Are the Humanities Doomed?

[Parasaurolophus]

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?

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

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.

[spork]

[. . .]

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.

[Hibush]

A more optimistic view comes in a Sept. 2 interview in CHE with Leon Botstein of Bard.

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.

There 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.

[Wahoo Redux]

Don't know if it is going to save anything, but the AAUP listserve is touting the Build Back Better Act.

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.

[Hibush]

CHE has what I see as a hopeful sign. Small but apprently noteworthy.
Leonard Cassuto, Fordham, reports 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.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

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

[Parasaurolophus]

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.)

[kaysixteen]

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.

[lightning]

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?

[Wahoo Redux]

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.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences
"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?

[dr_codex]

Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences
"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.

[Hibush]

Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences
"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.

[Wahoo Redux]

Possible future?
IHE article: Elevating Engineering Over the Liberal Arts and Sciences
"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.