Study's findings show
Humanities are neglected
in nation’s universities
By Marianne Chin
Of tLe Emerald
"Most of our college graduates remain
shortchanged in the humanities,” said recent
ly nominated U.S. Secretary of Education
William Bennett in a report on the humanities
in higher education.
The report entitled “To Reclaim A
Legacy” was released last fall by the National
Endowment for the Humanities. The
humanities include such disciplines as
literature, history, philosophy and foreign
languages.
According to the report, a student can ob
tain a bachelor’s degree from 75 percent of all
American colleges and universities without
having studied European history; from 72 per
cent without having studied American
literature or history; and from 86 percent
without having studied the civilizations of
classical Greece and Rome.
'There's a good deal of con
cern about the fact that
students want to go through
college taking very practical
things like accounting, things
that will produce good jobs.9
—Robert Berdahl
Bennett's report on the state of humanities
was based on the findings of a study group of
31 teachers, scholars, administrators and
authorities on higher education. They met
with Bennett, then-chair of the National En
dowment for the Humanities, in Washington,
D.C., last March.
"We talked about the problems of educa
tion in the humanities at the undergraduate
level in universities and colleges today,” said
Robert Berdahl, dean of the University’s Col
lege of Arts and Sciences, who served as a
member of the study group.
"It's sad and lamentable that the thrust of
education has shifted so heavily into
pragmatic kinds of education,” Berdahl said,
referring to the current emphasis in higher
education placed on careers and disciplines
such as high technology.
The best kind of education for any person
includes a broad background in liberal arts, he
said. "It makes a much more flexible person.
Life is a good deal more than a career.”
In addition to the statistics indicating an
absence of humanities studies behind college
degrees, the study also described the national
decline in the number of students majoring in
the humanities.
Since 1970, the number of English majors
has declined 57 percent, philosophy majors 41
percent, history majors 62 percent and modem
language majors 50 percent, according to the
report,
Our culture does not reward students for
studying the humanities, Berdahl said.
“You don’t have to know English
literature to be an accountant,” he added.
Good teaching is essential to the
humanities, especially since many students
are first exposed to such courses in their first
years in college, the study group asserted.
Often this first impression becomes their only
exposure to the field because students are
sometimes turned off by the subjects if they
aren’t presented attractively, according to the
report.
n controversy exists in tnat educators do
not agree on what types of material university
graduates should read, Berdahl said.
The University has done a good job of
teaching humanities, thanks to a good faculty
that is committed to teaching humanities
courses, Berdahl said. The change in cluster
requirements for University students that was
implemented in 1980 reflected a concern that
students have some exposure to the
humanities, he said. The University also has
tried to improve its humanities programs by
obtaining grants from the National Endow
ment for the Humanities and by decreasing the
number of students in each class.
One of the study group’s recommenda
tions for reversing the decline of interest and
learning in the humanities is that colleges and
universities “reshape their undergraduate cur
ricula based on a clear vision of what con
stitutes an educated person.”
“There’s a good deal of concern about the
fact that students want to go through college
taking very practical things like accounting,
things that will produce good jobs,” Berdahl
said. But these are not the kinds of educational
experiences essential to their becoming
educated men and women, he added.
The report also states that college and
university presidents should take responsibili
ty for the educational needs of all students by
defining what the institution regards as essen
tial to a good education.
Schools must also reward excellent
teaching, bring faculty members and ad
ministrators together to plan a challenging
curriculum, and place the study of humanities
and Western civilization "at the heart of the
college curriculum.”
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