesn't actually work to strengthen the remaining program?
Quote from: lightning on February 22, 2023, 09:27:07 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 22, 2023, 05:26:33 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 21, 2023, 02:11:23 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 07:43:14 PM
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Polly was an advocate for concentrating resources into one or two good, big programs in each state rather than fostering poor, mediocre, duplicate programs in lots of different places. Even though this would probably mean fewer jobs for people like me (what a damn bummer everything new thing is!), it makes some sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and could maybe resolve the conundrum of the adjunct army.
The flipside is that students like ours, who are often anchored to our town for various reasons, may not have access to a major they might be interested in.
Honest question: If the local choice is a "poor, mediocre, duplicate program", how much benefit are they likely to get from it?
And another honest question (one part of a two-part question) that never gets answered, how do we *know* for sure that eliminating duplicate programs in a state will truly result in the re-direction of funds from the redundant program to the remaining program? And part two of the previous question, how do we *know* that that the remaining program will be strengthened, who gets to decide if the elimination of the redundant program did result in a more successful remaining program, and who gets smacked around & sacked if the idea of closing the duplicate program doesn't actually work to strengthen the remaining program?
It's basic economics. If multiple programs are struggling financially because of low enrollment, consolidating the students into a single program should make it viable. The funds won't necessarily be
explicitly transferred to the remaining program, but the
implicit funding increases due to increased enrollment will help. There's also the benefit of not being threatened with imminent closure each year.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 22, 2023, 05:26:33 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 21, 2023, 02:11:23 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 20, 2023, 07:43:14 PM
I think you're right, I remember Polly saying something to that effect.
Polly was an advocate for concentrating resources into one or two good, big programs in each state rather than fostering poor, mediocre, duplicate programs in lots of different places. Even though this would probably mean fewer jobs for people like me (what a damn bummer everything new thing is!), it makes some sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and could maybe resolve the conundrum of the adjunct army.
The flipside is that students like ours, who are often anchored to our town for various reasons, may not have access to a major they might be interested in.
Honest question: If the local choice is a "poor, mediocre, duplicate program", how much benefit are they likely to get from it?
A lot depends on the student, of course. But that is the point, Marshy. Maybe we should have better, bigger, better equipped programs than spreading resources thin to a lot of little programs.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 22, 2023, 10:24:09 AM
...
It's basic economics. If multiple programs are struggling financially because of low enrollment, consolidating the students into a single program should make it viable. The funds won't necessarily be explicitly transferred to the remaining program, but the implicit funding increases due to increased enrollment will help. There's also the benefit of not being threatened with imminent closure each year.
If the money follows the student, there is no problem: Programs that students don't want die; programs that students do want thrive.
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
The dangerous part of this is that often the people who
most think they know what is in
others' best interests are the most clueless. It's better to give people information which is as objective as possible to help
them make
informed choices.
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 23, 2023, 05:35:01 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
The dangerous part of this is that often the people who most think they know what is in others' best interests are the most clueless. It's better to give people information which is as objective as possible to help them make informed choices.
If a student's stated goal is to be an electrical engineer, then it is appropriate for them to leave the decision on most of their courses to those who know what constitutes an electrical-engineering major. Just sending them to the course catalog to make choices will not serve them well.
On the other hand, if a student's stated goal is to be an electrical engineer, then advising them to major in something else to be a more well-rounded citizen is the danger zone.
But what if their stated goal is to be an astronaut or a professional basketball player, ignorant of how very unlikely that goal is?
Quote from: Hibush on February 23, 2023, 07:36:08 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on February 23, 2023, 05:35:01 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
The dangerous part of this is that often the people who most think they know what is in others' best interests are the most clueless. It's better to give people information which is as objective as possible to help them make informed choices.
If a student's stated goal is to be an electrical engineer, then it is appropriate for them to leave the decision on most of their courses to those who know what constitutes an electrical-engineering major. Just sending them to the course catalog to make choices will not serve them well.
On the other hand, if a student's stated goal is to be an electrical engineer, then advising them to major in something else to be a more well-rounded citizen is the danger zone.
This is why programs have
required courses and
electives. If the student's goal is to be an electrical engineer, there is
no choice about the former, but
some choice in the latter. Also, the distinction between required and elective courses has been arrived at over time by a lot of discussion among experts in the field. Required courses reflect a strong
consensus about what is vital; electives reflect a
breadth of opinion among experts about what is important.
A student whose "wants" make them unwilling to take the
required courses shouldn't be looking at becoming an electrical engineer.
Quote
But what if their stated goal is to be an astronaut or a professional basketball player, ignorant of how very unlikely that goal is?
This is precisely where
objective data are useful. Information about how unlikely those outcomes are is what students need; what the students choose with that knowledge is up to them as independent adults.
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
To a degree. We are talking young adults, however, who are vested with responsibilities and paying for our services. Not all "kids" are naïve.
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
Eighteen year olds, in their immaturity and ignorance, are allowed to vote. Let's guide them to their best political interests, irrespective of their wants. :-)
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
Pol Pot had this philosophy.
Quote from: dismalist on February 23, 2023, 02:25:25 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
Eighteen year olds, in their immaturity and ignorance, are allowed to vote. Let's guide them to their best political interests, irrespective of their wants. :-)
Hmmmmmmm. Flippancy noted, but seems to me there were a great many grizzled oldsters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6th.
And...not that this is any indication of anything...but how old are you, Big-D?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on February 23, 2023, 06:05:49 PM
Quote from: dismalist on February 23, 2023, 02:25:25 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
Eighteen year olds, in their immaturity and ignorance, are allowed to vote. Let's guide them to their best political interests, irrespective of their wants. :-)
Hmmmmmmm. Flippancy noted, but seems to me there were a great many grizzled oldsters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6th.
And...not that this is any indication of anything...but how old are you, Big-D?
72.
If it were up to me, the voting age would be raised to 40 years. :-)
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
So mature students, who can also be undergraduate university students, are all immature and ignorant, even if they have years of work experience? Not all undergrads are straight out of high school. Some have plenty of real life, real world, and job experience, and are far from immature and ignorant.
Obviously, but the presence of the occasional 30+ nontrad undergrad does not obviate my point-- 18yos really do not, educationally, know what their best interests are, nor are they wise enough to properly plan and execute an educational pathway.
What does "guide" mean here? Advise? We already do that,
"Irrespective of their wants" is remarkably condescending and paternalistic. Would you decide their majors and career paths FOR them?
The wisdom you speak of is acquired by experiences (more so the bad than the good). Would you deny them that because "you know better"?
No thanks, Comrade.
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 03, 2023, 10:31:05 PM
Obviously, but the presence of the occasional 30+ nontrad undergrad does not obviate my point-- 18yos really do not, educationally, know what their best interests are, nor are they wise enough to properly plan and execute an educational pathway.
Many 18 year olds know what they want when they start applying to colleges. I knew exactly what I didn't want as early as 16--I was terrible at math and also hated physics, so knew that I did not want to major in any of the stem fields other than probably biology. I recall having very decided opinions when I started applying to college about what I wanted.
Quote from: FishProf on March 04, 2023, 07:04:54 AM
What does "guide" mean here? Advise? We already do that,
That really does seem like the best that can be done to move students in an appropriate direction. Of course, parents who are footing the bill can refuse to pay for particular majors or insist that they will only pay for something specific. Anecdotally, some students who'd like to major in humanities fields are forced into STEM or business majors instead by parents who are convinced that a humanities education would be worthless. This isn't exactly new thinking--I recall that we had a Fora member whose parents made her go into the field that ended up becoming her career. It does seem to be more prevalent thinking now. I'm sure most of these parents mean well, but they're sometimes guilty of needlessly forcing square pegs into round holes.
Quote from: Langue_doc on March 04, 2023, 07:33:44 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 03, 2023, 10:31:05 PM
Obviously, but the presence of the occasional 30+ nontrad undergrad does not obviate my point-- 18yos really do not, educationally, know what their best interests are, nor are they wise enough to properly plan and execute an educational pathway.
Many 18 year olds know what they want when they start applying to colleges. I knew exactly what I didn't want as early as 16--I was terrible at math and also hated physics, so knew that I did not want to major in any of the stem fields other than probably biology. I recall having very decided opinions when I started applying to college about what I wanted.
I thought I wanted to be pre-med, then realized I didn't want to look at ugly naked people. Didn't mind blood, though. I really had no sense of what one could major in or what the possibilities were.
I realized what I naturally enjoyed was politics and government-type things, so I decided to major in Political Economy like some of my sorority sisters because it sounded cool. And the rest is history.
Quote from: kaysixteen on February 22, 2023, 11:43:01 PM
Isn't it possible that students, in their immaturity and ignorance, should be guided towards what is in their best educational interests, irrespective of their 'wants'?
You kids get off my lawn!!!
This demonstrates a different but related problem-- namely that *parents* may well be almost as ignorant as their 18yos, and they should be encouraged to realize this, and not to believe that their knowledge of what is best academically for their children is the equal of, let alone superior to, those of credentialed experts. We would *probably* recognize that it would be wrong for said parents to approach the advice of their children's *physicians* this same way; why would we shy away from saying the same about the professors'?
In search of original thought on this topic, I read the latest op-ed in IHE (https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2023/03/09/thoughts-dealing-despair-over-state-humanities-opinion)by an English Department chair (William Major, U of Hartford). He has had an epiphany--or reverse epiphany in that he has seen the dark. But also some metaphorical light.
Several of his recommendations are to engage more with society on a human-to-human basis, and to mostly listen. Hang out with neighbors, teach freshmen non-majors, pariciapat in campus-wide faculty committees. Those things will provide context for making your knowledge more relevant to the world and to yourself.
Some of the sector's woes strike me as a consequence of insufficient listening to other voices, resulting in being left out of the plans.
Overall the tone is a defeated one, which one might best wade through looking for the optimistic bits.
Oh geeze.
Quote from: Hibush on March 09, 2023, 06:06:35 PM
Some of the sector's woes strike me as a consequence of insufficient listening to other voices, resulting in being left out of the plans.
Since I am the only one who tends to routinely defend English and humanities in general (often the only one), I will say Hibush that I do not understand your comment. I'm a little inclined to nasty snark, but that solves nothing. The author's comments do not represent the humanities departments or faculty that I have know.
I mean, WTF? We have been listening. We keep trying to respond. People simply want to pile on when we do respond. We have been in our capacities generally good citizens of academia, or at least as good as any discipline in the system. Everywhere I've studied or taught the English faculty have been in senate, on committees, taking part in campus programs, giving public lectures, etc. William Majors maybe has a dull bunch under him, but what the hell is he talking about?
And I don't know much about William Major, but his English colleagues do not at all sound like the kind of people I've known, people who are, perhaps, overly cerebral (as are most college faculty) but pretty normal otherwise. His metaphoric "mulching leaves, planting a small garden or sitting on the porch with your neighbor" is silly, to begin with, and not at all reflective of people who are average middleclass people for the most part.
I utterly agree that this is an author memorializing defeat. Virtually everybody in the humanities is feeling defeated (note the lack of response here). People with commentary like Hibush's----ostensively another academic----simply drive that point home. Hibush, do you mean to tell me that you have never met or worked with anyone from an English department?
Major's article is ridiculous. I would write a letter to the editor, but what would be the point? People are attracted to messages they already agree with, and Major just delivered one.
We know that English majors do fine on the job market. We know that they are one of the harder working majors (Google "What majors spend the most time studying"----data is from the NSSE [engineering is at the top, business is at the bottom]). We know that literacy and literature are some of the oldest forms of education.
We are simply losing our hold on American educational values. And English is only good for writing well and studying literature. Unless you want to be a technical / business / grant writer (which is tedious but does pay very well), a creative writer (which is really only a paying career for a very few), or a reader of good stuff (which pays nothing), there is no way to justify English, or the humanities in general. We just study cool stuff because college gives us that opportunity. That's it. For most majors who do not go on to grad school, undergrad is probably the only time in their lives they can immerse themselves in what they really love. That is the only justification for the major over any other major (and these undergrads will do just fine on the job market).
The fault of the apologists for the humanities is that they fell into the trap of trying to make a cogent argument about the "value" or the humanities. The value is only that some people really like what we study. And for most people this is not impressive or convincing.
The irony is that I no longer work in academia and do not plan to again (or perhaps a class or two someday) as I was downsized along with a number of faculty from across my former university. I look at teaching English as a dying career and I am a bit relieved to be out of that rat race. I simply find my brain still stuck in academia. I would think that faculty would be smarter than this, however.
The English Major, After the End (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2023/03/09/reflecting-end-english-major-opinion#at_pco=cfd-1.0)
Quote
Heller is one of many to spot the four horsemen—call them defunding, recession, self-sabotage and artificial intelligence—on the humanities' horizon.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 23, 2023, 09:09:13 AM
The English Major, After the End (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2023/03/09/reflecting-end-english-major-opinion#at_pco=cfd-1.0)
Quote
Heller is one of many to spot the four horsemen—call them defunding, recession, self-sabotage and artificial intelligence—on the humanities' horizon.
I'm in STEM, and not in the US, but can't help nod at these two items in particular. As in probably a lot of places, the humanities and social sciences side of campus seems to have a disproportionately high number of certain SJW types that seem to harm the institution for personal gain (think, at their worst, pseudo-Maoist types hostile to any kind of rigor and completely uncritical of their own political positions and more interested in activism than in academic endeavors, including in some cases actually teaching their courses). Yes, we have such people in STEM too, of course (and people who are self-serving at the expense of the institution in other ways), but they do seem more concentrated elsewhere, and seem much more harmful than folks who merely avoid service and outreach work like the plague and/or are apathetic about anything not directly, immediately affecting their classes or research. I've also met my share of humanities folks with a sneering contempt for STEM - who seem to think (and some will basically say it outright) STEM folks are soulless automatons. I'm someone who's fairly extensively read literary fiction and watched arthouse cinema for pleasure and I've had artistic hobbies - I should be one of the most natural allies of humanities academics as a fellow academic with an interest in the humanities yet I've encountered these attitudes. So yeah, I'm inclined to say there's been a lot of self-sabotage, particularly in terms of alienating natural allies (and don´t get me started on overproduction of PhDs - and yes, STEM has done the same, it's academia as a whole doing this to itself). Yes, equivalent bad attitudes, hostility, etc are not uncommon among STEM folks and it's also unhelpful - but the humanities are perhaps in greater need of allies.
As for AI, let me start by saying that it's also a threat on the horizon for STEM - when I was an undergraduate an instructor told us that if all we did was memorize stuff, then we'd better raise our game as hard drives were cheaper than us. I've had some students seemingly unwilling and possibly unable to do much more than plug in numbers they're given into formulas they're given - forget AI, that's something Excel and can do faster, much cheaper and more reliably than a person. I have little hope that our weaker graduates can outperform AI, let alone our dropouts. Having said that, on top of the humanities' other problems, it's a bit like the joke with the punchline "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you." I don't know if anyone can ultimately truly outrun the AI bear, and it might eat us all eventually - but CS and engineering at least have running shoes on, some fields in the natural sciences at least have shoes, and so on.
That's interesting, Stockman. My experience has been the opposite of yours, although I will concede that the humanities types tend to run toward zealous leftist beliefs which do no one any good. That we can agree upon.
But I am a big fan of science, particularly astronomy and geology, and really appreciate what engineers and bio-scientists do for us. I have yet to meet a humanities person who "sneers" at science----I can't imagine anyone who would unless politically motivated (ex. COVID and climate science) who are not generally humanities types. By and large, humanities types are big believes in global climate change and the dangers of viruses. We support these scientists.
On the other hand, I have been insulted to my face a number of times by STEM folks, sometimes accidentally, and a number of times on these boards. This is not hyperbole. As example, I was once told by a slightly drunk engineering grad student, who did not teach, that I was lucky that I had so much time on my hands being an English graduate student after one of my sixty-hour weeks. My neighbor is a very nice STEM professor; I won't discuss some of the things hu's actually said to me because I am writing this person into an essay, but hu has accidentally/on-purpose insulted my profession a number of times with misinformation about the discipline and what we do. Hu is always abashed when I respond angrily, so I suspect hu does not think hu is being insulting. I encourage this person to look up data online...I doubt that hu does.
Your commentary sounds just like your typical fight among family members: it's always the other side's fault. Someone once described academia as "crabs in a barrel." We each see the other has opposition.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2023, 11:27:43 AM
That's interesting, Stockman. My experience has been the opposite of yours, although I will concede that the humanities types tend to run toward zealous leftist beliefs which do no one any good. That we can agree upon.
But I am a big fan of science, particularly astronomy and geology, and really appreciate what engineers and bio-scientists do for us. I have yet to meet a humanities person who "sneers" at science----I can't imagine anyone who would unless politically motivated (ex. COVID and climate science) who are not generally humanities types. By and large, humanities types are big believes in global climate change and the dangers of viruses. We support these scientists.
What about some of those other fringe things, like physics and chemistry? It would seem the kind of "science" you "support" isn't determined so much by how much evidence it has behind it as whether it has some sort of warm fuzzy connection for non-scientists.
The whole idea of science is that what matters is whether
it fits with reality, not how much (or even
if) people like it.
Seriously, science doesn't care how many "fans" it has, but whether it helps
explain (and more importantly,
predict) the way the world works.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2023, 11:45:31 AM
What about some of those other fringe things, like physics and chemistry? It would seem the kind of "science" you "support" isn't determined so much by how much evidence it has behind it as whether it has some sort of warm fuzzy connection for non-scientists.
The whole idea of science is that what matters is whether it fits with reality, not how much (or even if) people like it.
Seriously, science doesn't care how many "fans" it has, but whether it helps explain (and more importantly, predict) the way the world works.
Are you trying to be a jerk, Marshy?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2023, 12:50:22 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2023, 11:45:31 AM
What about some of those other fringe things, like physics and chemistry? It would seem the kind of "science" you "support" isn't determined so much by how much evidence it has behind it as whether it has some sort of warm fuzzy connection for non-scientists.
The whole idea of science is that what matters is whether it fits with reality, not how much (or even if) people like it.
Seriously, science doesn't care how many "fans" it has, but whether it helps explain (and more importantly, predict) the way the world works.
Are you trying to be a jerk, Marshy?
I just found it really weird to identify branches of science by some sort of "likes". Especially when the focus seemed to be on a lot of
observational science. A hundred doctors telling me I have cancer isn't as useful as one who can actually
treat it.
QuoteA hundred doctors telling me I have cancer isn't as useful as one who can actually treat it.
A hundred doctors telling me I have cancer isn't as useful as one doctor telling me I don't have cancer when s/he's correct! [FTFY :-)]
Science is not a democracy, at least not in the long run.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2023, 02:06:10 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2023, 12:50:22 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 24, 2023, 11:45:31 AM
What about some of those other fringe things, like physics and chemistry? It would seem the kind of "science" you "support" isn't determined so much by how much evidence it has behind it as whether it has some sort of warm fuzzy connection for non-scientists.
The whole idea of science is that what matters is whether it fits with reality, not how much (or even if) people like it.
Seriously, science doesn't care how many "fans" it has, but whether it helps explain (and more importantly, predict) the way the world works.
Are you trying to be a jerk, Marshy?
I just found it really weird to identify branches of science by some sort of "likes". Especially when the focus seemed to be on a lot of observational science. A hundred doctors telling me I have cancer isn't as useful as one who can actually treat it.
I still don't know what you are on about.
Geology is cool because I took it as an undergrad and it fascinated me.
Astronomy is simply cool----I'm talking on the level of a subscription to
Astronomy Magazine. Very layman stuff. Just fascinating to think of the wonders of the universe and the things being observed.
There is no subtext there.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2023, 11:27:43 AM
But I am a big fan of science, particularly astronomy and geology, and really appreciate what engineers and bio-scientists do for us. I have yet to meet a humanities person who "sneers" at science----I can't imagine anyone who would unless politically motivated (ex. COVID and climate science) who are not generally humanities types. By and large, humanities types are big believes in global climate change and the dangers of viruses. We support these scientists.
To clarify, my bad experiences are not hostility towards the results of science, but more like hostility towards STEM academics - so not hostility in the sense that creationists or climate change deniers or antivaxers might be hostile to certain types of scientific knowledge, but more along the lines of thinking Sheldon Cooper would be one of the nicer and more personable scientists or, esp., thinking that scientific research doesn't involve creativity or imagination.
Quote
On the other hand, I have been insulted to my face a number of times by STEM folks, sometimes accidentally, and a number of times on these boards. This is not hyperbole...
I don't doubt it, and I'm sorry. There are plenty of STEM people with bad attitudes, hostility towards the humanities, etc, unfortunately. There are people on both sides attacking those who should be their allies.
QuoteYour commentary sounds just like your typical fight among family members: it's always the other side's fault.
I think it more like academics are more or less on the same ship (but some much closer to the lifeboats than others), heading towards an iceberg. On board, some are actually trying to steer away from the iceberg, some are loudly demanding the iceberg move out of the ship's path, others are pleading with the iceberg to do so, some are proclaiming that, because epistemological diversity, if everyone agrees with them the iceberg doesn't exist, the iceberg will no longer exist. Some say that, if they're given enough grant money, they'll figure out a way to sink the iceberg. Others are fighting over how to re-arrange the deck chairs, others are trying to figure out how to optimize lifeboat capacity, and some are drilling holes in the hull - some of these brought their own inflatable lifeboats and are running some insurance scam, others are true believers in hole-drilling, are convinced any water getting into the ship will just drain out of the holes they're drilling, and would throw overboard anyone who says drilling holes is part of the problem. Some have given up and are gorging themselves full on the ship's dwindling supplies, others are trying to figure out how to teach the fishes, and some musicians keep playing though no one's listening.
I like the Titanic analogy. And I would like to add that several passengers are convinced that the best way to reach New York is just to keep steering the same course, which is marginally better than the passengers who do not seem to have noticed that the ship is sinking.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 24, 2023, 05:15:17 PM
I like the Titanic analogy. And I would like to add that several passengers are convinced that the best way to reach New York is just to keep steering the same course, which is marginally better than the passengers who do not seem to have noticed that the ship is sinking.
Some of the passengers have been very careful not to see the ship is sinking. Some passengers are following in the footsteps of the philosopher Calvin (the one with the tiger) who, when asked by his teacher what state he lived in, replied "Denial" and the teacher then said "Well, I can't argue with that."
Quote from: Stockmann on March 24, 2023, 05:04:37 PMTo clarify, my bad experiences are not hostility towards the results of science, but more like hostility towards STEM academics - so not hostility in the sense that creationists or climate change deniers or antivaxers might be hostile to certain types of scientific knowledge, but more along the lines of thinking Sheldon Cooper would be one of the nicer and more personable scientists or, esp., thinking that scientific research doesn't involve creativity or imagination.
Don't get me started with humanities professors who seem to think that their courses are the only ones capable to teaching students critical thinking.
Quote from: mleok on March 28, 2023, 09:41:39 AM
Quote from: Stockmann on March 24, 2023, 05:04:37 PMTo clarify, my bad experiences are not hostility towards the results of science, but more like hostility towards STEM academics - so not hostility in the sense that creationists or climate change deniers or antivaxers might be hostile to certain types of scientific knowledge, but more along the lines of thinking Sheldon Cooper would be one of the nicer and more personable scientists or, esp., thinking that scientific research doesn't involve creativity or imagination.
Don't get me started with humanities professors who seem to think that their courses are the only ones capable to teaching students critical thinking.
Who says that, for instance?
My experience is that it is very difficult to teach college students how to think critically if they don't already have the skill.
You can help them label various moves so it is easier to explain what they mean, and help them sharpen their skills. They may learn connections between different ways of thinking critically. But you can't make a profound change in their abilities.
I mostly think of critical thinking courses as a way to filter out students who can't think critically.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 28, 2023, 11:57:23 AM
Quote from: mleok on March 28, 2023, 09:41:39 AM
Quote from: Stockmann on March 24, 2023, 05:04:37 PMTo clarify, my bad experiences are not hostility towards the results of science, but more like hostility towards STEM academics - so not hostility in the sense that creationists or climate change deniers or antivaxers might be hostile to certain types of scientific knowledge, but more along the lines of thinking Sheldon Cooper would be one of the nicer and more personable scientists or, esp., thinking that scientific research doesn't involve creativity or imagination.
Don't get me started with humanities professors who seem to think that their courses are the only ones capable to teaching students critical thinking.
Who says that, for instance?
It seems to me that every article that makes a case for the humanities does something to that effect.
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Now as to the question of whether an entering college kid who to date still lacks such skills cannot be taught them, why would you think that?
Quote from: mleok on March 28, 2023, 04:31:52 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 28, 2023, 11:57:23 AM
Quote from: mleok on March 28, 2023, 09:41:39 AM
Quote from: Stockmann on March 24, 2023, 05:04:37 PMTo clarify, my bad experiences are not hostility towards the results of science, but more like hostility towards STEM academics - so not hostility in the sense that creationists or climate change deniers or antivaxers might be hostile to certain types of scientific knowledge, but more along the lines of thinking Sheldon Cooper would be one of the nicer and more personable scientists or, esp., thinking that scientific research doesn't involve creativity or imagination.
Don't get me started with humanities professors who seem to think that their courses are the only ones capable to teaching students critical thinking.
Who says that, for instance?
It seems to me that every article that makes a case for the humanities does something to that effect.
Yup, I figured you'd say something like that. We've read the same articles.
Okay, I need to be more specific.
Quote
humanities professors who seem to think that their courses are the only ones capable to teaching students critical thinking.
No one says "the only ones."
The people on this forum are extremely intelligent, all of them. We have no dummies here. And so I am quite boggled when I read this sort of thing.
English faculty make the claim, which I would think is fairly rational, that reading and writing are good for critical thinking skills. They are some of the oldest disciplines in education. It seems to me that this argument is proven by neuroscientists. None have claimed that humanities are the ONLY majors to do so. That is a strawman.
Actually, that is an antagonistic strawman. You, my friend, have simply joined the mob.
Humanities professors make such silly claims because they have been backed into a corner and are trying very hard to justify their majors as "skills employers are looking for." But we all know no corporation is looking to hire people because they have read Beowulf.
I've come fully around to the idea that we need to let natural selection take its course, in no small part because even other academics (particularly in STEM or STEM-adjacent fields) seem to think that the humanities should go the way of the Dodo. So be it.
I will simply remind the world that I grew up in the era in which math teachers justified their existence through the "you will use this every day for the rest of your life" hogwash.
Hey, go figure.
Herchinger Report: OPINION: Want to save the beleaguered English major? Abandon it. (https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-want-to-save-the-beleaguered-english-major-abandon-it/)
And:
NYTimes Letter to the editor (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/opinion/letters/english-courses.html)
Readers, please take note:
Quote
And, yes, an English major is excellent preparation for a future that requires adaptability, versatility, flexibility — competencies that employers seek.
Note that there is no claim to exclusivity here. You may relax.
]
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 28, 2023, 08:34:27 PMHumanities professors make such silly claims because they have been backed into a corner and are trying very hard to justify their majors as "skills employers are looking for." But we all know no corporation is looking to hire people because they have read Beowulf.
You seem to be admitting that there are humanities professors who do make the claim which I was alluding to. I have no issue with the assertion that the humanities can be an effective means of teaching critical thinking, I simply don't think it is exclusive to the humanities.
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about
using evidence to support
or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you
like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit
the facts, you have to abandon it.
Quote from: mleok on March 28, 2023, 10:58:54 PM
You seem to be admitting that there are humanities professors who do make the claim which I was alluding to.
You are now making wishful assertions.
Nope. Alluded to the opposite. Your critical thinking skills are faltering and you don't want to give up your little nasty pony.
Quote from: mleok on March 28, 2023, 10:58:54 PM
Humanities I simply don't think it is exclusive to the humanities.
Um...yeah. No one ever said it was.
That was the point.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 28, 2023, 10:18:16 PM
Herchinger Report: OPINION: Want to save the beleaguered English major? Abandon it. (https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-want-to-save-the-beleaguered-english-major-abandon-it/)
Quote
I am a poster child for the English major. I entered college in 1989 with an interest in human rights advocacy, planning to be a lawyer. I quickly fell in love with poetry in a class I'd somewhat randomly taken on John Keats and William Butler Yeats.
Before long, I immersed myself in literature, philosophy, religious studies and creative writing classes.
A Ph.D. in English from an Ivy League school followed and then a career that more than justified it: 10 years as a professor, author of a well-received book, 15 years leading nonprofit organizations. Most recently, I became a university president.
He's about as representative of humanities majors as Elon Musk is of engineering majors. The high flyers from
any discipline will be examples of people doing amazing things that may or may not have anything specific to do with their education.
Showing what lottery winners have done with their money is a way to sell tickets, but it's not a good guide to what
most people will experience.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:55:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Pretty much all of them in any "<identity> Studies" field.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:00:04 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:55:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Pretty much all of them in any "<identity> Studies" field.
Evidence?
You just made a typically Marshy blanket statement.
Evidence, Mr. Scientist. Evidence.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 06:02:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:00:04 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:55:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Pretty much all of them in any "<identity> Studies" field.
Evidence?
You just made a typically Marshy blanket statement.
Evidence, Mr. Scientist. Evidence.
All of the hoaxes previously mentioned were published in "identity studies" journals. That is
evidence of a very poor quality of refereeing, which is
evidence of poor standards of discourse in those fields.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:05:03 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 06:02:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:00:04 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:55:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Pretty much all of them in any "<identity> Studies" field.
Evidence?
You just made a typically Marshy blanket statement.
Evidence, Mr. Scientist. Evidence.
All of the hoaxes previously mentioned were published in "identity studies" journals. That is evidence of a very poor quality of refereeing, which is evidence of poor standards of discourse in those fields.
So out of the 123,443 humanities professors (https://www.zippia.com/humanities-professor-jobs/trends/) teaching and publishing, you pick a handful of hoax-articles to prove that these folks are "activists?" These not withstanding, does publishing a researched opinion count as "activism?"
What does Retraction Watch (https://retractionwatch.com/) say about science, then?
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:05:03 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 06:02:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:00:04 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:55:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Pretty much all of them in any "<identity> Studies" field.
Evidence?
You just made a typically Marshy blanket statement.
Evidence, Mr. Scientist. Evidence.
All of the hoaxes previously mentioned were published in "identity studies" journals. That is evidence of a very poor quality of refereeing, which is evidence of poor standards of discourse in those fields.
Sokal is one thing, although as he himself has written, it's often misrepresented as an indictment of the field rather than editorial standards.
But your "gender studies" hoaxers published in obscure journals nobody has ever heard of, as well as predatory journals. If you can't see that, you have no business talking about it, period. The one exception is the piece accepted (but not published) by
Hypatia, which mainly summarizes other people's views and applies them to a case. And whatever we may think about the merits of that kind of article (I, for one, think that's not enough to merit publication), it's certainly not ridiculous that such a thing might be accepted for publication
after three rounds of R&R, provided it is accurately representing the views in question. The other articles were rejected, including by real journals (such as
Hypatia, incidentally). Far from an indictment of the field, their prank showed
that there are real standards and the peer review process works.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 29, 2023, 07:47:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:05:03 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 06:02:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:00:04 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:55:55 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 04:58:40 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
Well, there's the whole thing about using evidence to support or *refute a hypothesis, rather than just accepting one's own preferred ideas about something. Given the number of humanities faculty that have abandoned this in favour of being "activists", I'd say STEM is more consistent about this.
*No matter how much you like an idea or interpretation, if it doesn't fit the facts, you have to abandon it.
Okay.
Use evidence to support your hypothesis.
How many humanities faculty are now "activists?"
Pretty much all of them in any "<identity> Studies" field.
Evidence?
You just made a typically Marshy blanket statement.
Evidence, Mr. Scientist. Evidence.
All of the hoaxes previously mentioned were published in "identity studies" journals. That is evidence of a very poor quality of refereeing, which is evidence of poor standards of discourse in those fields.
Sokal is one thing, although as he himself has written, it's often misrepresented as an indictment of the field rather than editorial standards.
But your "gender studies" hoaxers published in obscure journals nobody has ever heard of, as well as predatory journals. If you can't see that, you have no business talking about it, period. The one exception is the piece accepted (but not published) by Hypatia, which mainly summarizes other people's views and applies them to a case. And whatever we may think about the merits of that kind of article (I, for one, think that's not enough to merit publication), it's certainly not ridiculous that such a thing might be accepted for publication after three rounds of R&R, provided it is accurately representing the views in question. The other articles were rejected, including by real journals (such as Hypatia, incidentally). Far from an indictment of the field, their prank showed that there are real standards and the peer review process works.
Now, now, Para. Let's not get reason, objectivity, and facts involved (even though we may make all sorts of comments about "evidence" in other places).
Rather than admitting that we are talking out our wazoos, what we want is blanket indictment extrapolated from a few strange outliers which have been fashioned out of deliberate deception. Then we want to extend our non-peer reviewed conclusions into a whole field of inquiry about which we know virtually nothing.
I suspect this is how prejudice in general works.
Between this and the Boaler thread I'm tearing my hair out. I am weary of us as a profession attacking each other's disciplines.
I have heard exactly what mleok claimed. I have heard STEM people say exactly the same about the Humanities. Both points of view are a crock. I also think kay's view about better is far more prevalent in both directions (both of which we can agree cannot be true at the same Time).
NEITHER STEM NOR HUMANITIES DO A BETTER JOB OF TEACHING AND USING CRITICAL THINKING.
Sorry, I lost control there. Critical skills in disciplines are crucial to that discipline, and seldom the same as a different discipline. They are not even the same from one discipline to another in these artificial categories we call STEM and Humanities. There is again a rich literature on transfer in cognitive science, and if I had to some it up succinctly it is that there is precious little between fields. Heck, there is little WITHIN a field.
Someone skilled at critical thinking in higher mathematics is not automatically skilled in chemistry or physics. Someone skilled in English literature is not automatically skilled in history or philosophy.
A well educated student gets a good grounding in as many of these as we can help them get. Period. They then choose what they are good at and interested in.
QuoteCritical skills in disciplines are crucial to that discipline, and seldom the same as a different discipline.
Now that's an intelligent statement. But there is no justification for anybody to claim to propagate critical thinking skills. I've always thought it's a sham.
QuoteThe skills that we need in order to be able to think critically are varied and include observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making.
That's really helpful! A nothing.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 29, 2023, 01:58:53 PM
I have heard exactly what mleok claimed.
Who? Can you link to it?
And I attack no one's discipline. My crack about "you will use math every day for the rest of your life" is meant to demonstrate the ridiculousness of demanding utility of an academic discipline and the typical misunderstanding of an academic discipline.
I am fine with people not attacking each other's discipline. But the ball is not in my court.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:37:56 PM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 29, 2023, 01:58:53 PM
I have heard exactly what mleok claimed.
Who? Can you link to it?
And I attack no one's discipline. My crack about "you will use math every day for the rest of your life" is meant to demonstrate the ridiculousness of demanding utility of an academic discipline and the typical misunderstanding of an academic discipline.
I am fine with people not attacking each other's discipline. But the ball is not in my court.
Sorry, I was referring to conversations and discussions at mu campus and some others in the state. It was a frequent topic as we debated requirements and reorganization of colleges.
Regardless of discipline, if an objective of a course is to teach critical thinking skills, at the end of said course, how does one assess whether the critical thinking skills of the students has in fact been bolstered?
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 29, 2023, 06:55:25 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 05:37:56 PM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on March 29, 2023, 01:58:53 PM
I have heard exactly what mleok claimed.
Who? Can you link to it?
And I attack no one's discipline. My crack about "you will use math every day for the rest of your life" is meant to demonstrate the ridiculousness of demanding utility of an academic discipline and the typical misunderstanding of an academic discipline.
I am fine with people not attacking each other's discipline. But the ball is not in my court.
Sorry, I was referring to conversations and discussions at mu campus and some others in the state. It was a frequent topic as we debated requirements and reorganization of colleges.
For example,
https://lsepgcertcitl.wordpress.com/2021/05/11/can-criticality-exist-in-higher-education-without-the-humanities/
I don't think the sentiment that humanities is uniquely positioned to teach critical thinking, and that students in the sciences would not be exposed to these notions absent any humanities requirements is rather common, and I'm surprised that Wahoo Redux has never encountered it. Put another way, if the argument is being made that humanities needs to be a distribution requirement for STEM and social science students because it teaches critical thinking, then that argument implicitly rests on the assertion that STEM and social science courses fail to do so.
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 29, 2023, 10:33:25 PM
Regardless of discipline, if an objective of a course is to teach critical thinking skills, at the end of said course, how does one assess whether the critical thinking skills of the students has in fact been bolstered?
I personally would like to see evidence that students who are better able to identify sloppy, unsubstantiated arguments, and to point out logical fallacies that are being made.
Critical thinking is not a thing. Ask any cognitive psychologist. The use of the term to proclaim the value of any academic pursuit demonstrates just how badly educated many academics are.
Anyone who thinks getting a PhD in any field is training for a financially rewarding and secure career in academia is a fool.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 09:00:16 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 29, 2023, 07:47:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:05:03 AM
All of the hoaxes previously mentioned were published in "identity studies" journals. That is evidence of a very poor quality of refereeing, which is evidence of poor standards of discourse in those fields.
Sokal is one thing, although as he himself has written, it's often misrepresented as an indictment of the field rather than editorial standards.
But your "gender studies" hoaxers published in obscure journals nobody has ever heard of, as well as predatory journals. If you can't see that, you have no business talking about it, period. The one exception is the piece accepted (but not published) by Hypatia, which mainly summarizes other people's views and applies them to a case. And whatever we may think about the merits of that kind of article (I, for one, think that's not enough to merit publication), it's certainly not ridiculous that such a thing might be accepted for publication after three rounds of R&R, provided it is accurately representing the views in question. The other articles were rejected, including by real journals (such as Hypatia, incidentally). Far from an indictment of the field, their prank showed that there are real standards and the peer review process works.
Now, now, Para. Let's not get reason, objectivity, and facts involved (even though we may make all sorts of comments about "evidence" in other places).
Rather than admitting that we are talking out our wazoos, what we want is blanket indictment extrapolated from a few strange outliers which have been fashioned out of deliberate deception. Then we want to extend our non-peer reviewed conclusions into a whole field of inquiry about which we know virtually nothing.
I suspect this is how prejudice in general works.
A good artist who had carefully studied Picasso's work
might be able to forge a Picasso. A good artist who hadn't extensively studied Picasso's work wouldn't stand a chance, because a convincing fake would require deep knowledge of detail.
Similarly, research
fraud is hard to spot when it is committed by an expert in a field who falsifies data, because that person has sufficient knowledge to make it convincing. However, a person outside that field would have no chance because they would be hard pressed to write something that wasn't completely ridiculous, let alone plausible.
The hoaxes were created by people who were
not from those disciplines, which is what makes it amazing that they would even get past a journal editor, let alone be accepted by referees since they shouldn't have the knowledge required to say anything coherent, (unless of course that isn't really required in those "disciplines".)
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 29, 2023, 10:33:25 PM
Regardless of discipline, if an objective of a course is to teach critical thinking skills, at the end of said course, how does one assess whether the critical thinking skills of the students has in fact been bolstered?
Whoa! Don't go there! How dare you suggest that such a thing could be measured?!
Assert. Assert. Assert. Ad infinitum.
I can easily generate a paper on machine learning and AI, and pay a predatory journal to publish it. That would not show that computer science is a fraud infected by PoMo-whatever. All it would show is that I paid a predatory journal to publish junk. But we already knew that predatory journals publish junk.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 30, 2023, 08:26:05 AM
I can easily generate a paper on machine learning and AI, and pay a predatory journal to publish it. That would not show that computer science is a fraud infected by PoMo-whatever. All it would show is that I paid a predatory journal to publish junk. But we already knew that predatory journals publish junk.
Were those journals just the pay-to-publish kind? My impression was that they were "normal", where articles are actually refereed.
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 30, 2023, 05:44:43 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 29, 2023, 09:00:16 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on March 29, 2023, 07:47:03 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 29, 2023, 06:05:03 AM
All of the hoaxes previously mentioned were published in "identity studies" journals. That is evidence of a very poor quality of refereeing, which is evidence of poor standards of discourse in those fields.
Sokal is one thing, although as he himself has written, it's often misrepresented as an indictment of the field rather than editorial standards.
But your "gender studies" hoaxers published in obscure journals nobody has ever heard of, as well as predatory journals. If you can't see that, you have no business talking about it, period. The one exception is the piece accepted (but not published) by Hypatia, which mainly summarizes other people's views and applies them to a case. And whatever we may think about the merits of that kind of article (I, for one, think that's not enough to merit publication), it's certainly not ridiculous that such a thing might be accepted for publication after three rounds of R&R, provided it is accurately representing the views in question. The other articles were rejected, including by real journals (such as Hypatia, incidentally). Far from an indictment of the field, their prank showed that there are real standards and the peer review process works.
Now, now, Para. Let's not get reason, objectivity, and facts involved (even though we may make all sorts of comments about "evidence" in other places).
Rather than admitting that we are talking out our wazoos, what we want is blanket indictment extrapolated from a few strange outliers which have been fashioned out of deliberate deception. Then we want to extend our non-peer reviewed conclusions into a whole field of inquiry about which we know virtually nothing.
I suspect this is how prejudice in general works.
A good artist who had carefully studied Picasso's work might be able to forge a Picasso. A good artist who hadn't extensively studied Picasso's work wouldn't stand a chance, because a convincing fake would require deep knowledge of detail.
Similarly, research fraud is hard to spot when it is committed by an expert in a field who falsifies data, because that person has sufficient knowledge to make it convincing. However, a person outside that field would have no chance because they would be hard pressed to write something that wasn't completely ridiculous, let alone plausible.
The hoaxes were created by people who were not from those disciplines, which is what makes it amazing that they would even get past a journal editor, let alone be accepted by referees since they shouldn't have the knowledge required to say anything coherent, (unless of course that isn't really required in those "disciplines".)
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 29, 2023, 10:33:25 PM
Regardless of discipline, if an objective of a course is to teach critical thinking skills, at the end of said course, how does one assess whether the critical thinking skills of the students has in fact been bolstered?
Whoa! Don't go there! How dare you suggest that such a thing could be measured?!
Assert. Assert. Assert. Ad infinitum.
You know, Marshy, that the Sokal business (now 27 years old and still clinging to the sides of STEMy sorts) was not actually peer-reviewed; that Sokal was asked to revise numerous times by the editors; and that the reason they published the article was because they wanted an actual physicist for their "Science Wars" issue. In other words, these poor stooges at Social Text were impressed by the credentials of and trusted their author. I don't think that this relieves them of their basic good sense, but it is hardly what you suggest above. Remember, "evidence," buddy; you started that trend.
And you also know, no doubt, that Retraction Watch (which you seem to want to ignore) provides anti-vaxxers with exactly the sort of reasoning you demonstrate above---i.e. that scientific journals will publish whatever fits the trendy ideological framework of science at the moment.
And, of course, there has been a great deal of art fraud easily perpetrated by trained artists, sometimes to the tune or millions of dollars. Away with Picasso, I guess.
Quote from: spork on March 30, 2023, 01:49:04 AM
Critical thinking is not a thing. Ask any cognitive psychologist.
That's rather enigmatic. Cognitive psychology believes in rationality. It also spends a lot of time showing how flawed our rationality is.
Do college critical thinking classes really improve students' reasoning abilities in a general way? There have been experiments that cast doubt on that. Students are not good at extending skills in one area to another area.
I dunno how much of this is composed of actual scholarly journals and how much is predatory / vanity journals, but Sokal-style stings can be found in virtually every discipline. I hadn't heard of any of these.
Wikipedia: List of Scholarly Publishing Stings. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scholarly_publishing_stings)
Quote from: downer on March 30, 2023, 10:19:06 AM
Do college critical thinking classes really improve students' reasoning abilities in a general way? There have been experiments that cast doubt on that. Students are not good at extending skills in one area to another area.
Correct; people do not, not just students. That's what I meant by transfer above. There is a huge literature in psych on that subject.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 30, 2023, 09:59:06 AM
And you also know, no doubt, that Retraction Watch (which you seem to want to ignore) provides anti-vaxxers with exactly the sort of reasoning you demonstrate above---i.e. that scientific journals will publish whatever fits the trendy ideological framework of science at the moment.
I'm not sure what point you're making about Retraction Watch. It's hard to see how most science papers would reflect any specific "ideological framework". If you're specifically referring to vaccine-related work, then it's probably not much different than other research in that early results may turn out to be refuted by later results with a lot more data. That has nothing to do with ideology.
I hadn't heard of Retraction Watch, so I checked it out. Wonderful! But what worries me more is what should be retracted will not always be retracted.
It's unfair to exclusively attack the humanities for publishing ideological nonsense. The more recent Sokal Squared affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair)
attacked grievance studies subjects by submitting about 14 papers to peer reviewed journals. About seven got accepted, so junk has a 50-50 chance of getting published! [I do remember not knowing anything about the Sokal Affair and reading the first few sentences of the article thinking: "This is junk." as neither a physicist nor a humanist.]
I agree that there can be plenty of confusion about vaccination. Gold standard randomized controlled trials are expensive. We still have too little on it as far as Covid is concerned.
However, physical or natural science is subject to fashion, too, at least in the short run. Global warming is an example, though the IPCC reports have gotten saner over time. The economics of global warming is largely ignored. No bennies for the researcher unless you follow the ideology. Then you might get a Nobel Prize, like William Nordhaus.
So, I wouldn't single out disciplines for producing junk. The phenomenon is much broader, encompassing most of academia.
Last November there was a conference at Stanford about free speech in academia. It's all webbed. There is one talk by avowed left winger Lee Jussim, the social psychologist, describing the situation in academia as a whole. The talk is entitled "The Radicalization of the Academy". It's also very entertaining!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kaFI8JAOvk&t=3s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kaFI8JAOvk&t=3s)
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Obviously as a humanist, and a trained librarian as well, I have my biases, and I really do think the approach to critical thinking skills taught in some, though not all, humanities courses, is superior in general to that in STEM fields, and certainly a good bibliographic instruction course is very good at this as well, but I am willing to be disabused of this-- exactly how does a STEM course go about instructing critical thinking skills?
For example, a STEM course might involve distinguishing between truths that are thought to be exact and universal (like conservation of energy), laws that are widely applicable but have exceptions or limitations, laws that are approximations but are sufficiently accurate that in the right circumstances can be taken as an exact truth, laws that are only rough approximations or order-of-magnitude estimates but still useful - as distinct from just plugging in numbers. It may involve deciding that is negligible and what isn't in some circumstances, and looking at what assumptions lie behind an equation or statement - as distinct from just blindly doing algebra. I often tell my students in intro courses than knowing when to apply a law or formula is as important as knowing the law or formula.
Quote from: kaysixteen on March 28, 2023, 04:46:13 PM
Now as to the question of whether an entering college kid who to date still lacks such skills cannot be taught them, why would you think that?
I think that critical thinking skills are a lot like languages - someone who is a true beginner at 18 is unlikely to ever become fluent. Yes, there are exceptions, and basically everyone can polish their skills even if already fluent, including adults, but for most people 18 is basically too late to achieve fluency unless they already have a strong foundation to build on. To truly master a language, you normally have to start young. Likewise I'd say you need a basis to build on in terms of critical thinking when someone reaches college - if they're a true beginner, discussing which courses are better for teaching critical thinking skills is basically rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic*. I'd say it applies more generally - cognitive benefits in college are probably going to require a decent foundation to build on to happen (and in many cases, they don't happen).
*Or a bit like lighting a candle vs. sunrise. Better than cursing the darkness...
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 30, 2023, 11:04:33 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 30, 2023, 09:59:06 AM
And you also know, no doubt, that Retraction Watch (which you seem to want to ignore) provides anti-vaxxers with exactly the sort of reasoning you demonstrate above---i.e. that scientific journals will publish whatever fits the trendy ideological framework of science at the moment.
I'm not sure what point you're making about Retraction Watch. It's hard to see how most science papers would reflect any specific "ideological framework". If you're specifically referring to vaccine-related work, then it's probably not much different than other research in that early results may turn out to be refuted by later results with a lot more data. That has nothing to do with ideology.
That's not what the anti-vaxxers say.
The critique is that bad-science is exactly the product of ideology. COVID is a hot subject as was climate change. Scientists were more likely to get their papers published if certain conclusions were reached. At least that is the argument.
Mind you, I don't buy it for a second, but I just wanted to point out that you are in good company, Marshman.
The point is that the conspiracy theorists and deniers use exactly your rubric for an entire discipline.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 30, 2023, 11:34:52 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 30, 2023, 11:04:33 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 30, 2023, 09:59:06 AM
And you also know, no doubt, that Retraction Watch (which you seem to want to ignore) provides anti-vaxxers with exactly the sort of reasoning you demonstrate above---i.e. that scientific journals will publish whatever fits the trendy ideological framework of science at the moment.
I'm not sure what point you're making about Retraction Watch. It's hard to see how most science papers would reflect any specific "ideological framework". If you're specifically referring to vaccine-related work, then it's probably not much different than other research in that early results may turn out to be refuted by later results with a lot more data. That has nothing to do with ideology.
That's not what the anti-vaxxers say.
The critique is that bad-science is exactly the product of ideology. COVID is a hot subject as was climate change. Scientists were more likely to get their papers published if certain conclusions were reached. At least that is the argument.
Mind you, I don't buy it for a second, but I just wanted to point out that you are in good company, Marshman.
The point is that the conspiracy theorists and deniers use exactly your rubric for an entire discipline.
The proper response should be to
encourage vigilance about it in all disciplines, rather than shrugging it off as universal and therefore "normal". (Regarding covid, there
was politics involved, in that early on the "lab leak hypothesis" was considered to be racist whereas in the last few months, (now that China is more unpopular for various reasons), it can legitimately be discussed in public.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on March 30, 2023, 11:44:32 AM
The proper response should be to encourage vigilance about it in all disciplines, rather than shrugging it off as universal and therefore "normal". (Regarding covid, there was politics involved, in that early on the "lab leak hypothesis" was considered to be racist whereas in the last few months, (now that China is more unpopular for various reasons), it can legitimately be discussed in public.)
Ah, Marshman, the builder of many a Strawman. Said nothing about "universal" or "normal" anything.
The Wikipedia link illustrates how universal it is, however, and OF COURSE it should not be shrugged off----but to err is human. This hoaxing business will happen again, probably many times. We just have to be smart enough to see it for what it is.
I never saw politics in COVID except for Republican resistance to intelligent and scientific precautions against a public health emergency----very weird. The lab release theory has always been discussed. There is a very interesting article here on the Fora somewhere on this very subject.
And last headline I saw indicated that racoon dogs (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/science/covid-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market.html) were the source of the virus in Wuhan.
NY Times: Colleges Should Be More Than Just Vocational Schools (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/opinion/humanities-liberal-arts-policy-higher-education.html)
Quote
The steady disinvestment in the liberal arts risks turning America's universities into vocational schools narrowly focused on professional training. Increasingly, they have robust programs in subjects like business, nursing and computer science but less and less funding for and focus on departments of history, literature, philosophy, mathematics and theology.
America's higher education system was founded on the liberal arts and the widespread understanding that mass access to art, culture, language and science was essential if America was to thrive. But a bipartisan coalition of politicians and university administrators is now hard at work attacking it — and its essential role in public life — by slashing funding, cutting back on tenure protections, ending faculty governance and imposing narrow ideological limits on what can and can't be taught.
As so often, the NY Times gets its history wrong.
QuoteAmerica's higher education system was founded on the liberal arts and the widespread understanding that mass access to art, culture, language and science was essential if America was to thrive.
America's education system was founded on religious schools turning out ministers. Over time, it became social clubs for the well off. This last until well into the 1950's.
There were two shocks, one English and one German. The English shock was the advent of the school in which you learned technical stuff. That's what the land grant colleges were for. The German shock, early 19th century, was the research university. Holy shit! Gotta compete. And we got some, and we got land grants becoming research universities.
The competition of the Cold War turned some of the country clubs into almost meritocracies and kept the research universities and the land grants in the green.
In many ways, there's nothing really new going on, with colleges preaching religion again, a State-God secular religion this time around, except that the unbridled expansion of higher ed has ended.
And here the NY times is decidedly wrong. It's a demand side phenomenon, not a supply side phenomenon. Students don't want the humanities anymore. If they did, the money would be there, for the money follows the student in US higher ed.
Party's over.
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 01:23:21 PM
As so often, the NY Times gets its history wrong.
QuoteAmerica's higher education system was founded on the liberal arts and the widespread understanding that mass access to art, culture, language and science was essential if America was to thrive.
And here the NY times is decidedly wrong. It's a demand side phenomenon, not a supply side phenomenon. Students don't want the humanities anymore. If they did, the money would be there, for the money follows the student in US higher ed.
Party's over.
That's a good little summation of history. I like it.
But you missed the point, Big-D.
Yes, we all understand that students are flocking away from the humanities. What Devereaux is saying is that it is the false narrative RE "employability" and the lib arts that is driving students away and that politicians are exploiting. That is the point of this opinion piece. Some people just seem impervious to facts surrounding liberal arts degrees and employment opportunities.
And NYT uses facts, so it is not "wrong." Devereaux simply has another perspective than you do.
If I take issue with the piece it is the cliched animosity towards politicians (although, sure, the Repubs have been aiming at people who think differently than they do for years) and fails to address the attitudes expressed around the dinner table and in shallow media portrayals.
However, the party may be over, at least for now.
QuoteDevereaux simply has another perspective than you do.
S/he has another
theory. His/hers is wrong and mine is right. The claim is one of false consciousness, or people are stupid. I guess they mustn't vote.
As I described upthread, the wages of humanities graduates are not lower than for some other fields. So one more humanities graduate will indeed find a decent job.
But thousands more won't! That would further push down their wages, causing them to leave. What has happened in the past is that the humanities have shrunk, keeping up the wage there!
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 03:39:00 PM
QuoteDevereaux simply has another perspective than you do.
S/he has another theory. His/hers is wrong and mine is right. The claim is one of false consciousness, or people are stupid. I guess they mustn't vote.
Does history have one certain theory? Or can multiple theories / perspectives / interpretations be correct?
Quote
As I described upthread, the wages of humanities graduates are not lower than for some other fields. So one more humanities graduate will indeed find a decent job.
But thousands more won't!
"Thousands?" Hmmmm, the stats don't really back that up. Deveroux addresses that a couple of times with links.
https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/why-study-history/careers-for-history-majors/what-can-you-do-with-that-history-degree
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Arts_(BA)%2C_Philosophy/Salary
And I swore to myself that I wouldn't do anyone else's homework, but I frequently find myself doing a quick Google search for facts regarding English majors and the working world for very smart people who should be doing this for themselves.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/field-of-degree/english/english-field-of-degree.htm
https://employedhistorian.com/english-major/statistics-facts/
And figures regarding "part-time" work do not necessarily tell us that people are not finding work----these figures will include people like me who have taken a little time off to work on projects, stay-at-home parents, people just out of college, lazybutts and all the rest.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 03:58:02 PM
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 03:39:00 PM
QuoteDevereaux simply has another perspective than you do.
S/he has another theory. His/hers is wrong and mine is right. The claim is one of false consciousness, or people are stupid. I guess they mustn't vote.
Does history have one certain theory? Or can multiple theories / perspectives / interpretations be correct?
Quote
As I described upthread, the wages of humanities graduates are not lower than for some other fields. So one more humanities graduate will indeed find a decent job.
But thousands more won't!
"Thousands?" Hmmmm, the stats don't really back that up. Deveroux addresses that a couple of times with links.
https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/why-study-history/careers-for-history-majors/what-can-you-do-with-that-history-degree
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Arts_(BA)%2C_Philosophy/Salary
And I swore to myself that I wouldn't do anyone else's homework, but I frequently find myself doing a quick Google search for facts regarding English majors and the working world for very smart people who should be doing this for themselves.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/field-of-degree/english/english-field-of-degree.htm
https://employedhistorian.com/english-major/statistics-facts/
And figures regarding "part-time" work do not necessarily tell us that people are not finding work----these figures will include people like me who have taken a little time off to work on projects, stay-at-home parents, people just out of college, lazybutts and all the rest.
There can be an infinite number of theories. Only one can be correct. :-)
My
theory says that one more English major can find a job at the going wage. Thousands can't. They would push the wage down. So arguments using the fact that English majors have a decent income compared to other majors cannot be extrapolated to more students in that major. Those who have
not majored in English have kept up the wage for English majors.
Small is beautiful.
Not sure I see what you are saying there.
But can you substantiate your "theory" with facts?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 04:32:10 PM
Not sure I see what you are saying there.
But can you substantiate your "theory" with facts?
Industry X is shrinking. [Fact, to be explained] Is this due to demand [theory] or supply [theory], including things that affect both [income, change in laws, change in access to fiance, whatever -- all
theory working through demand and supply].
--Fact -- students get to borrow equally for any major, so no institutional changes.
--Fact -- inputs into Industry X have not got more expensive relative to all other industries, so cost of production is not higher.
--Deduction -- this must be a demand side phenomenon.
People want less of it. Why? False consciousness [only here apparently. Doesn't generalize. Whereas the theory I use does.]. So, no.
People
not entering Industry X keep up the wages in Industry X [theory] -- which we do observe [fact].
Listen, I gotta charge tuition! :-)
Random observations:
1) You do know what the education at colonial American and early Republic colleges was like, right? They were primarily interested in the training of future ministers, of course, but modern-style 'theological seminaries' they simply were not.
2) I saw an interview on CSPAN this weekend with former St. John's Albuquerque president John Agresto, who, amongst other things, explicitly argues that humanities students should just not be asked to pay the same tuition rates as STEM students-- thoughts?
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 03, 2023, 05:25:12 PM
Random observations:
1) You do know what the education at colonial American and early Republic colleges was like, right? They were primarily interested in the training of future ministers, of course, but modern-style 'theological seminaries' they simply were not.
2) I saw an interview on CSPAN this weekend with former St. John's Albuquerque president John Agresto, who, amongst other things, explicitly argues that humanities students should just not be asked to pay the same tuition rates as STEM students-- thoughts?
It is actually true that the cost of producing a humanities graduate is lower than the cost of producing a STEM graduate. None of those pesky particle accelerators required. What universities are doing is called price discrimination. Humanities students seem to be willing to pay because of -- whatever.
If this price discrimination stopped, perhaps President Agresto could explain where the now missing funds would come from.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 03, 2023, 05:25:12 PM
Random observations:
2) I saw an interview on CSPAN this weekend with former St. John's Albuquerque president John Agresto, who, amongst other things, explicitly argues that humanities students should just not be asked to pay the same tuition rates as STEM students-- thoughts?
Hey!!! I already posted this article!!!! It has been discussed. You at the back of the auditorium, pay attention!!!
The author (I forget who) argued that charging less for a humanities degree would encourage poor people whose purpose is to rise in the socioeconomic ranks to consider a lib arts degree over business or STEM. The justification for this change is that STEM degrees in particular are much more expensive to the university than your lib arts degrees.
Personally, I think it sounds like more bureaucracy, and it might actually discourage poor students who want to be engineers from pursuing that degree because of the constant discourse on "student debt."
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 04:46:05 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 04:32:10 PM
Not sure I see what you are saying there.
But can you substantiate your "theory" with facts?
Industry X is shrinking. [Fact, to be explained] Is this due to demand [theory] or supply [theory], including things that affect both [income, change in laws, change in access to fiance, whatever -- all theory working through demand and supply].
--Fact -- students get to borrow equally for any major, so no institutional changes.
--Fact -- inputs into Industry X have not got more expensive relative to all other industries, so cost of production is not higher.
--Deduction -- this must be a demand side phenomenon.
People want less of it. Why? False consciousness [only here apparently. Doesn't generalize. Whereas the theory I use does.]. So, no.
People not entering Industry X keep up the wages in Industry X [theory] -- which we do observe [fact].
Listen, I gotta charge tuition! :-)
Generalized hypotheticals all.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 06:23:11 PM
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 04:46:05 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 04:32:10 PM
Not sure I see what you are saying there.
But can you substantiate your "theory" with facts?
Industry X is shrinking. [Fact, to be explained] Is this due to demand [theory] or supply [theory], including things that affect both [income, change in laws, change in access to fiance, whatever -- all theory working through demand and supply].
--Fact -- students get to borrow equally for any major, so no institutional changes.
--Fact -- inputs into Industry X have not got more expensive relative to all other industries, so cost of production is not higher.
--Deduction -- this must be a demand side phenomenon.
People want less of it. Why? False consciousness [only here apparently. Doesn't generalize. Whereas the theory I use does.]. So, no.
People not entering Industry X keep up the wages in Industry X [theory] -- which we do observe [fact].
Listen, I gotta charge tuition! :-)
Generalized hypotheticals all.
Just like gravity. :-)
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 06:30:55 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 06:23:11 PM
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 04:46:05 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 04:32:10 PM
Not sure I see what you are saying there.
But can you substantiate your "theory" with facts?
Industry X is shrinking. [Fact, to be explained] Is this due to demand [theory] or supply [theory], including things that affect both [income, change in laws, change in access to fiance, whatever -- all theory working through demand and supply].
--Fact -- students get to borrow equally for any major, so no institutional changes.
--Fact -- inputs into Industry X have not got more expensive relative to all other industries, so cost of production is not higher.
--Deduction -- this must be a demand side phenomenon.
People want less of it. Why? False consciousness [only here apparently. Doesn't generalize. Whereas the theory I use does.]. So, no.
People not entering Industry X keep up the wages in Industry X [theory] -- which we do observe [fact].
Listen, I gotta charge tuition! :-)
Generalized hypotheticals all.
Just like gravity. :-)
We can actually see the effects of gravity.
Sorry, Big-D. You flunked the bluff.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 07:03:16 PM
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 06:30:55 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 06:23:11 PM
Quote from: dismalist on April 03, 2023, 04:46:05 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 04:32:10 PM
Not sure I see what you are saying there.
But can you substantiate your "theory" with facts?
Industry X is shrinking. [Fact, to be explained] Is this due to demand [theory] or supply [theory], including things that affect both [income, change in laws, change in access to fiance, whatever -- all theory working through demand and supply].
--Fact -- students get to borrow equally for any major, so no institutional changes.
--Fact -- inputs into Industry X have not got more expensive relative to all other industries, so cost of production is not higher.
--Deduction -- this must be a demand side phenomenon.
People want less of it. Why? False consciousness [only here apparently. Doesn't generalize. Whereas the theory I use does.]. So, no.
People not entering Industry X keep up the wages in Industry X [theory] -- which we do observe [fact].
Listen, I gotta charge tuition! :-)
Generalized hypotheticals all.
Just like gravity. :-)
We can actually see the effects of gravity.
Sorry, Big-D. You flunked the bluff.
You can feel gravity, and you can see what happens when a single extra person buys eggs. Essentially nothing. When 1000 people want to buy more eggs and the price rises, one thinks of evil spirits that want to rip one off rather than a mechanism that calls forth more eggs! When one more person studies the humanities nothing happens. When a thousand
fewer study the humanities, the wage is not as low as otherwise. You can't see the people
not studying the humanities. But they have an effect.
Eggs are like the humanities, only run in reverse.
I'm gonna stop now, on account I will require a lot more tuition, which is not forthcoming, to continue.
I will not be enrolling in your course on random and oddly twisted hypotheticals.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 06:18:27 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 03, 2023, 05:25:12 PM
Random observations:
2) I saw an interview on CSPAN this weekend with former St. John's Albuquerque president John Agresto, who, amongst other things, explicitly argues that humanities students should just not be asked to pay the same tuition rates as STEM students-- thoughts?
Hey!!! I already posted this article!!!! It has been discussed. You at the back of the auditorium, pay attention!!!
The author (I forget who) argued that charging less for a humanities degree would encourage poor people whose purpose is to rise in the socioeconomic ranks to consider a lib arts degree over business or STEM. The justification for this change is that STEM degrees in particular are much more expensive to the university than your lib arts degrees.
How is a lib arts degree cheaper to provide than a business degree? Labs are the main extra cost of STEM degrees. And business classes are often very large. Small seminar-type courses aren't so common. So the faculty-student ratio is potentially higher in the humanities.
One possible unfortunate consequence of a tuition differential is that it could reinforce the idea that liberal arts degrees don't lead to financially rewarding careers. It's hardly rocket science for people to conclude that the "price" for the degree is lower because the "payoff" is assumed to be lower. It doesn't matter if it's true or not; if people
perceive it to be true they will act accordingly.
Business faculty tend to have much higher salaries than faculty in n the liberal arts. So that's one extra cost. And the department tends to be larger, so there are more of them.
That might be offset by enrollment. Or not.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 05:06:19 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 03, 2023, 06:18:27 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 03, 2023, 05:25:12 PM
Random observations:
2) I saw an interview on CSPAN this weekend with former St. John's Albuquerque president John Agresto, who, amongst other things, explicitly argues that humanities students should just not be asked to pay the same tuition rates as STEM students-- thoughts?
Hey!!! I already posted this article!!!! It has been discussed. You at the back of the auditorium, pay attention!!!
The author (I forget who) argued that charging less for a humanities degree would encourage poor people whose purpose is to rise in the socioeconomic ranks to consider a lib arts degree over business or STEM. The justification for this change is that STEM degrees in particular are much more expensive to the university than your lib arts degrees.
How is a lib arts degree cheaper to provide than a business degree? Labs are the main extra cost of STEM degrees. And business classes are often very large. Small seminar-type courses aren't so common. So the faculty-student ratio is potentially higher in the humanities.
Just do your homework, Marshy. I already posted this article on this very thread.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 04, 2023, 07:33:39 AM
Business faculty tend to have much higher salaries than faculty in n the liberal arts. So that's one extra cost. And the department tends to be larger, so there are more of them.
That might be offset by enrollment. Or not.
Economists at the better B-schools get paid about 20% more than economists at the better liberal arts schools. The reason is that B-school students are PITA's.
IHE: Rewriting the English Curriculum (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/04/04/colleges-deploy-new-strategies-revive-english-programs)
Lower Deck:
Quote
With numbers of humanities majors declining, English departments are on the hunt for new strategies to attract students. Can a walk in Ishmael's footsteps do the trick?
IHE: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition (Opinion) (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/11/17/humanities-majors-should-pay-lower-tuition-opinion)
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 09:30:23 AM
IHE: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition (Opinion) (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/11/17/humanities-majors-should-pay-lower-tuition-opinion)
Unfortunately, the author never does any analysis of the
actual cost differences between disciplines. It's interesting that the example he uses of Economics probably has bigger classes but no labs like STEM, so it would be really useful to figure out what it costs to educate an Economics student compared to a History student, for instance. (In principle, the idea of making tuition proportional to the cost of the specific degree isn't a bad idea, but I'm not sure it would always work out the way he envisions. Small programs of
any sort would be prohibitively expensive.)
One comment from the article:
Quote
The most convincing perspective I have seen so far was put forward by historian Benjamin Schmidt, who suggested that "the plunge seems not to reflect a sudden decline of interest in the humanities, or any sharp drop in the actual career prospects of humanities majors. Instead, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, students seem to have shifted their view of what they should be studying—in a largely misguided effort to enhance their chances on the job market."
First of all, the students who are enrolling and paying are the only ones to decide what they "should" be studying; it's their life and their nickel.
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The author's thesis is worth considering, but it's not at all clear that it would work the way he thinks.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 12:37:45 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 09:30:23 AM
IHE: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition (Opinion) (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/11/17/humanities-majors-should-pay-lower-tuition-opinion)
Unfortunately, the author never does any analysis of the actual cost differences between disciplines. It's interesting that the example he uses of Economics probably has bigger classes but no labs like STEM, so it would be really useful to figure out what it costs to educate an Economics student compared to a History student, for instance. (In principle, the idea of making tuition proportional to the cost of the specific degree isn't a bad idea, but I'm not sure it would always work out the way he envisions. Small programs of any sort would be prohibitively expensive.)
One comment from the article:
Quote
The most convincing perspective I have seen so far was put forward by historian Benjamin Schmidt, who suggested that "the plunge seems not to reflect a sudden decline of interest in the humanities, or any sharp drop in the actual career prospects of humanities majors. Instead, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, students seem to have shifted their view of what they should be studying—in a largely misguided effort to enhance their chances on the job market."
First of all, the students who are enrolling and paying are the only ones to decide what they "should" be studying; it's their life and their nickel.
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The author's thesis is worth considering, but it's not at all clear that it would work the way he thinks.
In my experience, students don't get to decide what they should be studying. Especially for competitive programs, only the top students (however it is define by a particular program) get to choose what they "should" be studying. At least in Canada, programs like nursing, engineering, dietetics, etc. are extremely competitive. Students don't get to decide if they will enroll in such programs, the programs decide if the students can enroll.
Quote from: MarathonRunner on April 04, 2023, 12:46:15 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 12:37:45 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 09:30:23 AM
IHE: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition (Opinion) (https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/11/17/humanities-majors-should-pay-lower-tuition-opinion)
Unfortunately, the author never does any analysis of the actual cost differences between disciplines. It's interesting that the example he uses of Economics probably has bigger classes but no labs like STEM, so it would be really useful to figure out what it costs to educate an Economics student compared to a History student, for instance. (In principle, the idea of making tuition proportional to the cost of the specific degree isn't a bad idea, but I'm not sure it would always work out the way he envisions. Small programs of any sort would be prohibitively expensive.)
One comment from the article:
Quote
The most convincing perspective I have seen so far was put forward by historian Benjamin Schmidt, who suggested that "the plunge seems not to reflect a sudden decline of interest in the humanities, or any sharp drop in the actual career prospects of humanities majors. Instead, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, students seem to have shifted their view of what they should be studying—in a largely misguided effort to enhance their chances on the job market."
First of all, the students who are enrolling and paying are the only ones to decide what they "should" be studying; it's their life and their nickel.
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The author's thesis is worth considering, but it's not at all clear that it would work the way he thinks.
In my experience, students don't get to decide what they should be studying. Especially for competitive programs, only the top students (however it is define by a particular program) get to choose what they "should" be studying. At least in Canada, programs like nursing, engineering, dietetics, etc. are extremely competitive. Students don't get to decide if they will enroll in such programs, the programs decide if the students can enroll.
Students get to decide to which programs they wish to apply. Yes, the powers that be select the winners, but from pools constituted by everybody.
I only got to choose my spouse with her permission. :-)
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 12:37:45 PM
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The "marketing" is not done by faculty. Marketing is pushed by public perceptions. It is pushed by perceptions of the job market. "Employability" is how all colleges market themselves.
You, Marshman, just want to gloat in from your STEMy world.
People like you are why the perception of the humanities is so bad right now. And you are obdurate.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 01:03:32 PM
The "marketing" is not done by faculty. Marketing is pushed by public perceptions. It is pushed by perceptions of the job market. "Employability" is how all colleges market themselves.
At the local level, that isn't necessarily so. At my Uni, the STEM majors have been doing outreach to regional schools (elementary and secondary) to help recruit to our programs. That has worked, apparently, because our numbers haven't dropped off as precipitously as the Uni's have, and we get crops of students every year that mention that "presentation during sophomore year" that changed their mind about major/school.
STEM isn't some monolithic thing. It's still people.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 01:03:32 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 12:37:45 PM
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The "marketing" is not done by faculty. Marketing is pushed by public perceptions. It is pushed by perceptions of the job market. "Employability" is how all colleges market themselves.
You, Marshman, just want to gloat in from your STEMy world.
People like you are why the perception of the humanities is so bad right now. And you are obdurate.
I have 3 kids. One did pure STEM, one did a mix of STEM and humanities, one did pure humanities. I've never tried to talk any student out of anything they were passionate about. And I've always said
good students will do fine in
whatever they choose.
The one thing I have consistently criticized is the recruiting of academically mediocre students into things that they're not really passionate about for the sake of keeping enrollment up. Those students are highly
unlikely to have great job prospects. As MarathonRunner said, competitive programs don't have that problem because those students would never make it in.
I don't see how it counts as "gloating" to say that recruiting students who do not have great prospects for *success is not in
their best interests.
(*And if "success" for them includes job prospects, then being less than transparent about employment isn't helping them.)
Quote from: FishProf on April 05, 2023, 04:43:10 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 01:03:32 PM
The "marketing" is not done by faculty. Marketing is pushed by public perceptions. It is pushed by perceptions of the job market. "Employability" is how all colleges market themselves.
At the local level, that isn't necessarily so. At my Uni, the STEM majors have been doing outreach to regional schools (elementary and secondary) to help recruit to our programs. That has worked, apparently, because our numbers haven't dropped off as precipitously as the Uni's have, and we get crops of students every year that mention that "presentation during sophomore year" that changed their mind about major/school.
STEM isn't some monolithic thing. It's still people.
Of course. And I did not mean to imply that no one does this sort of thing since everyone has a "majors" table or some such at various student orientations, meeting with individual students, and what not, but it is hardly ever the focus of a department----people have their jobs to do.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 05, 2023, 05:09:49 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 01:03:32 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 12:37:45 PM
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The "marketing" is not done by faculty. Marketing is pushed by public perceptions. It is pushed by perceptions of the job market. "Employability" is how all colleges market themselves.
You, Marshman, just want to gloat in from your STEMy world.
People like you are why the perception of the humanities is so bad right now. And you are obdurate.
I have 3 kids. One did pure STEM, one did a mix of STEM and humanities, one did pure humanities. I've never tried to talk any student out of anything they were passionate about. And I've always said good students will do fine in whatever they choose.
The one thing I have consistently criticized is the recruiting of academically mediocre students into things that they're not really passionate about for the sake of keeping enrollment up. Those students are highly unlikely to have great job prospects. As MarathonRunner said, competitive programs don't have that problem because those students would never make it in.
I don't see how it counts as "gloating" to say that recruiting students who do not have great prospects for *success is not in their best interests.
(*And if "success" for them includes job prospects, then being less than transparent about employment isn't helping them.)
You hardly ever comment upon that. You were not commenting upon that. You make stuff up as you go. No one deliberately recruits "mediocre" students----and I have worked with some extremely mediocre engineering students.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 05, 2023, 06:01:06 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 05, 2023, 05:09:49 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 04, 2023, 01:03:32 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 04, 2023, 12:37:45 PM
Second, I realized I've never heard a compelling argument for how other disciplines like STEM fields have managed to do so much better marketing than humanities fields; most STEM faculty have no clue about marketing and how to attract students. How are humanities faculty apparently so much worse at it?
The "marketing" is not done by faculty. Marketing is pushed by public perceptions. It is pushed by perceptions of the job market. "Employability" is how all colleges market themselves.
You, Marshman, just want to gloat in from your STEMy world.
People like you are why the perception of the humanities is so bad right now. And you are obdurate.
I have 3 kids. One did pure STEM, one did a mix of STEM and humanities, one did pure humanities. I've never tried to talk any student out of anything they were passionate about. And I've always said good students will do fine in whatever they choose.
The one thing I have consistently criticized is the recruiting of academically mediocre students into things that they're not really passionate about for the sake of keeping enrollment up. Those students are highly unlikely to have great job prospects. As MarathonRunner said, competitive programs don't have that problem because those students would never make it in.
I don't see how it counts as "gloating" to say that recruiting students who do not have great prospects for *success is not in their best interests.
(*And if "success" for them includes job prospects, then being less than transparent about employment isn't helping them.)
You hardly ever comment upon that. You were not commenting upon that. You make stuff up as you go. No one deliberately recruits "mediocre" students----and I have worked with some extremely mediocre engineering students.
I think definitions of "mediocre" may vary. In STEM and professional programs, probably only the top 10% (or something like that) of high school kids in certain subjects (such as math for STEM) will get in. I haven't heard any suggestion that, for instance, only the top 10% of English students in high school would be able to get into an English program.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 05, 2023, 06:05:58 AM
I think definitions of "mediocre" may vary. In STEM and professional programs, probably only the top 10% (or something like that) of high school kids in certain subjects (such as math for STEM) will get in. I haven't heard any suggestion that, for instance, only the top 10% of English students in high school would be able to get into an English program.
I do not know how you do it in Canada, but in the United States anyone can declare any major they want.
I would believe you, perhaps, except for my own experience.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on April 05, 2023, 09:29:22 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 05, 2023, 06:05:58 AM
I think definitions of "mediocre" may vary. In STEM and professional programs, probably only the top 10% (or something like that) of high school kids in certain subjects (such as math for STEM) will get in. I haven't heard any suggestion that, for instance, only the top 10% of English students in high school would be able to get into an English program.
I do not know how you do it in Canada, but in the United States anyone can declare any major they want.
I would believe you, perhaps, except for my own experience.
Typically in Canada you apply to a
specific program when applying to university, and you get accepted (or not) to that
program. That's the only way you get accepted
to the university. Once you're there, if you wish to switch programs, you're subject to the rules about that program regarding whether or not you're eligible to switch.
In the US, there is a hybrid. Professional programs (nursing, architecture, etc) might function that way, but the majority of majors at the majority of Universities are open, and you apply to the school, not the program.
Some very large schools like Virginia Tech will generally admit you to the school if you don't get admitted to a professional program. i think you can also generally apply from the beginning if you more or less know you won't get accepted to the engineering program or whatever.
Quote from: FishProf on April 05, 2023, 10:00:14 AM
In the US, there is a hybrid. Professional programs (nursing, architecture, etc) might function that way, but the majority of majors at the majority of Universities are open, and you apply to the school, not the program.
Not how it works in Canada. With the exception of a few programs that offer first-year flexibility to strong students, you are accepted to a specific program and major. Switching between majors, even in the same faculty, often requires application for an internal transfer. Students can't just switch from, say, sociology to political science, or from mechanical engineering to chemical engineering, at most universities. Even declaring a minor often requires an acceptance from the program that offers that minor. I switched majors after first year, and I had to apply to the new major with my high school and university transcripts, and letters of recommendation. I couldn't just switch and declare a new major.
Quote from: MarathonRunner on April 05, 2023, 12:06:19 PM
Quote from: FishProf on April 05, 2023, 10:00:14 AM
In the US, there is a hybrid. Professional programs (nursing, architecture, etc) might function that way, but the majority of majors at the majority of Universities are open, and you apply to the school, not the program.
Not how it works in Canada. With the exception of a few programs that offer first-year flexibility to strong students, you are accepted to a specific program and major. Switching between majors, even in the same faculty, often requires application for an internal transfer. Students can't just switch from, say, sociology to political science, or from mechanical engineering to chemical engineering, at most universities. Even declaring a minor often requires an acceptance from the program that offers that minor. I switched majors after first year, and I had to apply to the new major with my high school and university transcripts, and letters of recommendation. I couldn't just switch and declare a new major.
The difference in
prerequisites for different programs mean that even if there were open spaces in
all programs, only a
few students would have the *prerequisites for certain ones (like engineering or physics, which require lots of high school math), and it would be ridiculous to require all incoming students to have those courses if they're going into programs that don't specifically require any of them.
*And that's without even considering that different programs requiring the same prerequisite course may not have the same
grade cutoff; chemistry may require high school physics with 70% or more, but electrical engineering may require high school physics above 85%.
Letter: Demise of the English major (https://napavalleyregister.com/opinion/letters/letter-demise-of-the-english-major/article_347c27e2-c770-11ed-b238-bfb65a5d2e43.html)
Quote
Such a relief to finally see some colleges and universities come to their senses and begin thinking about dropping the English major from their academic programs.
With a nice tie-in to AI technology.
How hard is it for a Canadian uni student to successfully apply to switch majors once enrolled?
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 05, 2023, 07:59:41 PM
How hard is it for a Canadian uni student to successfully apply to switch majors once enrolled?
As I recall it, you don't declare a major until your second(ish) year, and then, there's nothing stopping you from declaring whatever you want. But that's one area of admin/reg stuff that I'm pretty hazy on, to be honest.
I certainly remember filling out the major change form myself, and it was as easy as simply writing "philosophy" in the box.
Quote from: Ruralguy on April 05, 2023, 10:10:18 AM
Some very large schools like Virginia Tech will generally admit you to the school if you don't get admitted to a professional program. i think you can also generally apply from the beginning if you more or less know you won't get accepted to the engineering program or whatever.
Very true. We used to do that in our nursing program. There were program specific admits, and then
general admits who could try to get into the program after a year of prereqs. Of course, we'd admit a hundred, knowing full well there might be 2-3 seats available to apply to (and then transfers would usually get those). Very unethical, I'm glad we stopped.
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 05, 2023, 07:59:41 PM
How hard is it for a Canadian uni student to successfully apply to switch majors once enrolled?
It depends vastly on the requirements of the two programs. If a student wanted to switch from English to Engineering, if they didn't have the required math courses, they'd be totally out of luck. If they wanted to switch from Engineering to *English, if they had the required grade in English, it might be pretty straightforward.
(*English is typically a requirement for
any program, although the required incoming grade may be different.)
Also, some programs, especially professional ones, have very strict enrollment caps, so if they're full, you're not going to be accepted even if you meet the criteria. Some programs, (again, often professional ones), have strict
cohort progression, so they don't accept people coming in above first year because all of their students take all of their courses in the same sequence. For those programs, failing a course often means having to leave the program because even if you retake the course, you're out of the required cohort progression sequence.)
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 05, 2023, 10:47:48 PM
Quote from: kaysixteen on April 05, 2023, 07:59:41 PM
How hard is it for a Canadian uni student to successfully apply to switch majors once enrolled?
As I recall it, you don't declare a major until your second(ish) year, and then, there's nothing stopping you from declaring whatever you want. But that's one area of admin/reg stuff that I'm pretty hazy on, to be honest.
I certainly remember filling out the major change form myself, and it was as easy as simply writing "philosophy" in the box.
Not at all how it worked for me, at my Canadian institution. I was accepted to a given major. After first year, when I wanted to be accepted to a different major, I had to apply for an internal transfer, with high school and first year transcripts, and letters of reference. Other universities and programs may do it differently, but that's how it's done at my UG, masters and PhD universities in Canada.
A relevant think piece:
What if students WANT the humanities in their college curriculum? (https://currentpub.com/2023/04/11/what-if-students-want-the-humanities-in-their-college-curriculum/?fbclid=IwAR2foDNTfQWjRAwjtCtRRkT40esxQyaivE8NMiYILh8u8Rm3_QmIJ8HScCc)
QuoteIt takes a conscious investment from trustees and the administration to create an institution that values the humanities and liberal arts, creates a curriculum that revolves around them and hires tenure-track faculty (instead of adjunctifying) to keep up. So, there has to be an institutional investment. But that investment can pay off—not necessarily in the number of majors, but rather in overall enrollment at the institution.
How do I know this? Because I have seen in my current workplace the difference that an institutional investment makes in the flourishing of the humanities on campus. This flourishing may attract students to an institution, even if these students do not end up majoring in the liberal arts. During the six years when my current institution, a regional comprehensive state university in Georgia, had an opera singer as president and an English literature medievalist as provost, our enrollment grew every year.
This is anecdotal, but I have heard enough other such stories to know that this is not unique. Furthermore, while this is again anecdotal, I have yet to hear of an institution that reversed its enrollment decline by investing in trade programs at the cost of sidelining (or even eliminating) the humanities. And yet, school after school keeps proposing this fix. Please remind me: what's that term for when folks keep doing the exact same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome?
I think the outcome is now a given, so few have been publishing and opining on this subject.
This piece is focused on research money, primarily in history.
IHE: Does Humanities Research Still Matter? (https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/08/15/does-humanities-research-matter-anymore-opinion)
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 15, 2023, 07:20:08 AMThis piece is focused on research money, primarily in history.
IHE: Does Humanities Research Still Matter? (https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/08/15/does-humanities-research-matter-anymore-opinion)
The loss of what little funding existed for grad student research is indeed troubling.
The funding pools need to be a lot bigger. When research-grant budgets are mostly for personnel, including grad students, then humanities research isn't going to be much cheaper than science. For an R1, which have mean research expenditures of $400k per professor per year, keeping 10 research-active humanities faculty would mean having millions in grant revenue for the department. The lost sources are tiny relative to what's needed for vitality.
The NEH has a budget line now, but there is hardly any appropriation. Increasing that number is worthwhile. The author does not seem to know how that would work, which is cultivating the appropriation committee members over many years with the zeal (if not money) of a corn lobbyist. Faculty could be doing that now.
But there is also the Willie Sutton (https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/willie_sutton_378227) approach. Go where the money is. Top of the Federal list is the Defense Department. And they are interested in humanities. They have one of the best graduate language programs in the country. They hire a lot of historians, because the need to know what happened and what they can learn from it. Tapping into DOD money probably doesn't even require congressional action, it could be an allocation of funds from an existing program. That requries persuading those who run it that funding research at universities is worthwhile.
Money is important for keeping a discipline going. Schools sure are not paying for it out of tuition revenue. Throwing up ones hands, conceding that there is no money, will doom a discipline.
Quote from: Hibush on August 15, 2023, 09:57:15 PMBut there is also the Willie Sutton (https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/willie_sutton_378227) approach. Go where the money is. Top of the Federal list is the Defense Department. And they are interested in humanities. They have one of the best graduate language programs in the country. They hire a lot of historians, because the need to know what happened and what they can learn from it. Tapping into DOD money probably doesn't even require congressional action, it could be an allocation of funds from an existing program. That requries persuading those who run it that funding research at universities is worthwhile.
Money is important for keeping a discipline going. Schools sure are not paying for it out of tuition revenue. Throwing up ones hands, conceding that there is no money, will doom a discipline.
Tapping into DOD money means knowing your research directly benefits the military. That can be a hard pill for many folks, even when it's the research those folks already wanted to do.
Welcome back.
Polly! Good to see you back.
Your point is well taken. Those of us in the applied sciences know that we get projects funded because the the application will be used for something the funders or their stakeholders value. That comes with the territory. I suspect that constraint will be difficult for many who don't now have funding for their humanities research--whether it is military, health or marketing appications that motivate the funding.
Quote from: polly_mer on August 20, 2023, 01:01:59 PMQuote from: Hibush on August 15, 2023, 09:57:15 PMBut there is also the Willie Sutton (https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/willie_sutton_378227) approach. Go where the money is. Top of the Federal list is the Defense Department. And they are interested in humanities. They have one of the best graduate language programs in the country. They hire a lot of historians, because the need to know what happened and what they can learn from it. Tapping into DOD money probably doesn't even require congressional action, it could be an allocation of funds from an existing program. That requries persuading those who run it that funding research at universities is worthwhile.
Money is important for keeping a discipline going. Schools sure are not paying for it out of tuition revenue. Throwing up ones hands, conceding that there is no money, will doom a discipline.
Tapping into DOD money means knowing your research directly benefits the military. That can be a hard pill for many folks, even when it's the research those folks already wanted to do.
Every person has their price where they will sell out.
From out of the murk, the return of the mighty polly_mere!
Good to see you, polly.
Hi, polly! We had just been talking about "Super Dinky College" the other day.
This is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU: (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/opinion/west-virginia-university-cuts.html)
Quotecutting humanities programs — which make up a sizable minority of the majors slated to be cut, alongside pre-professional and technical programs — is not necessarily the best way to save money. There is substantial evidence that humanities departments, unlike a majority of college athletics programs, often break even (and some may even subsidize the sciences). In defense of its proposed cuts, West Virginia University has cited declining interest in some of its humanities programs, but the absolute number of students enrolled is not the only measure of a department's value.
The finances aren't the point, anyway. The humanities are under threat more broadly across the nation because of the perceived left-wing ideology of the liberal arts. Book bans, attempts to undermine diversity efforts and remodeled school curriculums that teach that slavery was about "skill" development are part of a larger coordinated assault on the supposed "cultural Marxism" of the humanities. (That absurd idea rests in part on an antisemitic fantasy in which left-leaning philosophers like Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse somehow took control of American culture after the Second World War.) To resist this assault, we must provide broad access to a true liberal arts education.
The campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 21, 2023, 12:13:34 PMThis is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU: (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/opinion/west-virginia-university-cuts.html)
QuoteThe campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.
In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying
how the Democrats have "lost the working class".
Quote from: marshwiggle on August 22, 2023, 05:14:37 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on August 21, 2023, 12:13:34 PMThis is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU: (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/opinion/west-virginia-university-cuts.html)
QuoteThe campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.
In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".
Well, to be fair, that was not the focus of this article and the "Dems losing the working class" is old news by this point. The author was only pointing out that this is one element in the matrix.
I'm aware of how opportunistic Republican politicians have often used academics as punching bags. Honestly, though, I think the decline in the study of the humanities, and their support on campuses, owes far more to the overwhelming shift to thinking of college education as a way to get a job. It's not like the humanities aren't being eliminated wholesale at many private colleges as well.
Given how frightfully expensive a college education now is, students feel they have no choice but to major in something that promises to be lucrative. Word on the street has long been that the humanities majors are anything but that. I still believe that that's mostly a crock, but the perception has been cemented in place for so long that it's become almost impossible to combat.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 22, 2023, 06:27:17 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on August 22, 2023, 05:14:37 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on August 21, 2023, 12:13:34 PMThis is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU: (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/opinion/west-virginia-university-cuts.html)
QuoteThe campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.
In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".
Well, to be fair, that was not the focus of this article and the "Dems losing the working class" is old news by this point. The author was only pointing out that this is one element in the matrix.
Perhaps, but often the implication is that Republicans are less educated than Democrats, on average. This would include any effects of working class people shifting from Democrat to Republican. If that is an important factor in the falling support for public education, then it means that the Democrats actually
set the wheels in motion by abandoning the working class, and the secondary result was those now-Republican voters have further been turned off public education.
That suggests the alienation happened over an extended period of time and raised no serious concern within the party.
Quote from: marshwiggle on August 22, 2023, 09:26:42 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on August 22, 2023, 06:27:17 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on August 22, 2023, 05:14:37 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on August 21, 2023, 12:13:34 PMThis is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU: (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/opinion/west-virginia-university-cuts.html)
QuoteThe campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.
In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".
Well, to be fair, that was not the focus of this article and the "Dems losing the working class" is old news by this point. The author was only pointing out that this is one element in the matrix.
Perhaps, but often the implication is that Republicans are less educated than Democrats, on average. This would include any effects of working class people shifting from Democrat to Republican. If that is an important factor in the falling support for public education, then it means that the Democrats actually set the wheels in motion by abandoning the working class, and the secondary result was those now-Republican voters have further been turned off public education.
That suggests the alienation happened over an extended period of time and raised no serious concern within the party.
Did D's abandon the blue collar working class? Or did R's do a better job of messaging to them? To whit...
- "You don't need a union, you are better than those lazy slobs you work with. You would make more money if you dumped those leeches."
- "You don't need the government to take care of you, you are independent."
- "Immigrants are taking your jobs."
- "The reason your wages are so low is that your bosses have to pay high taxes to keep welfare queens in food stamps."
Very good article in The New Yorker a few years ago. I can't find it right now but maybe someone else's Google magic is more aligned with their chakras.
Quote from: apl68 on August 22, 2023, 07:42:48 AMI'm aware of how opportunistic Republican politicians have often used academics as punching bags. Honestly, though, I think the decline in the study of the humanities, and their support on campuses, owes far more to the overwhelming shift to thinking of college education as a way to get a job. It's not like the humanities aren't being eliminated wholesale at many private colleges as well.
Given how frightfully expensive a unsupported by tax dollars college education now is as compared to in the past, students feel they have no choice but to major in something that promises to be lucrative. Word on the street has long been that the humanities majors are anything but that. I still believe that that's mostly a crock, but the perception has been cemented in place for so long that it's become almost impossible to combat.
There. FTFY.
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 22, 2023, 10:00:42 AMDid D's abandon the blue collar working class? Or did R's do a better job of messaging to them?
Both.
The Dems made minority rights a central issue, which is legitimate, of course, and failed to capitalize on what they did do for American workers. FAUX News hopped into the breach and began building the MAGAmonster which will eventually eat its father.
These are interesting:
Deseret News: How the Democrats lost the white working class (https://www.deseret.com/2023/3/30/23452288/working-class-democrats-politics-socioeconomics)
And
The Nation: Democrats Have Helped Working-Class Americans. They Need to Say So Loudly. (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/midterms-elections-democrats-economy-inflation/)
In the past, Marshbeast, I have suggested that you think through your responses and look stuff up before posting:
Quote from: marshwiggle on August 22, 2023, 09:26:42 AMPerhaps, but often the implication is that Republicans are less educated than Democrats, on average.
They are.
Facts are facts, and this one is all over the web.
QuoteThis would include any effects of working class people shifting from Democrat to Republican.
It's the other way around.
QuoteIf that is an important factor in the falling support for public education, then it means that the Democrats actually set the wheels in motion by abandoning the working class, and the secondary result was those now-Republican voters have further been turned off public education.
That suggests the alienation happened over an extended period of time and raised no serious concern within the party.
The Dems never abandoned the working class in America----ever heard of Obamacare?
The turn from public ed is a reaction to the right wing propaganda fountain, which I think you've been drinking at.
And the Dems have been worried about winning back the working class for decades. They are trying still. Democratic media has started using the kind of technologically advanced propagandistic material they were met with by the Repubs, and it successfully elected Biden, quashed the "red wave," and beat the Republicans back in Ohio.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 22, 2023, 10:11:35 AMQuote from: ciao_yall on August 22, 2023, 10:00:42 AMDid D's abandon the blue collar working class? Or did R's do a better job of messaging to them?
Both.
The Dems made minority rights a central issue, which is legitimate, of course, and failed to capitalize on what they did do for American workers. FAUX News hopped into the breach and began building the MAGAmonster which will eventually eat its father.
These are interesting:
Deseret News: How the Democrats lost the white working class (https://www.deseret.com/2023/3/30/23452288/working-class-democrats-politics-socioeconomics)
From the article:
QuoteWith similar economic stances, something else had to distinguish the two parties from one another. From the 1990s on, party politics have "become overwhelmingly defined by cultural issues," says Pierce, who adds this "alienates people, especially people who feel powerless like working-class voters."
The Democratic Party has taken up the mantle of speaking out about racism, but analysts say that this has come at the expense of addressing the issues that many Americans are most concerned about.
"When you see progressives say things like, 'It's all about race,' they effectively deny that something economically significant has also happened. And that's sort of like saying (to the white working class) 'The economic pain that you're feeling isn't real,'" says Lisa Pruitt, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.
By focusing on race and dismissing the concerns of the white working class, Pruitt adds, progressives "are calling people racist by definition."
That sums it up pretty well.
Well, there are reasons that I am a registered independent. And the number of independents is growing----I think it is at 49%. (https://www.axios.com/2023/04/17/poll-americans-independent-republican-democrat)
Trouble is that Western culture is still awash in racism, sexism, and homophobia, and unfortunately the conservatives tend to negate or even deny and oftentimes outright embrace these bigotries, often for political gain----so we have to keep beating the drum. What's too bad is that the liberals can't both fight bigotry and champion blue collar causes...then again, having grown up in a blue collar town and done many blue collar jobs, I am dismayed how often bigotry is endorsed by people who share many of the same issues as, say, Mexican migrants or lesbian couples...
So, I'm not sure that is summed up very well, Marshburger.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 25, 2023, 07:45:44 AMWell, there are reasons that I am a registered independent. And the number of independents is growing----I think it is at 49%. (https://www.axios.com/2023/04/17/poll-americans-independent-republican-democrat)
Trouble is that Western culture is still awash in racism, sexism, and homophobia, and unfortunately the conservatives tend to negate or even deny and oftentimes outright embrace these bigotries, often for political gain----so we have to keep beating the drum.
"Awash" is pretty over-the-top in comparison to all previous human history, or even the society of a few decades ago. As long as there are human beings, there will be various kinds of discrimination, but the level of all of this is
vastly less than in the past by any
objective measure.
QuoteWhat's too bad is that the liberals can't both fight bigotry and champion blue collar causes
All they'd have to do is admit that in many ways social class is a bigger issue than all of those other things. The amount of bigotry that exists after adjusting for social class will be much smaller.
Quote from: marshwiggle on August 25, 2023, 11:34:27 AMAll they'd have to do is admit that in many ways social class is a bigger issue than all of those other things. The amount of bigotry that exists after adjusting for social class will be much smaller.
^ This.
I usually never weigh-in on conversations of this type, but it's Friday and I am throwing all caution to the wind!
Some people get extremely upset when the following comparison/contrast is made:
Who is more oppressed in today's society and will likely have a more difficult time succeeding--
1) The poor white male from Appalachia who grew up in a rundown trailer with chronically underemployed parents and who never owned a new pair of shoes?
OR
2) The black female from affluent suburbia whose Mom is a lawyer and whose Dad is a professor?
Who has more privilege? You make the call.
Quote from: bio-nonymous on August 25, 2023, 12:39:23 PMQuote from: marshwiggle on August 25, 2023, 11:34:27 AMAll they'd have to do is admit that in many ways social class is a bigger issue than all of those other things. The amount of bigotry that exists after adjusting for social class will be much smaller.
^ This.
I usually never weigh-in on conversations of this type, but it's Friday and I am throwing all caution to the wind!
Some people get extremely upset when the following comparison/contrast is made:
Who is more oppressed in today's society and will likely have a more difficult time succeeding--
1) The poor white male from Appalachia who grew up in a rundown trailer with chronically underemployed parents and who never owned a new pair of shoes?
OR
2) The black female from affluent suburbia whose Mom is a lawyer and whose Dad is a professor?
Who has more privilege? You make the call.
To put it another way, let's have a contest to predict a student's outcome. You can choose to know either
1) the student's race and gender
OR
2) the student's address growing up
Would ANY sane person pick number 1?
Quote from: marshwiggle on August 25, 2023, 11:34:27 AM"Awash" is pretty over-the-top in comparison to all previous human history, or even the society of a few decades ago. As long as there are human beings, there will be various kinds of discrimination, but the level of all of this is vastly less than in the past by any objective measure.
Absolutely agree. You've stated the obvious, my friend. I hate to post it, but no duh.
However, bigotry is STILL one of the biggest, most divisive, most grinding problems facing our culture, even if we have made real progress in their area. Google "Black Lives Matter." We are, indeed, awash in cultural tension. Desantis is predicating his bid for the White House on people's anti-LGBTQ bigotries.
QuoteAll they'd have to do is admit that in many ways social class is a bigger issue than all of those other things. The amount of bigotry that exists after adjusting for social class will be much smaller.
Again, duh. I agree with bio-nonymous, but what percentage of white dudes come from Appalachia? What percentage of black dudettes come from academic / medical families in the 'burbs? History and racism have something to do with the answer and have something to do with our racial tensions today.
Simply put, you've got some stuff that is waaaaaayyyy too simple, there Marshy. The history of race and colonialism is insoluble at this point in North America----just admitting that social class is now a factor isn't going to cut it.
And that still does not alter the work liberals are doing for the working class vs. the negation of the conservatives.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 25, 2023, 04:11:45 PMQuote from: marshwiggle on August 25, 2023, 11:34:27 AM"Awash" is pretty over-the-top in comparison to all previous human history, or even the society of a few decades ago. As long as there are human beings, there will be various kinds of discrimination, but the level of all of this is vastly less than in the past by any objective measure.
Absolutely agree. You've stated the obvious, my friend. I hate to post it, but no duh.
However, bigotry is STILL one of the biggest, most divisive, most grinding problems facing our culture, even if we have made real progress in their area. Google "Black Lives Matter." We are, indeed, awash in cultural tension. Desantis is predicating his bid for the White House on people's anti-LGBTQ bigotries.
QuoteAll they'd have to do is admit that in many ways social class is a bigger issue than all of those other things. The amount of bigotry that exists after adjusting for social class will be much smaller.
Again, duh. I agree with bio-nonymous, but what percentage of white dudes come from Appalachia? What percentage of black dudettes come from academic / medical families in the 'burbs? History and racism have something to do with the answer and have something to do with our racial tensions today.
Simply put, you've got some stuff that is waaaaaayyyy too simple, there Marshy. The history of race and colonialism is insoluble at this point in North America----just admitting that social class is now a factor isn't going to cut it.
A factor????
If someone gets pulled out of a river and they're not breathing, it doesn't matter whether they fell in because they were drunk, because someone pushed them, or because they tried to commit suicide. They need to be resuscitated, and it's the same regardless.
Similarly, if a neighbourhood has lousy schools, whether it's because of segregation decades ago or because the local plan shut down making lots of people unemployed, the solution is still to
improve the school; banging on about what led to the problem isn't going to fix it. And, the measures that need to be taken to fix it are going to be similar to what has worked in lots of other communities
even if their schools were messed up for different historical reasons. Lamenting the historical reasons for the problem won't improve outcomes for a
single student.
Marshy, you've posted the obvious again. What are you doing?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 26, 2023, 06:21:32 PMMarshy, you've posted the obvious again. What are you doing?
Shouting at people "YOU'RE RACIST!" might not be as useful at enlisting their support in trying to improve the local school as working WITH them so that ALL kids will do better.
As they say, "You can get more flies with honey than vinegar."
Quote from: marshwiggle on August 27, 2023, 05:40:28 AMQuote from: Wahoo Redux on August 26, 2023, 06:21:32 PMMarshy, you've posted the obvious again. What are you doing?
Shouting at people "YOU'RE RACIST!" might not be as useful at enlisting their support in trying to improve the local school as working WITH them so that ALL kids will do better.
As they say, "You can get more flies with honey than vinegar."
Ummmm...Again, yeah. That's obvious. And it is simplistic.
We have big problems with overt bigotry in North America. Those folks need to be called out. And racism in particular has been a stubborn problem for Americans. You seen the resurgence of Nazism? Right now it is turned towards immigrants and trans, primarily by Republican politicians and their useful idiots. Sometimes shouting "Racist!" and "Bigot!" is appropriate. And the conservatives are NOT overly concerned with children or education----look at what conservatives have done to school budgets, look at the attempts at hostile takeovers of school systems, look at the demonization of teachers in the public sphere.
The bigger point, Marshwanderer, is that the dems have been working for education and the working class. The conservatives have successfully buried these achievements in decades of fear mongering and propaganda about
The Other. "Admitting" anything about "social class" achieves very little without honestly reckoning the tide of B.S. surging through social media.
The Gettysburg Review is getting the axe (https://gettysburgian.com/2023/10/the-college-administration-announces-the-termination-of-the-gettysburg-review/)
For those not in the humanities, this is one of the premier literary journals.
The story is the same: admin citing budgetary problems. Apparently, they had no idea the Review was even a thing at their own university. They did not consult or inform anyone beforehand, simply pulled out the red pens.
Dr. Spacecase on Reddit has a very nice overview of the situation. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/170mf7y/sign_of_the_times_gettysburg_college_admin_had/)