Report: public perception of the humanities

[Hibush]

There is a headline in IHE today that reflects a perception in part of academe, but I suspect that perception is only in a few academic quarters and not at all in the public perception.

This week's Capitol riots have been repeatedly described as "unthinkable." Yet happen they did, so how do we start to think about them? Many academics have an answer: the humanities.

[Parasaurolophus]

There is a headline in IHE today that reflects a perception in part of academe, but I suspect that perception is only in a few academic quarters and not at all in the public perception.

This week's Capitol riots have been repeatedly described as "unthinkable." Yet happen they did, so how do we start to think about them? Many academics have an answer: the humanities.

The American Historical Association put up some resources to put the attack in perspective.

[polly_mer]

There is a headline in IHE today that reflects a perception in part of academe, but I suspect that perception is only in a few academic quarters and not at all in the public perception.

This week's Capitol riots have been repeatedly described as "unthinkable." Yet happen they did, so how do we start to think about them? Many academics have an answer: the humanities.

The problem isn't that people don't know how to think about these kinds of situations.  Experts in the humanities and relevant social sciences have been working in these areas for decades.  The research exists and is accessible.  Intellectuals who regularly read long-form high-brow outlets are not surprised.  The calls for actions that would work (not whining about specific individuals not getting specific positions of power, but lengthy, scholarly analysis of patterns of undesirable behavior that create bad places to live for those who want a modern, comfortable life) are not buried in inaccessible, paywalled, academic outlets.

The problem is, much like many problems in higher ed, the people who have to grok the information, set priorities, and then take actions simply don't believe what the experts write.  The correct term isn't "unthinkable" meaning "cannot possibly happen".  The correct term is more like Stephen King's line in a book I forget along the lines of "I don't want this to happen and someone should make this not be happening".  The problem isn't lack of knowledge in the world and it won't be solved by more people taking a one-off college class in something that also falls under the same category and then going off to be people so involved in their personal day-to-day life that they don't ever rise to positions of even local power (city council, department chair, dean, state official) to make a difference.

The problem is how few people in the world with the responsibility to do so are interacting with the necessary experts on complex situations to be able to prioritize and then implement the necessary actions to solve the big, pressing problems.  Biden cannot save us because the original problem wasn't primarily Trump is a bad guy; Trump was elected because the system didn't work for many, many people and some people thought voting for a non-establishment person would make a quick difference.  Swinging back to an establishment person who is ignoring the situations that led to the original protest vote doesn't fix the underlying problems, one of which is that voting alone doesn't change what needs to be changed and people who are scared about basic, personal survival are no longer sitting by quietly waiting for the system to work in their favor.

There's much research out of the humanities on why the US is not the only first world country that is experiencing unrest indicating people don't think the system works.  Even before Covid, Europe was experiencing the largest mass migration since World War II and middle class people fleeing civil unrest were in camps hoping to go back/on/somewhere to resume being middle-class people.  Focusing on improving general education in the US to keep contingent faculty jobs and hoping to plant a seed in minds closed after a decade of mostly irrelevant formal education (AKA K-12) ignores the useful work of the humanities in the world.  It's the research and discussion with those who can take effective action that we need.  Cajoling the unprepared for college through a course or two is not helping the big picture situation.

[polly_mer]

I don't seriously think water resource management is going to be relatively lucrative in , say, most of the US (save for maybe desert west) any time soon. However, I suspect it to be increasingly lucrative, if you know what you are doing, and the geographic region is a reasonable enough place to be working in,  in parts of the Mideast, for instance.  I'm just playing the long game. We absolutely need water and oxygen. Our need for that never changes, and the population always grows. Also, water is fairly temp sensitive.  Our relative need for petrochems has decreased with time, and probably will continue to do so. 

This is not not to say that the typical enviro program in the US is going to be the ticket. But it may be important over time for this situation to change.

Even though some humanities folks pooh-pooh the very notion, an engineering college education in one of the major fields (chemical/materials, mechanical, civil, electrical) is not really job training in the same way that a welding certificate or old-school drafting certificate is.  The people who only learn to run the couple programs and some specialty big machines are engineering technologists, which is a certificate program, not an undergrad program.

Instead, an ABET-accredited program in one of the major specialties will focus on the math to understand the science to then work on the hard part of restating the problem to be one we can address using math and science (including social science on knowing how the people who have to use the solution will react).

We have almost no humanities courses (whatever the bare minimum for gen ed is).  However, we have the other parts of the liberal arts as math and science.  We generally don't create new math techniques, but we have to know enough math that we can speak physics and other sciences.  We then have to take enough sciences that we can understand when we need to use a typical engineering approximation to get traction on solving the horrible set of equations when we're missing many inputs instead of, say, assuming the spherical cow in a vacuum to reduce the equations to something we can solve by hand.  For example, I don't have all the undergrad courses that a chemistry major would have in chemistry, but I did have general, analytical, organic, and physical.  I don't have all the undergrad courses that a physics major would have, but I did have general, quantum mechanics, and the material in most of the others in the relevant engineering courses, including E&M.  Civil engineers will have much of the background necessary related to basic geology and soil mechanics.

When we go to graduate school as engineers, we tend to focus on a specific specialty in math/computations or a relevant subfield of a science like physics or chemistry (e.g., in graduate school, a chemical engineer focuses on geochemistry related to volcanos or a mechanical engineer specializes in soil mechanics).  I have graduate concentrations in physical chemistry and thermodynamics out of the physics department.  My business card states scientist and my paycheck states scientist and I currently use my chemistry and physics knowledge (and physics not just as mechanics) to help solve problems of national interest.  My colleagues aren't exactly the same, but we have many mechanical and aerospace engineers right alongside the mathematicians, physicists, and chemists because knowing enough of the basic science and math puts one in a great position to then specialize.

Thus, we engineers have the knowledge on which to build to address environmental questions of concern, although people might want to take extra courses in a given relevant specialty or enroll for a targeted master's program.  Again, the people who are already doing this work and are advising interested youngsters will generally tell them to get a solid undergrad education in a relevant science or field of engineering that comes with much time spend doing the projects as part of an external collaboration (co-op, internships, funded junior/senior guided projects), not just course work. 

The person who thinks getting an engineering degree is sufficient has already taken themselves off the list for most relevant jobs because the knowledge isn't in the books--the books just set one up to be ready to do the hard part of figuring out how to reduce the real problem to something that could be addressed by known techniques.

[Hibush]

IHE has a report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. That is an academic group that is not hostile to the humanities.

It says that and advanced degree in the humanities leads to a lower income than other subjects. I have not dived in to see how their analysis differs from other ones.

The first thing I look for in these things is what professions people went into. If you go into uber driving, burger flipping or elementary education, then the income prospects are poor regardless of education.

"The most likely occupations for humanities graduates were in the education, management and legal fields." 

I suspect those in education are dragging down the median. Those in the legal profession are not lawyers, and there are also a lot of low-paid jobs in that area.

Management is probably doing fine.

If so, should we be advising those doing advanced degrees in humanities to sign up with the management-training program at their local megacorporation? Is that even on the radar of the "alt-ac" resources?

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

"The most likely occupations for humanities graduates were in the education, management and legal fields." 

I suspect those in education are dragging down the median. Those in the legal profession are not lawyers, and there are also a lot of low-paid jobs in that area.

Management is probably doing fine.

If so, should we be advising those doing advanced degrees in humanities to sign up with the management-training program at their local megacorporation? Is that even on the radar of the "alt-ac" resources?

My understanding is that these stats include undergrads. So, "legal fields" probably includes quite a few real lawyers. Similarly, management probably includes ones who started climbing corporate ladder with a bachelor degree in hand instead of spending 6+ years in grad school.
I haven't found full report (IHE has an advance copy?). Without it provided numbers can support any interpretation.