In April of last year the Association of American Colleges (AAC) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) convened a conference on The Humanities and Careers in Business. The convenors brought together sixty participants, including corporation officers, college presidents, career counselors, and campus recruiters. The goal of the conference was to generate specific recommendations for enhancing the appreciation of humanities in business hiring and sensitizing campus officials and representatives to business needs.
Charles L. Brown, AT&T chairman, opened the conference, held in Princeton, New Jersey, by updating participants on the company’s 1980 study, Career Patterns: The Liberal Arts Major in Bell System Management. The “good news” for students, employers, and the public is that persons trained in the humanities have the mixture of attributes (verbal ability, reasoning and analytical skills, adaptability to change) needed in the “high speed, high pressure, high tech” business world. The Bell study found that employees with humanities and social science backgrounds advanced most rapidly up the management ladder. This finding received support from a study of internal promotion of managers done by Chase Manhattan Bank.
While the evidence assembled at the conference offers a formidable and persuasive case for the value of humanities training in the business world, the stereotype of the humanities graduate driving a cab after graduation dies hard. The director of liberal arts placement at Indiana University pointed out that the press often perpetuates the belief that technical majors land the best positions, a view that, in turn, shapes student and parent attitudes about the liberal arts degree. Many participants pushed for a broader distribution of studies underscoring the relationship between humanities and long-term career satisfaction.
AHA members Robert A. Skotheim (president of Whitman College) and Ernest R. May (Harvard University) were active in the conference. Mr. Skotheim chaired a working session, and Professor May discussed a course developed with Professor Richard Neustadt on the “Uses of History in Public Policy.”
NEH chairman William Bennett stressed that humanities, more than imparting skills, helped people to understand “civilization . . . to distinguish between right and wrong, . . . the noble and base.” Richard Ekman, director of NEH’s education division, called for a better understanding of how the humanities can prepare students for careers outside academe, but also cautioned against watering down the content of humanities courses.
Most of the conference activity occurred in small roundtable discussion groups. These groups hammered out specific recommendations (based on their shared experiences and background papers prepared for the conference) for consideration by the participants. Sixteen recommendations in all were adopted, addressed to the academic and business communities. Professor Clarence C. Walton of The American College summarized the basis of the recommendations:
- In a rapidly changing world, the vitality of American business depends upon the quality of its leaders: that quality is determined in large part by the quality of the education they receive.
- Leaders in business (along with leaders in other segments of our society) need the knowledge and skills associated with study of the humanities.
- Individuals educated in the humanities, while at a disadvantage at the job entry level, often move along a fast track once they become employed.
- The primary importance of the humanities is their inherent value as disciplines which illuminate the human condition. The humanities should not be reduced merely to job training courses, although study of the humanities does contribute significantly to career success.
For further information and copies of the background papers, write: AAC, Office of Programs and National Affairs, 1818 R Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009.
