<p>Defying the Humanities Crisis
By
Carl Straumsheim</p>
<p>Many humanities programs are fighting off cuts and trying to hold on to faculty lines, but two philosophy departments are boosting their enrollments and reputations through a combination of administrations willing to invest in the discipline and departments eager to go beyond them.</p>
<p>[...]Meanwhile, the department at the University of Southern California has hired almost a dozen new professors in the last decade.</p>
<p>USC's hiring has caused the program to rocket up 35 spots on the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which ranks graduate programs in philosophy based on the reputation of their faculty members.</p>
<p>[N]o department has improved more over the last decade than USC, Brian Leiter, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who edits the report, said in an e-mail. He said USC, tied at No. 11, is likely to crack the top 10 if its upward trajectory continues.</p>
<p>While USCs ranking stems from the quality and reputation of its faculty, the philosophy department has expanded its interdisciplinary programs for undergraduate and graduate students alike. New additions include a progressive 5-year master of arts degree in philosophy and law, and an interdisciplinary major in philosophy, politics and law, which has grown from 18 to 201 students in less than four years. In that same time, the departments total number of philosophy majors has gone from about 125 to 258, said Scott Soames, chairman of USC's philosophy department.</p>
<p>Notable hires at USC include three professors from the University of Oxford: John Hawthorne, Ralph Wedgwood and Gabriel Uzquiano Cruz. Soames left Princeton University to join USC in 2004</p>
<p>"At a time in which [humanities programs] are losing majors everywhere, we doubled, Soames said. We doubled it in large part because we thought that there was a way that we could reach a broader public by combining what we had to offer with what these other units had to offer.</p>
<p>Soames said the department is also planning to participate in two new interdisciplinary programs -- one involving health ethics and policies, the other environmental science. Instead of diluting the study of philosophy by combining it with courses in social sciences, </p>
<p>Soames said his discipline is well-positioned to connect with other disciplines.
Philosophys specialty, really, is in helping to shape inquiries and questions that are initially not at home in any established discipline, Soames said. [W]e have to find ways of what we do meet the needs of the students of our university community. </p>
<p>Read more: UConn</a>, USC philosophy departments defy downward trend in humanities | Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed</p>