Let a ‘lowly state university graduate’ explain why these programs are vital
Re “To study the humanities, or not to study them” (Page A1, Aug. 11): May a lowly state university graduate dare to comment on the concern of administrators at “selective” colleges about the value of the liberal arts? None of the academics quoted in Hilary Burns’s article gave an example of a career path that a liberal arts major, especially one without family contacts, might pursue. Perhaps they can’t because that is not the point.
Decades ago, study of the humanities was intended to prepare upper-class young men to enter their elite societies as members of the learned professions and upper-class young women to fit into those societies as appropriate spouses. As higher education became more accessible to the middle and working classes, there was an awareness that even non-elites can appreciate the arts and humanities while they earned their living in jobs not directly connected to their academic interests. The humanities filled their minds and souls while their paychecks filled their pockets.
Today’s emphasis on the need for a degree from a so-called elite college as a guarantee of financial success and personal happiness underscores the weakness of a society seeking to solidify social classes, not broaden or truly diversify them.
During my own early graduate studies, I worked as a substitute teacher in high schools serving different ethnic and socioeconomic districts. My most rewarding experiences were not with talented upper-middle-class students but rather with young people from working-class backgrounds who had no plans for college or any sense that the humanities might play a part in their lives. To see the expression on the face of a young man or woman excited by a work of art or an idea they had never encountered or even thought of as part of their own world remains among the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Kathryn Ruth Bloom
Boston
In the age of AI, the humanities are more important than ever
Nobody can deny the utility of teaching students skills that will secure their material well-being in an ever-evolving socioeconomic environment. However, the true aims of education ought to go beyond making us valuable to the purposes of an exterior world; it should make us valuable to ourselves by inculcating a richness of appreciation of our personal world of experience. Failing that, we end up knowing only the price of things, with no ability to understand their worth in broader contexts.
Humanities, as the word suggests, are what fundamentally distinguish human societies from anthills — mere efficacious systems to propagate a biological species. It is ironic that as technology advances artificial intelligence to create ever more competent automatons, we face increasing pressure to pare down our educational offerings so as to turn out human individuals of a similar status.
Keith Backman
Bedford
One conversation with the hiring manager and she was off and running
I still remember the exact conversation when I knew I’d gotten the job. With zero technical background, a master’s degree in English and comparative literature, and a college English teaching resume, I applied for a tech writing position at Wang Labs, where I was already working as a secretary.
I asked the hiring manager, “Do you prefer someone technical who can also write, or a writer who is also technical?”
She replied, “Oh, a writer. You can teach someone something technical, but you can’t teach them how to write.”
I retired last year, from a company in Chelmsford, after a total of 37 years as a tech writer. I credit my liberal arts education with my writing skills, my confidence in my writing skills, and the capacity to be taught all kinds of stuff.
Fredda Ceike
Townsend
Low enrollments in liberal arts point to a deeper cultural problem
In her article “To study the humanities, or not to study them,” Hilary Burns notes that Simmons University and Lasell University have cut liberal arts programs “including history, modern languages, philosophy, and literature” due to low enrollment. This trend reflects a deeper cultural problem: how to finance and incentivize education that teaches people to think and to be citizens.
The term “artes liberales” in the Roman world of late antiquity did not denote liberalism or the arts in the modern sense; rather, it identified the skills necessary to be a free and active citizen. Schools such as Simmons and Lasell are not the source of the problem. Nevertheless, I would question whether the expansive term “university” can fairly be claimed by any institution that is more devoted to job-readiness than citizen-readiness.
Jeffrey Scheuer
West Tisbury
The writer is the author of “Inside the Liberal Arts: Critical Thinking and Citizenship.”