Why We're No Longer Buying the Humanities by April Rose Fale

8/3/2019 Why We're No Longer Buying the Humanities by April Rose Fale

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Why We’re No Longer Buying TheHumanities—And Why We ShouldBY APRIL ROSE FALE

How many humanities classes does it take to change a light bulb? In

fact, does it take any to change a light bulb at all?

David Ferrerro, in his article “The Humanities: Why Such a Hard Sell?”phrases the question better: “Has the study of…what we commonly call the

humanities outlived its relevance?”

Ferrerro hopes not, and he is not alone.

Why take the humanities?

In most liberal arts-based colleges and universities, humanities courses

top the list of general ed requirements. UVI students—regardless of degree ormajor—know all too well the humanities courses they’re required to take:Interpersonal Communication, English Composition, and Research and Advanced

Writing, plus six elective credits.

Why require courses that study the human condition at all?

“To be a well educated person, you must be grounded in thehumanities—history, literature, philosophy, art, dance, religions,” emphasized

Patricia Harkins-Pierre, chair of UVI’s English, Humanities and Modern

Languages Department. “What we do in classes like Humanities 115 is give you

a wonderful buffet of all these different fields.”

The premise for teaching the humanities is simple: produce graduates

with a well rounded, well informed worldview—enough, at least, to contributeintelligently to society.

‘Shakespeare wasn't in it for the money’

But between rising tuition fees and failing economies, a well rounded

worldview is too small a carrot for many college students: the goal is

graduation and gainful employment, and fast.

This perceived lack of practical use for the musings of Plato, Kant or

Shakespeare is not completely groundless.

"Shakespeare wasn't in it for the money,” said Anthony Carnevale, co-

author of a Georgetown University report on how the earnings of sciences-

trained workers went up 50 percent higher over a lifetime than those whomajored in the humanities. “If you're all about the money, I wouldn't go there.”

UVI students must have read Carnevale’s advice. For the past 10 years,

total enrollment rate in the humanities areas (Music, English, Modern

Languages, Speech Communication & Theatre, and Communication) almost flat-

lined along the 100 mark, trailing behind all the other divisions. While

combined enrollment in the Humanities and Social Sciences division rose by



360 heads in the last decade, a large chunk of it falls under the Social Sciences,

while the Undecideds still outnumber the declared Humanities majors.

News or old news? Dwindling student

interest in the humanities,

to some, is old news--a

rehash of an all-too-

familiar trend. The

student end, however,

doesn’t seem too familiarwith humanities details

(one University of Tulsa

student confined the

liberal arts “to erotic

ballet or pornography”),

much less the big picture.

Harkins-Pierre echoed this unfamiliarity: “Every semester, studentswould write me papers, saying how their lives have been transformed

because…they now know about Pablo Picasso whom they’ve never heard of

before.”

What’s technology got to do with it?

The digital revolution plays a role in the waning interest in humane

studies. At breakneck speed, it has placed social networking, mobile

communication, entertainment and information in the hands of more and more

people, with the younger population forming a huge block of patrons.

Instantaneity is the name of the game, and a rich supply of it explains

why a forward-looking, tech-savvy culture has neither time nor need for

humanistic reflection.

“We don’t stop to think a lot about anything,” said UVI digital

communication professor Alex Randall. “How long is a tweet in Twitter good

for? Fractions of seconds.”

And as the megabytes per second increase, the sensitivity of thought

needed when studying the humanities decreases.

The humanities in tough times

The problem of practicality remains, however, still begging the question

of what doors a humanities training can open.

“You can become a lawyer, a business manager, own an art gallery, be a

journalist, an artist, a dancer, or go into theatre,” Harkins-Pierre readily listed.

“There are so many things you can do with a humanities base that people don’t

even realize.”



Randall, who also chairs the Department of Music, Communication, Art

and Theatre at UVI, explained why the humanities still deserve attention in an

increasingly electronic world.

“We have become experts on channels, coding systems, media,

methods for delivering messages,” said Randall. “But what’s the content? If themessages are encoded without an understanding of the humanities–of what

they mean, how they impact people and why people should care–it’s blather.”

The so-called split between the ‘hard’ sciences and the humanities in

universities, including UVI, forgets that scientific exploration is firstly a human

enterprise. It’s a means to the end of improving and making sense of our human

experience. It may seem fruitless to study Mozart at a time of 8 percent pay cuts

and advancing technology, but even an unemployed Einstein, stumped by a

math problem, went to his kitchen to play the violin. And while the humanities

don’t deal with the specs of changing light bulbs, they sure deal with why we

need the light.

April Rose Fale is a master ’ s student at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Contact April at [email protected].

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Why We're No Longer Buying the Humanities by April Rose Fale