Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[marshwiggle]

I don't criticize the value of any particular field, but when push comes to shove, what do you do if a discipline has literally zero interest and some of your faculty were only hired in the discipline that has zero students?

You have two choices.

The obvious and most logical choice is to eliminate the moribund program.  And I have never seen anyone argue that we should let dead limbs just hang on the tree.  In the end, we will probably have to just cut Italian, Latin, medieval history, and a great many English literature classes.

We could also work to recruit students for and promote those programs, we could actually learn about these disciplines rather than make ignorant blanket statements, and we could stop with the hyperbole about job placement disasters.

Honest question, no snark intended:

How and where do you recruit students for these programs since they seem to be thin on the ground? And, if these programs at other institutions are in a similar situation, so you're all competing for the same students, how likely is it that you can all succeed?

If the problem is one of marketing or branding, then there should be some institutions who are doing it right and being successful. But if there has been a cultural shift that makes something seem much less important, (such as learning to read and write in cursive), it's not clear that the tide can be turned, no matter what approach is taken.

[Mobius]

Recruiting is one of those aspects of higher ed that folks are confused about. How do you get people to take French or Italian, for example? How do you get them interested in philosophy? How long do you wait to determine if it's not working, and you're back at the same place?

[dinomom]

Maybe institute or re-institute a language requirement? Then everyone has to take a year or two of classes, maybe some students get hooked?

[Wahoo Redux]

Humanities majors do fine on the job market (we have had that discussion) and we tend to get very smart and very good students (having taught a great many engineering, education, and business students I can say this with confidence) but our outreach is terrible and it is difficult for us to do what business schools do in regards to internships and job fairs.  We should have been working on these things for decades by this point; it is probably too late now to play catch-up----but we could try with a little help from our friends.

On the flipside, I have had good luck simply telling my best student writers that they should major or minor in English.  Students are not always convinced but, yeah, some do actually sign up for the major or take additional writing classes.  And if it weren't for the negative publicity, I think a great many more people would consider the humanities.

Professors are not trained to be marketers, and we have our hands full already, so how are we supposed to rebrand and recruit in the first place?  This is where I would love to see a little more support from our administrators---instead of hiring "program management and evaluation" companies to tell us how to run our universities for hundreds of thousands of dollars or re-sodding the football field for hundreds of thousands of dollars, how about hiring marketers to save our dying majors?  I would love to get more support from colleagues in other departments.  And it would be great if humanities professors could actually turn their creativity toward spreading the good word.

[Ruralguy]

Its the fact that we have a language requirement that led me to say that some languages we carry don't get any enrollment. These days, if you carry, say, 5 languages that were "popular" in the 70's, only 2 or 3 get any significant enrollment. Any campaigning to change the languages is vehemently opposed by the language departments, no matter how many facts are presented regarding interest in Russia and the Far East (and Mideast). Maybe, every so often, they can be convinced to hire an adjunct in those areas, but never a TT position! So, rather than trying to recruit in dead areas, its better to change the areas to things people are interested in (and believe me, that goes for sciences too).

[marshwiggle]

Humanities majors do fine on the job market (we have had that discussion) and we tend to get very smart and very good students (having taught a great many engineering, education, and business students I can say this with confidence) but our outreach is terrible and it is difficult for us to do what business schools do in regards to internships and job fairs.  We should have been working on these things for decades by this point; it is probably too late now to play catch-up----but we could try with a little help from our friends.

On the flipside, I have had good luck simply telling my best student writers that they should major or minor in English.  Students are not always convinced but, yeah, some do actually sign up for the major or take additional writing classes. 

But this is only going to work for students who are

• already in the institution
• undecided about what they want to study

Is that pool so big? I always think of recruiting as having to happen in high school. (And in STEM, a lot of outreach to high school students is before their final year to encourage them to keep taking all of the math courses, since if they don't they won't have the prerequisites for some STEM programs. Once they're already students at university, it would be a tiny fraction that would transfer into STEM. At most, some students will tranfer from one STEM program into another.)

And if it weren't for the negative publicity, I think a great many more people would consider the humanities.

Professors are not trained to be marketers, and we have our hands full already, so how are we supposed to rebrand and recruit in the first place?  This is where I would love to see a little more support from our administrators---instead of hiring "program management and evaluation" companies to tell us how to run our universities for hundreds of thousands of dollars or re-sodding the football field for hundreds of thousands of dollars, how about hiring marketers to save our dying majors? 

But how would they do this? I honestly don't see where the untapped pool of potential students is. I can't see high school students that are planning on either STEM or some professional program considering something else in any significant numbers. A lot of these students have been interested in something or other for years already.

I would love to get more support from colleagues in other departments. 

I never try to dissuade students from something they're passionate about. But by the same token, I'm not going to try and direct students to any program that they're not really keen on. They'd be better to quit school for a year or two and work, and come back if and when they know what they want to study.

I may be able to provide some advice, but I can't provide motivation.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm not going to try and direct students to any program that they're not really keen on.

You are the master of the strawman, Marshy.

[Mobius]

It is amazing how much of a black eye liberal arts gets due to the perception it's just full of SJWs who don't want work. Is that the main beef people have with it?

However, it's also clear enrollments are dying in liberal arts fields at a lot of places. How do we get the STEM and business students interested?

[Ruralguy]

They'll only take if it (in significant numbers) if it relates to what they are doing. So, I can see Business students (and government) being interested in certain languages. Everyone should be interested in writing and speaking (including STEM).

[Mobius]

I majored for CS for a year and public speaking was a gen ed requirement for us instead of a check-the-box option for that gen ed category. The second course of the writing sequence was tailored to science.

Most institutions should just cut down on gen ed options and just make certain majors take specific liberal arts courses. Social science students likely need stats instead of college algebra, for example. Maybe have a "tailored to major" ethics course housed in philosophy. This could help recruit students to majors. Don't know if there would be enough interest to sustain a major, but could sustain a minor.

[Hibush]

Having requirements only works if the students have already agreed that they want a particular education and will accept the faculty's judgement on which courses are necessary to achieve that education.

Instituting requirements on students who have not done so is not going to work. Trying it is more likely to make them leave the school than take classes they don't want.

If a school is struggling financially, it should be helpful to faculty to know what the students think they are buying. Then making departmental staffing and curricular decisions that are consistent with what the students expect will lead to continued existence. There is some wiggle room at schools not in dire financial straits.

It should not be too difficult to persuade some students that they want a well-rounded education. If you get that buy-in, can you deliver on the promise?

Of course faculty want to keep their departments going. That is true at every school. Having an attractive college experience on offer is key. Faculty in a department are usually quite knowledgeable about the attractions of the subjects they teach. But not all are as adept as required to step out of their perspective and present the attraction from the perspective of the 17-year-old who would get a lot out of it.

[Wahoo Redux]

From my admittedly limited experience, there are plenty of students who would find the humanities interesting but they have been told repeatedly that they will be "underemployed" or even unemployed if they major in a humanities field. 

My father was greatly relieved when I dropped music as a major, but he was re-irritated and concerned when I declared an English major.  Then one of his associates told him that English majors wrote "great letters and memos" and my father grudgingly approved of the degree.   By the time I went to graduate school he was fully supportive because I was so miserable as a businessman, but he told me in my final year of the PhD, "I just don't understand what you do."

All of my old music major cohorts are making their living as professional musicians, too.  None of them have starved.

I think the biggest detriment to the liberal arts are the things parents tell their children around the dinner table.

[marshwiggle]

It is amazing how much of a black eye liberal arts gets due to the perception it's just full of SJWs who don't want work. Is that the main beef people have with it?

However, it's also clear enrollments are dying in liberal arts fields at a lot of places. How do we get the STEM and business students interested?

Are you talking of taking individual courses, or of changing majors? The first may be possible; the second is (in my experience) highly unlikely.

And with electives, the courses have to sound more interesting than most of the choices in their own discipline, which is tough.

If students have to take "technical" (i.e. in the major) and "non-technical (i.e. outside the major) electives, they'll often go for the easiest non-technical electives they can find.

[Wahoo Redux]

Remember, we do not want or need every damn student in the place, just those who are honestly interested.  I think business is going to be the dominant major for the foreseeable future, which is fine by me, but I not want to see students who would otherwise consider the liberal arts to be dissuaded by impression and misinformation. 

[Mobius]

It is amazing how much of a black eye liberal arts gets due to the perception it's just full of SJWs who don't want work. Is that the main beef people have with it?

However, it's also clear enrollments are dying in liberal arts fields at a lot of places. How do we get the STEM and business students interested?

Are you talking of taking individual courses, or of changing majors? The first may be possible; the second is (in my experience) highly unlikely.

The latter is the prevailing thought at my place, especially using gen ed to recruit majors. However, most attempts to change curricula to make it appealing is shot down. Don't know why "Intro to ..:" has such a hold on folks.

And with electives, the courses have to sound more interesting than most of the choices in their own discipline, which is tough.

If students have to take "technical" (i.e. in the major) and "non-technical (i.e. outside the major) electives, they'll often go for the easiest non-technical electives they can find.