<p>Slacfac. You may well be an excellent professor who is in the process of opening up and facilitating the innate interests in your students. However, I think there are, and you KNOW there are a significant number of professors using the humanities classroom as a platform for social justice issues. These issues might well be important, but they are reductive and diminish the value of a humanities education, except as the ancillary issues they are.</p>
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<p>I know there are SOME, but in my (admittedly anecdotal experience), I’ve more often seen powerful, tenured “traditionalist” faculty belittling (and encouraging students to belittle) untenured faculty–without any hue or cry from dean/provost-like creatures–while screaming about how they’re the oppressed ones. Oddly enough, I find myself unmoved by their plight. In my personal experience I’d say that I know equal numbers of liberal and conservative faculty *who actually bring their politics into the classroom in a strong way<a href=“to%20be%20sure,%20most%20of%20the%20faculty%20I%20know%20are%20left-leaning”>/i</a>. Again, that’s just my personal experience, and while I know of studies that talk about the ideological leanings of the professoriate, I don’t know of any that talk about the actual consequences in terms of curriculum/student treatment that result. </p>
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<p>I am far from a Social Justice Panda, but I think that this statement needs more elaboration and defense. I could easily imagine a reasonable argument for social justice as a core value in a humanities education. I don’t think I’d fully agree with it, but I could imagine it. Would you mind providing some more specific elaboration on your vision of a humanities education?</p>
<p>I can see the value in exploring the social justice curriculum within the context of the humanities, as a filter that needs to be exposed as a filter, a point of view, just as it is important to understand that a conservative filter overlays much mid-century modern work in the American cannon. However, when a professor is advancing and not exposing a political agenda or bias, the professor is a tool and not a teacher of critical thought.</p>
<p>Indoctrination is indoctrination, regardless of the source, regardless of whether I agree or not. All original thought comes in reaction against doctrine and dogma and the expansion and inclusion. When concepts are held as “truths” in the humanities, they have lost their value, and the teacher has lost his or her own way.</p>
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<p>Therein lies the rub, so to speak. If the college/department does have a defacto social justice bent, then critical discussion/thinking that might not concur will be disfavored.</p>
<p>Humanities: The Practical Degree</p>
<p>[The</a> value of the humanities and social sciences - Opinion - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/06/20/the-value-humanities-and-social-sciences/FSqMmZoHXnxmuGLrlbLFzL/story.html]The”>http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/06/20/the-value-humanities-and-social-sciences/FSqMmZoHXnxmuGLrlbLFzL/story.html)</p>
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<p>Is this a situation where someone’s claiming exclusion because they were challenged or had to present evidence that was satisfactory even to those who didn’t buy their metaphysical worldview or had to listen to a dissenting view get equal time? In my experience–again, anecdotal–that’s what most of these claims of “exclusion” boil down to. Some people do not react well when they are confronted by people who believe in different deities (or who don’t believe at all) or when they are forced to give time to someone else who sees the world from a very different life perspective. As long as the student isn’t being nasty to everyone, I will be very patient with a student, especially if s/he is an freshman or sophomore. I have a very clear memory of coming to the realization that the world did not operate according to flawless merit principles, and I remember needing a period to fully digest and integrate that into the rest of my world. Students of all ideological stripes need time to digest new information and perspectives, and college should be a place for that–again, so long as the student isn’t being nasty. </p>
<p>To me the above things are vastly different from things like being mocked in class by the professor, the professor not stopping other students from being inappropriate, grade retaliation, the exclusion of a legitimate source on ideological grounds, etc. While I know that these things do happen, and the professors responsible should be reprimanded, I’m still not convinced that this is a widespread problem.</p>
<p>I would suggest it does not need to be ubiquitous to be widespread</p>
<p>And it is widespread enough to have made the entire field suspect. And that is a great loss to us all.</p>
<p>@SLACFac: Thanks for the answer. I think a student could, under the right circumstances, learn a great deal from this course.</p>
<p>The core of my question was intended to explore the idea of an academic major, not just the difference between a formal course and a library card. Before taking a trip to Europe, I might choose to take a relevant class at my local community college or university. If I were lucky, I might get a similar experience to what you have described, but I would not be seeking a degree in the subject.
How do you determine what methods are indicative of quality work?
Rotella: “Full and effective participation in a postindustrial society and economy requires advanced analytical and expressive ability, and studying the humanities and social sciences is essential to developing those abilities.”</p>
<p>This is an empirical claim, and I don’t think we should accept it without empirical evidence. If studying the humanities is to be outcome-driven, what are the outcomes and how are they measured?</p>
<p>I did not claim that the problem had to meet a standard of ubiquity; I simply want to see the evidence that it is genuinely widespread.</p>
<p>As for the perception that this is a widespread problem, a not insignificant percentage of the American populace often believes statements that are categorically false (President Obama’s religion springs to mind as an easy example). It is not difficult to propagate a misleading narrative using persuasive tools like compelling, though not necessarily representative, examples. I would rather address an inaccurate perception–should it indeed be inaccurate–instead of fixing a problem that does not exist. </p>
<p>@noimagination–I’ll respond to your larger question in another post in a little bit, but if I may toot my own horn: yes, students learn a lot from the courses I teach. They aren’t cramming into my seminars that are, on the surface, about somewhat obscure and “irrelevant” topics because the classes are easy. :)</p>
<p>Cool. Since you feel nothing needs addressing, we need not continue</p>
<p>I think that your grossly mischaracterize the nature of my posts, but if you would like to stop this discussion, then I will consider it closed.</p>
<p>I’m not characterizing your posts in any way. You just compared what I said to the interest in Obama religion. Which doesn’t even intrigue me at all. I’m familiar with the game</p>
<p>Your claim, as I understand it, is that abuses (like a social justice focus) have led to a suspicion of the humanities among the public.</p>
<p>I am asking for actual evidence that these abuses are real and widespread–the fact that people suspect the humanities because they think there are these abuses going on doesn’t mean that the abuses are actually happening in the way that some people may think they are. I cited the poll statistics about Obama’s religion simply in order to demonstrate that the perception of the populace is not always accurate and, absent corroborating evidence, it is risky to base a case solely on the opinions of the populace. What is the evidence demonstrating that the public’s suspicion of the humanities is accurate and justified? What if the real problem is that groups that have an interest in devaluing the humanities have amplified (real) egregious examples and crafted a narrative that presents these examples as representative of the whole–a misleading synecdoche of sorts–thus creating an inaccurate perception of what is going on in the humanities as a whole?</p>
<p>What we know, unequivocally, is that there is an extreme liberal bias in the academy. I can present the studies, except I am on my phone. I don’t have access to the links. </p>
<p>How about presenting me with evidence of conservatism in the academy?</p>
<p>I’m a liberal and even I see that when you have departments closing and shrinking and you are not gaining students, you have a credibility issue. Why exactly do YOU think this is?</p>
<p>I freely acknowledged in one of my previous posts that the academy has a liberal bias. You are correct; there is much evidence for that. However, what I am having trouble finding evidence for is that this liberal bias translates into genuinely problematic classroom practices of the type that I named in a previous post–not discussing legitimate sources due to their ideology, allowing students to be mistreated by other students, grade retaliation, or not providing a safe space for expression of all perspectives (assuming said perspectives are being expressed in a way that avoids slurs, etc.)</p>
<p>I’m not being disingenuous–I would genuinely like to see some good studies that study this issue in a broader context, because without them all I have to go on are my own experiences, which shouldn’t be used to dictate policies! </p>
<p>That said, in my experience the biggest “challenge” is the last one–students not feeling free to express their views. However, understanding the dynamics of this is extremely complicated. Some students love disagreeing with a professor. Others don’t and consider anything other than a professor that validates their worldview to be problematic. Student fears and expectations might not match actual faculty behavior. I mean, I really, honestly, genuinely don’t know anyone who penalizes the grade of a student who disagrees with them–many times I have heard some variant on “I hated it, but it earned a good grade.” One of the highest paper grades I have given in my career went to the single most morally reprehensible paper I have had the displeasure of reading in my career. However, as disgusting as I found it, the student used legitimate evidence and used it well, and that’s what matters to me, and to everyone else I know. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I know you are right and that SOME professors aren’t that way. I want to know how many (approx., of course) SOMEs there are, where they are, and how they are punishing students. I think that having that specific information can help us best address whatever problem there may be, if, indeed, it is a problem that needs a broad solution and not something that individual institutions are best equipped to address.</p>
<p>Humanities departments might be losing students for a number of reasons: perceived unemployability, perceived lack of ROI, perceived hostility to ________ views, etc. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that the poster who suggested that the perceived economic weakness of these disciplines was more to blame than culture wars stuff was correct–but I’m also willing to admit that there might be data out there that prove me wrong.</p>
<p>I think it’s both and more. I also think the bias contributes to the unemployability issue. I also believe that you are seriously misunderstanding the level of silencing students are experiencing on campuses, but nobody in the academy seems to want to ask why students feel this way. If they wanted to know, there would be studies</p>
<p>I will start with you then: what views of yours, specifically, did you feel were being silenced during the course of your education? How were they silenced? Via the professor? The other students?</p>
<p>I received my doctorate a couple of decades ago. My experience as a student is no longer relevant. What I know from my daughters friends who’ve all just finished undergrad is that it’s pretty much a running joke how predictably politicized the humanities have become. These kids are liberal and THEY find it hilarious. To me that’s sad.</p>