Three distinguished humanists emphasized the necessity of the humanities to society Wednesday night on campus as part of the University of Wisconsin’s Year of the Humanities.
The panel said declaring boldly the importance of the humanities is the way to ensure their future.
Don Randel, president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, said people overlook the humanities because they do not have a great monetary value when compared with other areas such as business.
“The value of humanities is located in the place where productivity gains are least profitable,” Randel said.
James Leach, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, added maintaining higher education through universities should be a main focus of humanists.
The panelists agreed recruiting more majors is a large obstacle, especially because of competition from higher paying fields.
Pauline Yu, president of the American Council of Learned Societies, said she believes more students would go into the humanities if it were not for pressure from peer advisors and their parents.
“With parents who have their eye on the bottom line, it is hard for them to make the leap (of support) between art history and financial security,” she said.
Randel proposed starting from the opposite end of the education spectrum — with the family — rather than trying to convert students in college.
“One of our problems is that we think ourselves entitled to receive these fertile minds that have been prepared to take up what we have,” Randel said. “We can’t let ourselves off the hook on that front.”
He said, for example, by getting students to fall in love with books at a young age, they will continue the love affair throughout their academic careers and may eventually choose to work in the humanities.
Randel used the example of role models and said those attending the lecture were inspired by people who got them excited about the humanities, an excitement that needs to be translated to a younger generation.
“What’s really crucial about that education … it was being in the presence of some transforming individual,” Randel said.
One way to establish the role of the humanities is to advocate on behalf of them. Civil discourse is the key to promoting the humanities, Leach said.
“The process of civility implies politeness, but civil discourse [requires] a willingness to consider others’ views,” Leach said. “It’s about building bridges of understanding.”
For Leach, these “bridges of understanding” are words, because they contain emotion in addition to meaning, and allow people to have control of their own thoughts.
Andrew Mahlstedt, third-year Ph.D. candidate, enjoyed the event because of how the speakers analyzed their own subject.
“The questions were really good and self-critical, which is always good in any discipline…to be aware that we’re not publicly perceived as relevant sometimes,” Mahlstedt said. “It’s something, as a teacher, you’re trying to do more — to make yourself seem relevant.”
Despite the competition the humanities faces from other disciplines, Randel said no matter the outlook, as long as there is curiosity, there is hope.
“Without that spirit of inquiry there is not much hope for us,” he said. “I am a hoper for the humanities in spite of everything.”
