Is The New Yorker right about ASU?
The decline of the humanities degree
In your recent article, The End of the English Major, Nathan Heller looks specifically at ASU and its declining enrolment in the humanities. He spoke highly of the accomplishments we have at ASU:
“A.S.U., which is centered in Tempe and has more than eighty thousand students on campus, is today regarded as a beacon for the democratic promises of public higher education. Its undergraduate admission rate is eighty-eight per cent. Nearly half its undergraduates are from minority backgrounds, and a third are the first in their families to go to college. The in-state tuition averages just four thousand dollars, yet A.S.U. has a better faculty-to-student ratio on site than U.C. Berkeley and spends more on faculty research than Princeton.”
But he also highlighted the problems for the humanities in keeping up with STEM. The Dean of the Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Jeffrey Cohen, wrote a reply that was sent to us faculty. Dean Cohen argues that Heller did not consider a few points: 1) ASU is creating a unique school that does not differentiate between online and onsite students; 2) ASU is working for the greatest access while also having high standards of excellence; 3) the humanities numbers can be misleading for a number of reasons; 4) you can always find people lamenting the decline of the university, and he gives a Samuel Johnson quote among others.
Can I suggest a different problem behind the decline? I am not in Dean Cohen’s college. I am in New College, in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies. I am a professor of philosophy and religious studies. We are not doing well with the number of majors.
Here is the problem: we no longer permit academic freedom of inquiry. And that translates into a lack of meaning and purpose that the students can sense. The problem is that these degrees no longer offer meaning but instead are ideological factories that impose a belief system on the students.
Why do I say this? My School and College have adopted the decolonizing philosophy as the standard by which our teaching and research are to be judged. In my School, we must explain in our annual review how we have advanced the decolonizing philosophy in our classroom. My College has added the decolonizing philosophy to our bylaws as part of hiring and promotion. This means we are no longer allowed to question or disagree with the decolonizing philosophy.
If you heard that a state university required its professors to explain in an annual review how they have advanced Christian philosophy in a classroom, I think you’d be rightly troubled. The reply is that state universities are not places for faith statements or creeds, and especially in the humanities, we are permitted freedom of inquiry and questioning everything.
ASU’s New College and School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies has adopted a faith statement and requires its professors and students to accept the truth of the decolonizing philosophy. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that students will look either to other majors or to other universities where the freedom of inquiry is still maintained.
If a student wants to attend a university with a faith statement, there are two Christian universities very close to ASU. But ASU is a state university and does not require subscribing to a specific belief system. Parents and students are generally unaware of this radical ideology at ASU’s New College and would be interested to know. For those that are aware, this might be a significant factor in avoiding humanities classes in New College.
The decline in the humanities is due to their no longer offering their students the pursuit of meaning through learning how to think and question. Whether this translates into a job or not, it is the core of a good life. When ASU’s New College stops imposing beliefs on its professors and students and instead offers them the pursuit of meaning, these humanities majors will become much more attractive.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major