As headlines blare that “College is a waste of time” and “Degree not worth debt,” new college students might enter academia with skepticism and eye the flagging economy with wariness.
But the University of Colorado Boulder and its humanities departments are not idling while Rome burns. Artists and humanists at CU-Boulder argue that the humanities are as relevant and important as ever.
They do so as radio and TV commercials herald for-profit higher-education options. The tempting alternative is online education, which promises less time, less money and more faculty interaction (though virtual).
But while commentators ruminate on themes like “How and Why the Humanities Lost Touch,” departments like English, art history and programs such as Jewish Studies hone traditional strengths while developing new ones.
One example is CU’s Center for Humanities and the Arts, a hub for humanistic scholarship and artistic creation. It sponsors research projects, encourages trans-departmental discourse and funds travel for graduate students to display their work for peers nationwide.
In doing so, the CHA, founded in 1997, promotes the arts and humanities’ application to business, democracy and everyday life.
In his June 2010 farewell message as the outgoing director of the CHA, Michael E. Zimmerman defended the humanities this way: “The humanities—in particular, but not only—have dismantled the traditional canon and have opened up entirely new areas of investigation, areas whose content and importance are not always easy to articulate to people outside the field in question.”
If the “humanities” and “classics” (like Shakespeare’s plays and Homer’s epics) are often synonymous and venerated as “classic,” they might appear untouchable. But they are vulnerable.
Some institutions know this firsthand. Because of funding shortfalls, the University at Albany-SUNY plans to downgrade majors to minors in theatre, French, Russian, Italian and classics. Though nominally “classic” today, these disciplines won’t always be highly regarded if they wither in the American educational system, experts say.
Zimmerman acknowledges this fear. “As the cost of higher education continues to climb and as far-less-expensive on-line educational options became ever more sophisticated and accessible, given how dependent CU-Boulder is on tuition—ever more so, with state funding heading toward zero, that pinch will become disabling, if 10 or 20 percent of our out-of-state students decide that tuition costs are more than can be afforded or for that matter justified.”
Students who do choose CU-Boulder see the humanities in action. In addition to funding faculty and graduate-student research, the CHA brings scholars, artists and performers to the Boulder campus. Each year the CHA awards faculty fellowships to fund innovative research.
Critical thinking in finance and beyond
In doing so, CU rebuts critics of the humanities with department-transcendent research and facilities that encourage students to help forge a more informed citizenry. Additionally, the university strives to prepare graduates with invaluable skills for the job market.
On funding, Zimmerman wrote, “Tuition fees for courses taken in the humanities help to fund scientific research and to contribute to the economic stability of CU-Boulder, as in many other major research universities. The humanities more than pay their way at CU-Boulder.”
Pat Lovett, a 1976 CU alumna in English, personifies the value of a humanities degree. “I write well, and my writing skills translated directly to the business writing I have done in my long career. I learned to think broad-mindedly and to examine different points of view. This translated into a skill for managing large groups of people and knowing how to take the best ideas from people to forward a business goal.”
Lovett, who owns her own career-coaching business after more than 30 years as an executive with OppenheimerFunds, would not discourage anyone from studying the humanities.
“Realize that you have a lot to offer because of your broad education, ability to think critically and to communicate effectively,” she advises. A degree in English provided an edge over other, non-humanities applicants in the job hunt, she added.
“I have the ability to synthesize information and tie different viewpoints together to come to a solution. I couldn’t do this without the focus that English classes had on really looking deeply at a written work and discovering some truth in the work and communicating that truth.”
When the time came to hire new employees in her former company, she says, “We looked for these broad skills in hiring for sales, project-management and customer-service positions.”
Students and parents distressed by the negative headlines might not have considered the practical applications of the humanities. That is understandable. One might wonder how learning about Renaissance art, studying history or reading Homer prepares one for a hyper-competitive job market. At CU-Boulder, many have compelling answers.
Training inside and outside the U
One is Professor David Shneer, director of the Program in Jewish Studies and professor of history. He says, “In Jewish Studies, we recognize that the world is changing, and the role of the university is changing. For people who excel at the university, we assume that they’re going to become some leaders in society. In Jewish Studies, we recognize that, and aim to cultivate that by giving students skills they need. But that doesn’t mean accounting skills.”
Instead, Shneer explains, critical reading is a skill every informed citizen needs.
Last year, the program in Jewish Studies started an internship program, believing that the humanities should train students inside and outside of the university. “That’s radically new. We are responding to what our students and society are telling the university it wants, which is more practical application of the theoretical learning going on in the classroom,” Shneer says.
He adds, “We structure our internships to connect text to experience—the learning that’s happening in the classroom to the things that these students are doing out in the world.”
Lisa Tamiris Becker, director of the CU Art Museum, sees this convergence of the practical and the intellectual in the museum. Part of the museum’s mission is “to explore the transformative power of art and inspire critical dialogue.”
Alongside the university, the CUAM promotes greater understanding of art and societal issues within a global and historical context. “We see the museum as a laboratory-like engaged learning environment,” says Tamiris Becker. Further, “the art world and the world of museums has been where the academic and the intellectual worlds come together in the public sphere. [The museum] is an interface of the world at large with the world of the university. The students, the way they’re relating to knowledge and manifesting knowledge, rather than abstracting, looking only through reproductions, they’re looking at real things [in the museum] that exist and circulate in society and the world.”
Internships exist at the museum as well. CUAM hires students to get collections and curatorial training. “It’s one of the growing elements of society—the museum culture—and so this is practical. It’s a combination of intellectual and practical training that they can also bring into the world,” says Tamiris Becker of the museum internship program.
For example, classics students work with Roman glass and Greek pottery in the museum. Art history and art students gain knowledge and experience from this environment. Tamiris Becker sees even more potential for students to broaden their academic knowledge with practical applications. “There is a huge opportunity there for this [crossover] to grow. The museum is truly always thought of as a place where the two come together.”
Students and community members alike find that the CUAM encompasses the teaching, research, and the global nature of experience, to parallel the mission of CU-Boulder in providing a global education. The museum is a place where students and visitors directly feel this.
“The museum, because we have this comprehensive collection and curatorial program that looks across numerous time periods, cultures, traditions, and tries not to reinforce any traditional hierarchies of media, traditional hierarchies of culture, it creates a laboratory environment where students experience that directly,” says Tamiris Becker.
Students learn about art and global ideas in the classroom, but Tamiris Becker acknowledges some material doesn’t “connect” with students until they see an exhibit with a professor and directly experience the material.
Tamiris Becker says, “It really comes down to a fundamental of the American university system: We had a founding interest in the idea of experience. And it’s one reason we have such strong university art museums in our country. Some other countries have a major tradition of civic museums. We have university art museums on almost every campus, and that connects to the idea of direct experience, which is fundamental—the core of the American vision of knowledge.”
The case of photogaphy
A photo by Evgenii Khaldeai showing a Jewish couple wearing stars as they were required to do in Nazi-occupied areas. This photo was part of the CUAM exhibition, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust.” Photo courtesy of Evgenii Khaldeii and the Fotosoyuz Agency
Both works focus on the lives and work of Soviet-Jewish World War II photographers. The exhibit, filled with images captured by these professional photographers in the years prior to Americans arriving at their first concentration camp, supply a reading of the Holocaust that Western viewers might be unfamiliar with.
Tamiris Becker says the exhibit “gives much more focus to the complexity of the whole World War II experience and the Holocaust. Even beyond that, a typical American, and even one quite well-educated, is taught very little about the Eastern Front conflict altogether, and is taught very little about how strong the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was as allies to defeat the Nazis, and that is because certain aspects of the history were repressed, because of things that happened afterward in the Cold War. So it’s a quest for knowledge.”
But why does a different view of history matter? Shneer answers, “We want our students to have a more complex understanding of these events, which make our students better writers and thinkers, better communicators and better negotiators.”
Tamiris Becker echoes Shneer, noting the importance of connecting to the world. “The informed citizen, in terms of democracy, is also very important because we have leaders of nations that are reasserting Holocaust denial, and it’s a living reality. The point is that this is real.”
Humanities research like Shneer’s benefits students who experience it directly.
Lovett felt this while at CU. “My professors who did research and taught were closer to their subjects and had more current information that they were able to bring back to the classroom.”
Today, Shneer is one of these professors. “All of the research that I do ends up making its way into the classroom because I choose the research topics that I actually think make a difference in the world.”
Zimmerman would surely agree. He previously wrote, “Even though achievements in the natural sciences usually garner the lion’s share of publicity at CU-Boulder as in other major state universities, the fact is that CU artists and humanists have made major contributions in research and teaching. The benefits of such research and creative work spill over into the classroom. Having so many intelligent, creative, and dedicated colleagues is a source of pride and satisfaction.”
Lovett concurs, “I learned that very few things are black and white and you must be open to different interpretations from different people. It is what makes life so interesting.”
“Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust” was displayed through Oct. 22 at the CU Art Museum. To hear David Shneer speak about his research on Colorado Public Radio, see http://www.cpr.org/#load_article%7CDenver_Remembers_the_Babi_Yar_Massacre.
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