The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, recently gave a talk on academic freedom at the Scholars at Risk Ireland/All European Academies Conference. He fretted about what he sees as the state of universities in Ireland, across Europe, and indeed around the world:
Universities . . . have suffered an attrition of range and depth, loss of interdisciplinary exchange, leading in too many cases to a degradation of the very scholarship and teaching for which they were established. Such adjustments have usually been rationalized as an inevitable search for relevance, often in the name of market forces and the inexorable drive towards a utilitarian reductionism that is now so pervasive.
He went on to decry “the substitution of information packaging for a discursive engagement or search for knowledge.”
In addition to the oddity to American ears of hearing the president of a country worry about such things, President Higgins’ remarks got me wondering if his message is a wake-up call for our colleges and universities. There are clear trends that would lead one to think so.
For instance, a study released this year by the Humanities Indicators Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is striking in this regard. History departments awarded 5.7 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in 1967. By 2014, the share was 1.8 percent. The share of degrees conferred in English fell to 2.8 percent in 2014—the lowest point on record.
Overall, the humanities’ share of baccalaureate degrees conferred in the United States in 2018 shrank to the smallest it has been since a complete accounting of the degrees in the field became possible in 1987. The humanities’ share in 2018, 10.2 percent, was less than a third the size of the share for the sciences (health/medical, natural, and behavioral/social sciences combined), and approximately half the size of that for the business/management field.
The humanities’ share of all master’s and doctoral degrees also fell to historic lows in 2018—3 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively. According to the 2020 Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey, the proportion of all U.S. basic vs. applied research performed by the higher education sector declined from 58 percent in 2007 to 48 percent in 2017. The value of the liberal arts and sciences to the individual and to American society is regularly dismissed in some quarters. Is it time to remind ourselves, and students and parents, of some basic truths before it’s too late?
Our nation faces serious peril in our post-pandemic, science-skeptical, anti-intellectual, January 6 insurrection moment. At such times, it can be wise to seek both grounding and energy for the future in a founding document, a charter that declares why we are about what we are. I have always been astounded by the unapologetic clarity of that declaration in of all places, Chapter 36 of Wisconsin State Statutes from the early 1970s. The statutory language proclaims:
The legislature finds it in the public interest to provide a system of higher education which enables students of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of income to participate in the search for knowledge and individual development . . .
This is state government recognizing the value of a university system as a public good, and the individual search for knowledge as a way to get there. No contradiction between the two, evidently. The statute makes clear that the public interest will be best served by opening the university to the widest possible range of state residents, and empowering each individual to build her or his personal intellectual capital.
The law goes on to say:
The mission of the system is to develop human resources, to discover and disseminate knowledge, to extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campuses and to serve and stimulate society by developing in students heightened intellectual, cultural, and humane sensitivities, scientific, professional, and technological expertise, and a sense of purpose. Inherent in this broad mission are methods of instruction, research, extended training, and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition. Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.
We do not usually look to the dry, dusty, legalistic prose of state statutes to hear about intellectual, cultural, and humane sensitivities, a sense of purpose, improving the human condition, and the search for truth—but there it is. We in the University of Wisconsin system are to discover and disseminate knowledge, and to extend and apply it. The law does not afford the luxury of taking on one or the other of these tasks. We are required to do both, and they sit comfortably astride each other in their statutory glory.
We are charged with developing in our students intellectual, cultural, and humane sensitivities, and scientific, professional, and technological expertise. Sensitivity and expertise, culture and technology— we want our graduates to be competent professionals who understand the human condition, and by virtue of that integrated competence and understanding can improve it. We seek to produce neither narrow-minded careerists, nor unmoored, aimless dilettantes.
But now is not the 1970s, when this statutory language was carefully crafted. Now we have let the national conversation about the purpose of higher education go dangerously off track. We are emphasizing the importance of vocational and technical training at the expense of ensuring that our graduates can look beyond themselves and their jobs to make evidence-based sense of the challenges facing their country and the world, can develop an eye for the future based on an understanding of the past.
Our students have listened to the tenor of this conversation and made choices about their areas of concentrated study accordingly. Our institutions have listened as well and, often under pressure from funders, have focused more of their research agendas on immediate practical applications rather than longer-term major discoveries. We should share Irish President Higgins’ worry that we are not preparing our students well enough nor sufficiently extending our knowledge base to meet the most profound challenges of today and tomorrow.
That is not to say we should not take our responsibility to prepare students for jobs and careers seriously. Bring on those stackable professional certificates and badges, credit for prior learning, competency-based education, baccalaureate completion programs for students with technical certificates and degrees, and other approaches that can help our graduates earn a good living. Let’s reaffirm at the same time that it is our commitment to prepare them for a rich, full life in a diverse American democracy increasingly intertwined with nations around the globe. Our curricula can do both, if we think about what constitutes a curriculum in ever broader ways.
Beyond the four curriculum-expanding approaches above, a different one has attracted attention both positive and negative. Purdue University has adopted a civics literacy requirement. Putting aside the controversy over whether the requirement is appropriate or has been developed in a genuine shared governance process, the options proposed for fulfilling it include a couple of nontraditional ideas for civics education.
Students would have to pass a test, yes, but then could choose one of the following options: attend six approved civics-related events, complete twelve podcasts created by the campus Center for C-SPAN Scholarship and Engagement, or take one of a list of approved courses. We can and should think about core learning in key liberal arts and sciences disciplines happening outside as well as within formal course sequences.
A comprehensively well-rounded curriculum need not involve simply stacking on more and more required courses.
To get back to an appropriate balance between the vocational and the broader purposes of higher education, we need the active assistance and commitment of citizens who know more about our universities and colleges than anybody who does not work at one: our trustees. There is an argument to be made that independent lay governance of American higher education institutions has been their animating genius since the colonial era. The idea is that free from the direct control of governments and other overseers, these lay boards can operate in the best interests of their students, their states, and the nation.
Moreover, trustees are generally respected, influential people in their personal and professional networks. They thus could be strong supporters of the reaffirmation of their campuses’ core mission, and could push the wider society to get behind it. But what can board members do about all this, specifically? Here are six suggestions:
- Back efforts by presidents, provosts, and faculty leaders to reinvigorate liberal arts and sciences majors.
- Request reviews of general education requirements to be sure they provide a coherent introduction to what it means to be human, rather than a smorgasbord selection of unintegrated specialty courses.
- Speak with and write for employers and the general public about the value of the liberal arts and sciences. If you are an employer, talk about the important knowledge, skills, and habits of mind broadly educated employees bring to the success of your organization.
- Recognize excellent teaching in these disciplines with honorary and monetary awards.
- Learn how basic research leads to discoveries that enhance people’s health and well-being, economic security, and enjoyment of life. Indeed, much basic research turns out to have positive practical applications. Tell these stories publicly.
- Advocate inside and outside the academy for the kind of education embodied in the Wisconsin statute that will enable your graduates to become informed citizens who can contribute to “a more perfect union.”
The negative trajectory that concerns President Higgins of Ireland about European universities will not get turned around in the United States without the sustained attention and leverage of our uniquely American governance bodies. We need them to ensure our universities and colleges continue to be a fundamental underpinning of a forward-looking, healthy democracy.
Kevin P. Reilly, PhD, is the president emeritus and a regent professor of the University of Wisconsin system and an AGB senior fellow.
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