Value of humanities education doubted in academic circles

Two years after N.C. Governor Pat McCrory publicly questioned the employability of those who major in the humanities, many in academia continue to debate the merits of liberal arts.

Debate over “intellectual luxuries,” a term used to describe majors that don’t apply directly to future jobs, has flourished in the academic community since the term was coined by former-president Ronald Reagan. McCrory brought the discussion to the forefront of state politics in 2013 with his statement that gender-studies should not be funded at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“If you want to take gender studies that’s fine,” McCrory said in a 2013 interview. “Go to a private school and take it, but I don’t want to subsidize that if its not going to get someone a job.”

“The facts are the facts, and the job market is the strongest for people with engineering degrees.” —Tom Katsouleas

A disconnect between the degrees that students choose to pursue and studies that make students marketable job candidates is a concern for many professors in North Carolina.

Higher education need to ensure it is preparing students to enter the job market, said John McGowan, Ruel W. Tyson Jr. Distinguished Professor of Humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill.

“I think there’s a legitimate concern that we need to have a better connection between college education and the job market so that students aren’t left out there with massive debt they’re unable to pay,” McGowan said. “We are hearing from the business leaders that providing some sense of how the business world works is really crucial, and I think the colleges have not done a good job of that.”

The comparison between the jobs available to new graduates and the studies that students choose to pursue does not always paint the full picture of life after graduation. Dean of Academic Affairs Lee Baker pointed on that the job market for humanities and social science majors is different than those pursuing business or engineering degrees.

McCrory has taken steps in recent years to emphasize the importance of technical education to the job market. In 2014, McCrory started the NCWorks and “1,000 in 100” initiative, which involved meeting with business partners to learn how to tailor the skills businesses need with the training universities and community colleges provide.

“We’ve frankly got enough psychologists and sociologists and political science majors and journalists,” he said, according to the Triad Business Journal. “With all due respect to journalism, we’ve got enough.”

He also emphasized the value of “people who can fix things and operate things and repair things, and of people who can drive trucks and are qualified to drive trucks.”

“There have been severe funding cuts here, because the state has been withdrawing support.” —John McGowan

Baker said he agreed with McCrory on the importance of those jobs to the growth of North Carolina’s economy, but he still found McCrory’s 2013 remarks about gender studies to be misguided.

“It’s the smaller, regional state schools that work closely with community colleges that perhaps should focus on workforce management and instruction,” Baker said. “There really is a distinction between people who get into UNC-Chapel Hill and those who get into UNC-Charlotte. UNC-Chapel Hill should really be the flagship, and UNC-Charlotte should really address our needs for workforce management.”

While there have been concerns over McCrory’s perception of higher education, humanities departments have not necessarily seen any adverse impact.

“There have been severe funding cuts here, because the state has been withdrawing support,” McGowan said. “However, on campus, there is strong support for the liberal arts, so the cuts have been spread evenly. The cuts were not specially targeted at the liberal arts.”

Both the funding for humanities departments and the enrollment in the departments' classes remain strong at Duke, said Srinivas Aravamudan, professor of English and director of the Humanities Writ Large program at Duke.

“The most popular majors at Duke are the social sciences, and there are multiple ways at Duke where we allow the humanities to keep up with the times,” Aravamudan said.

In response to attacks on the usefulness of liberal arts majors, Aravamudan said the liberal arts are crucial to the development of well-educated citizens and for societal growth.

“We live in a very uncertain and fast-changing and fast-moving world,” Aravamudan said. “And I think the humanities give you the skills to change and adapt and think about how you can develop new skills in certain areas.”

Aravamudan added that any stigma against liberal arts education is misguided and contrary to the purpose of higher education.

“The fact that they’re willing to study these subjects is something society should get up and feel good about,” Aravamudan said. “They’re not doing it for economic self-interest, just to get a job. If education was all about vocational training, we should get rid of colleges and universities entirely.”

Allison Jamison, associate director of admissions for the Fuqua School of Business, noted that humanities majors often face no disadvantage—and might actually be at an advantage—in applying to business school.

“We don’t give preference to any particular major,” Jamison said. “Someone who has a classical degree, for example, may have very good ideas and clear reasons for how they’re going to leverage that information into a business career. Its not a deterrent in the application process by any means.”