In March the University of Montana released its budget model that calls for $2.6 million in cuts to the College of Humanities and Sciences by 2023. This comes on top of a $10.4 million drop in budget since 2015. That 10.4 million amounts to 68% of the over budget cuts that University of Montana has seen during the same time period. Universities other than Montana have also taken such drastic budget cutting measures. Liberal Arts/Humanities programs across the United States have seen their budgets cut to the bone. While higher ed institutions offer a variety of reasoning for these cuts – lack of student interest, COVID-19, focusing on core strengths – they all boil down to one thing, financial profit. A great many schools have decided that the Humanities don’t bring in enough money to make funding them worth it. This is an awful state of affairs.
This newsletter could go a lot of ways from here. I could focus on Seth Bodnar, President of The University of Montana, my alma mater, and how he goes about defending these proposed cuts. Not everyone reading this went to UM however, so I’ll save that for the group text. I also have friends and family employed by the University and I don’t want them to get into trouble. I could write about the lack of state funding for public universities, how tax dollars that used to go to making tuition affordable have gone to paying for prisons, how the student loan industry destroys the lives of millions of people. I could discourse on the obsession with making public services profitable and how that is nothing but detrimental to the United States. All of those need their own newsletter post – and more – but I’ll go somewhere else with this instead. This newsletter is going to be about the humanities themselves, and why they’re cool as hell.
By claiming the title of historian, I hope to make my bias very obvious. I have a Masters in History and spend most of my working days pursuing a PhD in history. I’ve committed myself to the study of the history – which some people might call the discipline to which all others owe their allegiance – and as part of that I study the humanities. I also would love to have a job once I get my PhD and enter the job market. Colleges cutting funds to the humanities directly affects me. That hyperlink, by the way, takes you to the American Historical Association’s 2021 Jobs Report. Trust me, it’s not great. However, even if I didn’t have a material interest in fully funded humanities programs across the country, I’d still support that reality. To spell it out, I didn’t write this just to convince Joe Biden to fight for a massive pro-humanities spending bill, but I didn’t write it to not get him to do that. If you know what I mean.
They – who is “they” in this sentence? Don’t know! – say that brevity is the soul of wit so let me attempt some wit. Humanities connect us to our fellow human beings, and therein lies their worth. Whether it’s through a greater understanding of our shared histories, religions, languages, social structures, or written words, the end goal of all the disciplines that fall under the humanities banner is to make humans more legible to each other. At least in my mind. This is a noble goal. While academics and the academy have often failed to live up to it – just read a little bit about the professionalization of history, or what early sociological studies were used for, it still holds power as a model to live up to. That alone counts as a strong enough argument in my book.
Some people need more than one reason, no matter how strong, to support something though, so I’ll try for some more. I thought about arguing that strong cultural and public interest in the humanities would lead to the end of war. However, I have neither the time nor the proof to back that assertion up. The humanities in any case, are not a cure-all for the ills of this world. Woodrow Wilson got a PhD in political science and was one of the most racist people in the world after all. However, the fact that they encourage understanding other people is a positive. We live in an age of increased alienation, both in the Marxist sense, as in from the products of our labor, but also from the people around us. It’s very easy to not learn about the world around you, ignoring your neighbors, strangers, and those around you, for what you already know. Humanities forces us to consider those people and cultures we don’t have familiarity with. They open up new ways of understanding the world, new ideas, new epistemologies. That is good.
Human life is a weird, wild, wonderful thing. It’s worth understanding and knowing. While I don’t want to use this space to denigrate STEM or the “hard” sciences, they don’t come close to the humanities in offering insights into what it means to be human. In what other set of disciplines can you read the works of countless individuals from hundreds of places from hundreds of time, contemplate the infinite, discuss the meanings of newly excavated pottery fragments, and think about art? These things all make life fuller, more meaningful, more mysterious. Everyone should have the opportunity to partake in all of those experiences. Certainly, we shouldn’t limit those sorts of activities to Humanities Colleges but they do act as an important and necessary repository for the information gained from them. Politicans and Presideents shouldn’t limited the study of the humanities to those who can afford it, or for those willing to dedicate their entire lives to it. Those conditions limit and weaken what the humanities can do. The more people that can access it, the more we as a society gain.
A call to action seems apropos in this case. Reach out to Seth Bodnar, tell him to fund the Humanities. Reach out to your state Senate, tell them to fund high ed. Tell Uncle Joe to give the National Endowment for the Humanities three billion dollars. Read a book!
So tragic what’s happening at UM and so many other places. Thanks for offering these important points and encouraging action, Dylan!