It is not often that a national report on the status of the humanities makes front page headlines and the editorial columns of our nation’s newspapers. Yet, this happened at the end of November when National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman William J. Bennett released his report on the status of the humanities, To Reclaim A Legacy. The report grew out of the deliberations of a study group, convened by Bennett, which sought to answer three questions: “What is the condition of learning in the humanities; why is it as it is; and what, if anything, should be done about it?”
The group of thirty-two noted educators and scholars included a number of historians: Robert M. Berdahl (University of Oregon), Mark H. Curtis (Association of American Colleges), Mary Maples Dunn (Bryn Mawr), Hanna H. Gray (University of Chicago), Elizabeth T. Kennan (Mt. Holyoke), Diane Ravitch (Columbia University), Frederick Rudolph (Williams College), and our own executive director, Samuel R. Gammon.
To Reclaim a Legacy, Bennett’s personal assessment, seeks to bring the humanities back to the center of the college curriculum and to restore teaching to its formerly prized place.
The humanities, according to Bennett, have suffered the most in the educational changes since the late 1960s. It is now possible for a person to receive a baccalaureate degree at 72 percent of our higher education institutions without taking a single course in literature or history; less than one-half of these institutions still require coursework in a foreign language, down from 90 percent in 1966; the number of graduating majors in the humanities has dropped precipitously, by 62 percent in the field of history since 1970. (See also Noteworthy, Perspectives, [Nov. ’84]).
Much of the responsibility for this precarious state of learning at the undergraduate level is attributed to the institutions themselves, faculty and academic administrators. College administrators and faculty suffered from a “failure of nerve and faith” when they instituted reforms in the late 1960s and early 1970s that removed many basic course requirements. The resulting curriculum was “no longer a statement about what knowledge mattered; instead, it became the product of a political compromise among competing schools and departments overlaid by political considerations.” And once this curriculum was altered, the “pressures of the marketplace” and a surging interest in vocationalism discouraged any future restructuring..
Compounding this problem was an implicit downgrading of the value of teaching. Most of the undergraduate credit hours taken by students in the humanities occurs in their freshman and sophomore years. Yet these courses often are assigned to graduate students and adjunct faculty, while Bennett notes a preference by research scholars and senior members of departments toward teaching advanced undergraduate or graduate level courses. The fragmented, compartmentalized curriculum has denied the integrity of the humanities by signaling a belief that there is no coherent foundation of knowledge in the humanities worthy of teaching to all students. These attitudes are perpetuated in graduate training, which places a high priority on research and publication at the expense of teaching for non-majors and generalists.
While Bennett makes no specific recommendations, he does call for changes in what humanists teach and how they teach it.
The humanities should convey more than a common culture. They should communicate western culture’s “lasting vision, its highest shared ideals and aspirations, and its heritage.” Emphasis should be placed on primary texts and works of art to “tap the consciousness and meaning of civilization.”
There should be a balance between breadth and depth. Students “should study a number of important texts and subjects with thoroughness and care,” and they must also “become acquainted with other texts and subjects capable of giving them a broader view, a context for understanding what they know well.”
There is a need for continuity. Coursework should not be limited to the first two years of study. Rather, study in the humanities should continue throughout the student’s career, complementing and adding perspective to the students’ major field of study and contributing to their intellectual maturity. .
Faculty strengths must be utilized. A good curriculum follows the capabilities of the faculty, but should not be limited. It is incumbent upon the college to fill ne gaps in faculty expertise in the basic fields of the humanities.
Finally, we must all share the conviction that the humanities are central to undergraduate education. The humanities should not be limited to majors, nor should they be seen as an “educational luxury” and part of a student’s refinement. The humanities, rather, “are a body of knowledge and a means of inquiry that convey serious truths, defensible judgments, and significant ideas. Properly taught, the humanities bring together the perennial questions of human life with the greatest works of history, literature, philosophy.
Concerning the fundamental knowledge that all students should possess, the Study Group does make several recommendations. Students should possess an understanding of the origins, developments, and major trends of Western civilization; they must carefully read the masterworks of the civilization and be able to grasp the most significant developments in the history of philosophy, and they should have a proficiency in a foreign language, with “the ability to view that language as an avenue into another culture.”
The Study Group further recommends that students become familiar with at least one non-Western culture and study the history of science and technology.
Teaching is essential to the success of humanities education. Bennett urges that graduate departments reassess their training priorities to escape what one Study Group member called graduate education’s tendency toward “hyperspecialization and self-isolating vocabularies.” Excellence in teaching should be rewarded in hiring, promotion, and tenure. Perhaps most important, good teaching should be seen as a passionate commitment, Teachers must have a mastery of the subjects they teach and an ability to communicate the power of a work and the worth of learning.
The new year is taking shape as one for post-secondary education assessment. In addition to Bennett’s study, the National Institute of Education has released a report on the state of learning in our nation’s colleges (Perspectives, forthcoming). A major study is also underway by the Association of American Colleges.
Copies of Bennett’s report are available from the Office of Public Affairs, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20506.
Note: NEH Chairman William Bennett was nominated in Jan. 1985, to replace Terrel Bell as Secretary of Education.
