Humanities Indicators
As part of the Initiative for Humanities and Culture,
the Academy is working with a consortium of humanities organizations to compile
and analyze existing data on the state of the humanities. Patterned after the
influential Science and Engineering Indicators (published every other
year by the National Science Board), a prototype set of Humanities Indicators
is organized into five categories: 1) primary and secondary education; 2)
undergraduate and graduate education; 3) humanities research and funding; 4)
the humanities workforce; and 5) the humanities in American life.
The Humanities Indicators will equip researchers and
policymakers at universities, foundations, public humanities institutions, and
government agencies with better statistical tools for answering basic questions
about undergraduate and graduate degrees in the humanities, employment of
humanities graduates, levels of program funding, public understanding of the
humanities, and other areas of concern in the humanities. The initial set of
Indicators will respond to the most immediate needs of national humanities
organizations and will be expanded over time to provide useful information to a
wide range of users. Interpretive essays will accompany the model indicators.
The Humanities Indicators Leadership Group advises the
Academy on this project. The group is comprised of senior figures in both the
humanities and the social sciences and includes representatives from
professional associations in the humanities, such as the Modern Language
Association, the American Historical Association, the College Art Association,
the National Humanities Alliance, and the American Council of Learned
Societies, among others.
The prototype set of Humanities Indicators will be
posted on the Academy’s Humanities Resources Website. The
website will also include statistical data and commentaries, a directory of
humanities organizations and state councils, and a list of publications about
the humanities.
Another Academy project, the
Humanities Departmental Survey, is generating new data from a sample of
approximately 1,100 college and university humanities departments: history,
English, foreign languages and literatures, art history, linguistics, and
religion. That information, which is being collected on a pilot basis during
the 2007-2008 academic year, will be analyzed and made available
electronically.
The Humanities Indicators project has released three
reports reviewing statistical data and funding trends in the humanities:
The Academy has received funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the Humanities Indicators project. Read the Press Release.
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