Tracking Changes in the Humanities

Most support for research and teaching in the humanities comes from within higher education itself. Yet, critics of the contemporary university have argued that the humanities are losing ground inside America’s colleges and universities. Verifying if this is true requires reliable and measurable data about such topics as trends in university financing, student enrollments in humanities courses, growth in numbers of tenure track faculty, and later career choices of humanities graduates.

However, the humanities lack the reliable, comprehensive, and consistently updated data necessary to draw accurate conclusions about the state of the humanities in higher education, or elsewhere. As a result, the Initiative for Humanities and Culture seeks ways to improve the collection, maintenance, and analysis of humanities-related data. In 2003, the Academy convened a two-day workshop that brought together two very different groups: representatives from several of the larger learned societies in the humanities and researchers who specialize in educational policy. The workshop provided the first occasion for participants to identify common research questions and begin building a research community interested in humanities policy issues.

Participants in the Academy workshop suggested three large topics the Academy should explore in its efforts to refine the statistical resources available to the humanities: (1) additional issues in funding for the humanities, especially in the wake of new debates over the “commercialization” of higher education; (2) career paths of students who major in the humanities as undergraduates, as well as those who receive Ph.D.s in the humanities; and (3) changes in the content and quality of liberal arts education.

Four essays that emerged from the workshop were published together in an Academy Occasional Paper, titled Tracking Changes in the Humanities: Essays on Finance and Education. The papers explore such topics as university financing of humanities departments, post-baccalaureate opportunities for humanities graduates, and the development of statistical indicators for the liberal arts. Together, they demonstrate the need for further substantive research in these areas, offer valuable suggestions for pursuing that research, and underscore the importance of sustaining the dialogue among humanists and educational researchers.

The Rockefeller and Hewlett Foundations provided funding for this project.