A few months ago, an article entitled "The End of the English Major" was published in a well-known American magazine, revealing the decline and withering of the humanities, which caused a great deal of repercussions. Many teachers and students are worried about the future of the humanities.
In fact, the decline of the humanities is not a phenomenon unique to American universities, but is also reflected to varying degrees in other developed countries, reflecting the great changes in economic and social development and the pursuit of new majors and professions by workers.
Humanities are shrinking enrollment under multiple pressures
In recent years, the humanities in American colleges and universities have been hit hard. According to Wall Street**, after the epidemic, dozens of elite universities in the United States suspended the enrollment of more than 140 doctoral programs in the humanities and social sciences.
In 2021, New York University will no longer admit doctoral students in the English department, the University of Chicago will suspend doctoral enrollment in the Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University will suspend doctoral students in American Studies, History, and Political Science, and the University of Alaska will announce a one-time suspension of 39 bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in the humanities and social sciences. In 2023, Marymount University's Board of Trustees decided to phase out programs in art, English, history, philosophy, sociology, and other majors. Saint Mary's University of Minnesota has announced that it will phase out undergraduate majors such as English, Spanish, and history. West Virginia University plans to eliminate 9 percent of its majors, all foreign language departments, including undergraduate and graduate schools, and 7 percent of its faculty and staff. Undergraduate students will no longer be able to study Spanish, French, German, and Russian, and graduate students will no longer be able to pursue degrees in linguistics and English as a second language. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in the fields of foreign languages, literature, and linguistics declined by 25% annually from 2010 to 2021.
The same phenomenon can be seen in universities in countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, where the humanities were once highly valued.
In the UK, the University of Sheffield announced the closure of its archaeology department. The University of Portsmouth has laid off more than half of its English faculty. Aston University announces the closure of its School of History, Languages and Translation. London South Bank University has announced the cancellation of its History and Human Geography degree programmes. The University of Sunderland, the University of Chester, the University of Leicester and the University of Hull have also announced the abolition of humanities.
In Australia, Monash University, in Melbourne, cut 103 courses and halted enrollment for drama degrees. The University of Sydney cut more than 20** and international relations-related disciplines, and about 8% of its arts and social sciences department was cut by about 8 per cent.
The reasons behind the shrinkage of humanities in universities in various countries can be summarized in two aspects.
First, the pandemic has had an immediate impact. On the one hand, financial input has decreased. For example, many states in the United States have cut funding for public universities. On the other hand, during the epidemic, international students were unable to enroll due to the lockdown policy, resulting in a significant reduction in the corresponding tuition income, which directly affected the subsequent choice of universities.
Second, the pursuit of efficient use of funds. Corresponding to the decrease in capital investment, universities need more money to renovate campus equipment and invest in new projects to attract more students to campus and sprint higher in the university rankings. In 2021, the UK Minister for Education announced a 50% cut in funding for arts and culture programmes at universities, with the savings being diverted to other areas such as medicine and computing. For nearly 20 years, the UK has focused on "high-reward" science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, emphasising the employability of young people, and is committed to "opening doors for all young people to choose their future careers".
"Bread" and technological development influence student choice
According to statistics, from 2017 to 2022, the number of four-year undergraduate students majoring in computer and information science related majors in the United States soared by 34% to about 5370,000, while the number of English and Literature majors**23% dropped, down to about 1130,000 people, and the history major fell by 12% to only about 770,000 people.
In the face of the downward economic trend, more and more students are choosing the former in the choice of "bread and ideals". College students are increasingly in need of majors that can directly help them find stable and well-paying jobs. High college tuition fees have left many students with huge loans, so under great financial pressure, students are more inclined to choose majors that can pay off their debts as soon as possible.
According to U.S. News & World Report's list of the "100 Best Jobs" in 2023, the top 10 are software engineers, practicing **, medical and health services managers, surgeons, information security analysts, physical therapists, financial managers, IT managers, developers, and dentists, which have nothing to do with liberal arts majors.
A survey found that in 2022, only 7% of Harvard freshmen planned to major in the humanities, down from 20% in 2012 and nearly 30% in the '70s. Over the past decade or so, the number of English majors at Harvard has decreased by about 3 4.
It's a safeguard," said Luisa Monty, a student at Arizona State University, "and it's all about who will hire you." She loves Italian language and literature, but she chose to study business. Another student, Justin Kovacs, loved writing and reading, but he gave up literature to pursue a career in data science.
James Shapiro, a professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, said: "A few years ago, I thought that the continued decline in humanities enrollment was a reversible situation, mainly because professors weren't doing a good enough job of marketing these majors to students, but now I don't believe it." "With the development of technology, people's lifestyles and habits have changed dramatically. "Before 2000, I read about 5 books a month**. But now I read one book a month, which is a lot. It's not because I've lost interest, it's because I'm reading hundreds of podcasts and listening to different podcasts. ”
At the same time that West Virginia University in the United States decided to cut back on the humanities and social sciences program, some students and faculty of the university carried out ** activities on campus. "West Virginia University is a school, not a commercial institution, and these decisions will deprive students of educational opportunities and faculty employment, creating even more serious structural problems for the university," said one graduate student in history. ”
The humanities in the digital age need to find new ways out
At a time when technology is constantly changing and innovating, the attraction and influence of the humanities seem to be gradually declining. But the humanities have their own unique value and occupy an important place in the entire subject area.
Yehuda Leibler, chief technology and strategy officer of a company in the field of data and artificial intelligence, argues that technological innovation, especially artificial intelligence, urgently requires us to think about key questions about human nature, and disciplines such as philosophy, history, law, politics and linguistics can help us answer these questions. AI is becoming more and more important in our daily lives, and technology is constantly advancing, and great algorithm developers, AI researchers, and engineers are certainly needed by society, but at the same time we also need people with a deep understanding of the world, such as philosophers, policymakers, anthropologists, and other thinkers, to guide AI, set limits, and help in the event of human failure.
It can be seen that social change is not only about technology and science, but also needs the humanities as a pillar to guide its development.
How to change the current situation of the humanities is an urgent problem to be solved. Some universities are actively promoting educational reform and seeking new avenues for the humanities.
At Brigham Young University in the United States, administrators created the "Humanities+" program. The school's counseling center often advises humanities majors to choose a minor to develop their practical skills. Sherami Jala, assistant dean of the Faculty of Humanities, said that graduates of humanities majors are effective communicators and cultural communicators. These abilities are valuable to potential employers. Brian Jackson, a professor in the Department of English at Brigham Young University, noted, "If the market continues to need effective communicators – people with critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence and communication skills, then we will need humanities students." Currently, he is leading a task force in the Faculty of Humanities to explore how to integrate ChatGPT into the classroom.
Hiram College focuses on cultivating liberal arts talents with more comprehensive thinking, and strengthens the cultivation of students' professional quality, in order to help them adapt to their future careers. Based on the humanities, Hiram College actively experiments in interdisciplinary fields have opened up more possibilities for the humanities in the future.
Russia is also actively engaged in a digital revolution in the humanities. On the one hand, the introduction of cloud services allows students to access educational resources anytime and anywhere, and cultivates the digital information processing ability and operation ability of liberal arts students; On the other hand, the Digital Humanities Education Program aims to train competitive interdisciplinary experts in the digital humanities, computer science and other fields. The digital innovation of the liberal arts aims to promote the humanities to better and faster keep up with the pace of the information technology revolution and cultivate interdisciplinary talents in the digital age.
Yamaguchi University in Japan is also promoting a new type of liberal arts education that integrates the arts and sciences, and has established a new faculty that integrates the arts and sciences to cultivate global human resources with a wide range of knowledge that transcends the limitations of the arts and sciences, and who can use Japanese and English as tools, as well as excellent communication skills and problem-solving skills.
It is not difficult to see that the focus of liberal arts reform is on interdisciplinary integration, emphasizing students' comprehensive abilities and helping students better adapt to the future. "Philosophers, sociologists, psychologists and artists should be involved in the development of future technologies so that they can better match human needs and values. There is no doubt that the future will be interdisciplinary, and humanists should play an important role in shaping it. Abraham Loeb, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University, said.
The author's affiliation is China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing).
China Education Daily, January 11, 2024, page 9
Author: Liu Caizhi.