Project

Humanities Indicators

Arts & Humanities
Education
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The Humanities Indicators is a nationally recognized source of nonpartisan information on the state of the humanities, providing researchers and policy-makers with better tools to answer basic questions about areas of concern in the field.

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K - 12 Education
Higher Education
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Public Life

New: A wide-ranging survey of humanities departments—the fourth conducted by the Humanities Indicators project since 2008—offers fresh evidence on the state of the academic humanities. You can read the report here or download the PDF.

Report cover for The Academic Humanities Today

To address a need for statistical data in the humanities, the Academy, in collaboration with humanities institutions and leaders throughout the country, developed a set of reliable, comprehensive, and consistently updated statistical data necessary to chart trends and draw conclusions, including a standard definition for the humanities. The Humanities Indicators cover 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 Indicators data are drawn from existing sources and the project is also generating new data through surveys of colleges and universities, the humanities in American life survey, and a National Inventory of Humanities Organizations. The Humanities Indicators are designed to equip researchers and policymakers, universities, foundations, museums, libraries, humanities councils, and other public institutions with better statistical tools to answer basic questions about the state of the humanities.

Register to receive notification of new indicator updates, original research, and issues of our research brief series.

People

People

Co-Principal Investigators
Advisory Group

Edward Ayers

University of Richmond
President Emeritus
Academy Member

Jack Buckley

American Institutes for Research

Jonathan R. Cole

Columbia University

Joy Connolly

American Council of Learned Societies
President
Academy Member

John Dichtl

American Association for State and Local History

Michael Hout

New York University
Professor of Sociology
Academy Member

Felice J. Levine

American Educational Research Association

Phoebe Stein

Federation of State Humanities Councils

Judith Tanur

Stony Brook University
Staff
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Publications

Publications

Data Publication |
OCT 2023

Employment Outcomes for Humanities Majors: State Profiles

In the first national study of its kind, the Humanities Indicators project reports on the career outcomes of humanities majors in each state and the District of Columbia. The profiles estimate the number of humanities majors working full-time in each state, their median earnings, as well as their occupations and unemployment rate.
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Show More Publications
Data Publication |
NOV 2021

State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce & Beyond

A new study finds that humanities majors are similar to graduates from almost every other field with respect to perceived well-being, even though they tend to earn less and have slightly higher levels of unemployment than business majors and graduates from some STEM fields.
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Humanities
Report |
NOV 2020

The Humanities in American Life

A national survey by the Academy's Humanities Indicators reveals considerable public engagement in a range of humanities activities at home and in the workplace, as well as wide support that the humanities confer personal, societal, and economic benefits.
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Humanities
Research Paper |
MAR 2019

Humanities Education in Community Colleges

The humanities are a large and growing presence in community colleges. To more fully capture the scale and character of humanities education at these institutions, the Humanties Indicators surveyed the nation’s community colleges on three key topics.
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Education
Data Publication |
NOV 2018

The Humanities in Our Lives

An expanded series of one-pagers couple data about the humanities with profiles of innovative programs in the field, reflecting a holistic view of the humanities.
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Education
Data Publication |
FEB 2018

The State of the Humanities 2018: Graduates in the Workforce & Beyond

This report, based largely on original research commissioned by the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators, examines a broader range of measures about holders of four-year bachelor’s degrees, including graduates’ satisfaction with their jobs, finances, and lives generally. (An update of this report was published in 2022.)
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Report |
JAN 2013

Humanities Report Card 2013

This report card provides a snapshot of where the humanities are today—their value to American society, their continuing vitality, and at the same time, the many challenges they currently face.
Project
Humanities Indicators
Arts & Humanities
Research Paper |

Tracking Changes in the Humanities

Authors James C. Hearn, Alexander V. Gorbunov, Donald C. Summers, Edward P. St. John, Ontario S. Wooden, Patricia J. Gumport, and John D. Jennings
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News & Updates

News & Updates

Bulletin
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From Matriculation to Completion: How College Students Move Between Majors

A new study by the Academy’s Humanities Indicators (HI) staff reveals significant changes in students’ majors from the time they begin their baccalaureate studies to when they complete a degree (if they do). To arrive at these findings, the HI staff commissioned data from the National Student Clearinghouse, which provides the most comprehensive information available on students’ educational pathways through higher education. The data focused on the cohort of students who began their studies in fall 2017 and their status as of June 2024.
Four people walk through the stacks of a library, two are fully visible at the end of an aisle. One has brown skin and long black hair. The other has brown skin and long light brown hair. Both are smiling.
Bulletin
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The State(s) of the Humanities

In recent months, the media has been filled with reports of colleges and universities nationwide cutting humanities programs, at institutions ranging from large state flagships (such as West Virginia University) to smaller liberal arts colleges (such as Simmons and Lasell Universities). To clarify some of the choices involved in these decisions, the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project is releasing a series of reports on the state of the humanities in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia. These reports demonstrate the depth of the challenges facing the humanities (with the numbers of humanities degrees declining in all but three states), but they also provide resources to counter some of the prevailing narratives about career outcomes for graduates in the humanities.
Show More News & Updates
In the News
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Opinion: Ask not what can be done with a humanities degree

Ann Ardis writes, "The workforce data in this new American Academy of Arts & Sciences report is the perfect complement to individual storytelling in helping today’s humanities majors think through 'What are you going to do with that?'"
Source
The Hechinger Report
In the News
|

Stop Corporatizing My Students

Responding to recent trends devaluing humanistic training, including a statement from a Mississippi state official, Beth Ann Fennelly argues for the importance of the humanities in higher education, citing a 2018 report issued by the Humanities Indicators.
Source
New York Times
In the News
|

The Humanities As a Theory of Change

This profile of Ruth Simmons - a visionary higher education leader and Academy member - emphasizes the role of the humanities in shaping Simmons as a thinker and leader, and explores the significance of the humanities for others. Author Antoinette Burton cites a recent Academy report on career outcomes of humanities majors.
Source
Public Seminar
In the News
|

How Do Humanities Majors Fare in the Work Force?

Audrey Williams June explores key findings from a recent Humanities Indicators report, which shows that college graduates who major in humanities outearn people with no degree and earn similar median salaries as those who major in behavioral or social sciences, arts, or education.
Source
The Chronicle of Higher Education
In the News
|

Debunking Perceptions About Value of Humanities Degrees

Kathryn Palmer examines key findings from the latest Humanities Indicators report, which shows that humanities majors outearn people with no degree, as faculty across the nation make the case for continued funding of the humanities.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
A person with light brown skin and a shaved head wears a graduation cap and gown, as well as a surgical mask. They face their fellow graduates.
Bulletin
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Undergraduates Apparently Undeterred by the Pandemic

Despite the many challenges to higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by every field except the humanities increased through the end of the 2021 academic year.
A digital rendering of the Creation by Michelangelo, where the hand of Adam has been redrawn to look like a circuit board.
Bulletin
|

The Humanities and the Rise of the Terabytes

A decade has passed since the publication of The Heart of the Matter, the influential report on the value of the humanities by the Academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. What has happened to the humanities over the past ten years, and what might we do to better support the humanities in the future?

The 2111th Stated Meeting featured remarks from Danielle Allen, a member of the Commission that authored The Heart of the Matter, who reflected on the humanities as a historical and contemporary practice in an age of digital superabundance. The meeting also included a conversation between Allen and arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown about the practical applications for the humanities, what works and what doesn’t for asserting their value, and their role in contemporary political debates and culture wars. Academy President David W. Oxtoby offered introductory remarks. An edited version of the presentations and discussion follows.
Bulletin
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Dædalus Explores the Public Faces of the Humanities

By Jessica Taylor, Louis W. Cabot Fellow in Humanities Policy at the Academy, and Robert B. Townsend, Director of Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs at the Academy and Codirector of the Humanities Indicators
Press Release
|

New Dædalus Explores the Public Faces of the Humanities

The newest issue of the Academy journal is dedicated to “The Humanities in American Life: Transforming the Relationship with the Public.” The issue is guest edited by Carin Berkowitz, Norman Bradburn & Robert B. Townsend. All the essays are online.
Press Release
|

The Humanities Retain a Substantial Role in the Nation’s High Schools

High school students continue to engage with the humanities (English, languages, and history) at a high rate, albeit with evidence of some troubling racial disparities, according to new findings from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Humanities Indicators.
In the News
|

Humanities Graduate Education Is Shrinking

A new report from the Humanities Indicators project finds that master’s degrees in humanities fields peaked in 2012 and Ph.Ds. three years later. There are no signs of a bounce back.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
Bulletin
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What Becomes of Graduates after College? A New Humanities Indicators Report Offers Clues

College graduates – regardless of their major – earn considerably more than those without college degrees, and they are highly likely to be satisfied with their jobs and their lives. These are among the key takeaways from a new report, State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce & Beyond, from the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project. The report gathered and analyzed data on a variety of outcome measures, including perceived well-being, earnings, and financial and occupational satisfaction.
In the News
|

Humanities Graduates Are Happy With Their Lives

A new survey found that more than 90 percent of graduates are happy with their lives, despite all the pundits who say they shouldn’t be. Inside Higher Ed delves into other findings from the new Humanities Indicators workforce report.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
In the News
|

U.S. humanities graduates feel unprepared for life beyond college

Close to half of U.S. humanities graduates feel that their undergraduate institution did not prepare them for life and regret their choice of major. The problem – amid a general mood of satisfaction – may trace to unrealistic expectations.
Source
Times Higher Education
In the News
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The Adjunct Problem Is a Data Problem

Why does academe still lack accurate information about non-tenure-track faculty members?
Source
The Chronicle of Higher Education
In the News
|

I Love the Public Humanities, But...

Instituted incautiously, the public humanities can threaten faculty speech and encourage cash-chasing. Feisal G. Mohamed discusses how getting it right will require structural change on the American campus — and some institutional investment in humanities departments.
Source
The Chronicle of Higher Education
In the News
|

Museums Can Renew America Through the Semiquincentennial

The 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding is approaching, and the opportunities are huge for museums to reframe history and engage their communities more deeply.
Source
American Alliance of Museums
Academy Article
|

Humanities Degrees Declining Worldwide Except at Community Colleges

The Humanities Indicators released updates on recent trends in humanities degrees today, demonstrating continued declines in humanities bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in the years before the pandemic. The notable exception was found at two-year colleges.
In the News
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Humanities Majors Don’t ‘Catch Up’ to Peers, Report Says

Data from the latest release by the Humanities Indicators project of the American Academy indicate the earnings of older humanities majors never ‘catch up’ to those of their peers in other disciplines.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
Bulletin
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New Academy Survey Reveals the Humanities in American Life

The American public holds the humanities in high regard, and most people engage in one or more humanistic activities at work and in their leisure hours, according to a recent national survey by the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project. The survey, conducted with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, asked 5,015 Americans age eighteen and older who participate in NORC at the University of Chicago’s nationally representative AmeriSpeak Panel about their engagement in a variety of humanistic activities, as well as their beliefs about the personal, societal, and economic benefits of the humanities.
In the News
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The Future of the Humanities Can Be Found in Its Public Forums

Academy member Judith Butler discusses the Humanities Indicators’ survey on the humanities in American life, concluding that the future of the humanities may well depend on realizing that the best case for art, poetry, literature, and performance is already being made by our most publicly engaged fields.
Source
MLA Commons
In the News
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The Humanities [Are Everywhere] in American Life

Robert Townsend, Codirector of the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project, speaks with Karin Wulf of The Scholarly Kitchen about “The Humanities in American Life” survey findings and implications.
Source
The Scholarly Kitchen
In the News
|

Reconsidering the Value of Language Learning on Campuses

Roberto Rey Agudo explores what a recent survey by the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators initiative tells us about the value and meaningfulness of language learning in college.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
In the News
|

Survey on American Attitudes on the Humanities

Just over half of Americans agree strongly with the statement that “the humanities should be an important part of every American’s education,” according to a new survey from the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators project.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
Press Release
|

Exploring the Humanities in American Life

In a new release today, the American Academy reports on the first broad national survey on the humanities, which asked Americans about their engagement in a variety of humanistic activities, as well as their beliefs about the personal, societal, and economic benefits of the humanities.
Press Release
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Americans and the Humanities: New Data, New Insights

A new report provides data and insights about how Americans engage in the humanities and what their views are on the benefits of pursuits such as studying or participating in activities related to art history, languages, literature, history, and philosophy.
Students and Teacher in College Classroom
Academy Article
|

A Profile of Humanities Departments pre-Covid

A wide-ranging survey of humanities departments shows that prior to the pandemic, departments in most humanities disciplines appeared relatively unchanged since the Great Recession, with the exception of declines in undergraduate degrees.
In the News
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Teaching Humanities Courses Online

Suddenly trying to teach humanities courses online? Mind your presence, ask good questions and manage expectations, experts say, citing data from the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators project.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
Bulletin
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Humanities Indicators Project Explores the Public Humanities

While much of the discussion about the state of the humanities tends to focus on the declining number of students majoring in the humanities, the health of the field relies on a much wider array of practices. The American Academy’s Humanities Indicators project has been exploring this wider frame of humanities activity by compiling data from federal sources and conducting the first national survey about the health of the field.
Museum and Visitors
Academy Article
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Visits to Historic Sites and Museums on the Rise

In updates released this morning, the American Academy's Humanities Indicators report that visits to historic sites, museums, and art galleries are on the rise in recent years.
Academy Article
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New Evidence on Waning American Reading Habits

The American Academy's Humanities Indicators project provides new indicators on Americans' dwindling engagement with books, the types of texts they are reading, changing attitudes about censorship, and student reading proficiency.
Bulletin
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Rediscovering Humanities Education in Community Colleges

Much of the attention about the humanities in higher education tends to focus on four-year colleges and universities (and more specifically, on the declining number of students who major in the humanities). In recent years, the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators (HI) have been exploring the growing presence of the humanities in the community college sector.
In the News
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The Humanities at Community Colleges

In an effort to draw attention to the extent of the humanities at two-year colleges, the Academy's Humanities Indicators conducted a national survey of community colleges and today releases the findings.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
In the News
|

What the Numbers Can Tell Us About Humanities Ph.D. Careers

The humanities are anomalous in their focus on academe as being “the one true career path” for students, Robert Townsend said, which is why he feels he has to defend the importance of career diversity.
Source
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Bulletin
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New Humanities Indicators on Career Outcomes for Recipients of Advanced Degrees

In a series of recent reports, leaders in the sciences, humanities, and higher education have called for additional data on the career outcomes of recipients of graduate degrees. Drawing on national surveys of college graduates, the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators offers a fresh perspective on the outcomes of recipients of advanced degrees, providing a snapshot of their earnings, occupations, and job satisfaction.
In the News
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How New Humanities Ph.D.s Fare

New data analysis from American Academy of Arts and Sciences says humanities Ph.D.s may earn less than their counterparts in other fields but are satisfied -- particularly if they stay in academe.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
In the News
|

When you cut the humanities, what you lose is the human

Criticism of the humanities seems commonplace among policymakers. That is in the face of contrary evidence including a recent study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences showing that humanities graduates have similar rates of employment and job satisfaction than those in other fields.
Source
The Hill
Bulletin
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Humanities Indicators: College Graduates in the Workforce

Drawing largely on original research using federal data sets and the Gallup-Purdue Index survey of college alumni, the new report from the Humanities Indicators finds that college graduates with degrees from fields with below-average earnings are quite similar to graduates from other fields with respect to their perceived well-being.
In the News
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Shocker: Humanities Grads Gainfully Employed and Happy

A study being released today by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences -- based on data from the U.S. Census and other government sources, plus Gallup polling of workers nationwide -- challenges the myth of the underemployed, unhappy humanities graduate.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
In the News
|

Why we still need to study the humanities in a STEM world

Private and public pushes to increase STEM education have given rise to new concerns about the value of a liberal arts education. Humanities Indicators reports that the number of bachelor’s degrees in the humanities that were earned in 2015 was down nearly 10 percent from three years earlier.
Source
The Washington Post
In the News
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How to save the humanities? Make them a requirement toward a business degree

Since 2007, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences reports, four-year universities have reduced their number of departments offering art history, English, languages, history, linguistics, literature and religion. The proportion of students who major in the humanities in the United States has fallen from a high of nearly one in five in the late 1960s to one in 20 in 2015.
Source
The Hechinger Report
Data Forum
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Communication and Humanities Degrees

In a new release today, the Humanities Indicators reports on substantial declines in the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in the field. NCA Director Trevor Parry-Giles responds.
Bulletin
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New Findings on the Costs, Occupations, and Incomes of Ph.D.’s

The Humanities Indicators project recently released a series of reports on the life cycle of doctoral degree recipients in every field, shedding light on the challenges involved in earning the degree, and the occupational outcomes and incomes of those with a Ph.D.
Data Forum
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Assessing the Humanities

Marking the start of the 2016 National Humanities Conference, the Indicators released several updates about the public humanities this morning, describing the financial condition of key humanities institutions.
Bulletin
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The Humanities in Higher Education

The humanities face a variety of challenges in higher education, as reflected both in declining numbers of college majors and in openings for new faculty, according to recent findings from the Humanities Indicators.
In the News
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The No-Jobs Myth

Tenured faculty must get vocally involved at every level of governance in the ways that our institutions hire, compensate and retain educators, argues Carolyn Betensky.
Source
Inside Higher Education
In the News
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Why arts education matters

Despite evidence that points unmistakably to the workplace advantages of a well-rounded education, disciplines in the arts and humanities still lose ground in the national battle for curricular relevance.
Source
The Huffington Post
In the News
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The Disappearing Humanities Jobs

New analysis from the Academy's Humanities Indicators project shows dramatic decreases in open positions for professors. Health professions faculty jobs, once equal in number to those in humanities, now far outnumber them.
Source
Inside Higher Ed
Bulletin
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Humanities Indicators Tracking the Field

Over the past year, the Humanities Indicators of the American Academy (http://humanitiesindicators.org) have been offering evidence for many of the urgent questions facing the humanities field.
Bulletin
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New Report Explores the State of the Humanities in Higher Education

The latest report from the Academy's Humanities Indicators project examines the shrinking share of degrees at the baccalaureate level but also notes signs of stability or improvement for the humanities fields, including evidence of rising interest in the humanities at the pre-baccalaureate level, increases in funding, and a steady stream of new academic books.
Data Forum
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Danger Signs for the Academic Job Market in Humanities?

In an effort to place the job advertisements in the broader context of the humanities field, staff members at the Humanities Indicators gathered up the numbers reported by the larger societies back to 2001.
Data Forum
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The Usefulness of Societies’ Job Listings Data

Ronald Ehrenberg assesses the merits of the society job advertisements as data for measuring trends in academic employment for the humanities and offers some guidance on how they should be read.
Press Release
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New Report: The Humanities Weathered the Recession, but Still Struggle with Digital and Workforce Issues

How did humanities departments fare during the recent recession? How are departments coming to terms with fast-changing technologies, and preparing their students for the workforce? Today the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is releasing the results of a wide-ranging survey of 12 disciplines that offers answers to those questions and many others on the state of the humanities in higher education.
Data Forum
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Enclosed in a College Major? Variations in Course-taking among the Fields

One of the recurring questions the Humanities Indicators receives concerns the extent to which students are engaging with the humanities as undergraduates—a subject for which there is precious little data. The best available information comes from an occasional survey of college graduates, which includes a painstaking review of the college transcripts of a nationally representative sample of college graduates.
Data Forum
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Who Takes Humanities Courses in College?

Compared with our knowledge about students who take courses in the sciences, we know very little about who takes humanities courses in college. With the sciences, most of what we know is about majors rather than courses taken because data on majors are more readily available. Therefore having basic information about relative course-taking by students who majored in particular subjects is extremely important.
Data Forum
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Toward Breadth in Baccalaureate Education

Those of us who teach undergraduates are familiar with the trend revealed in these data. Baccalaureate graduates typically have earned more course credits in the humanities (about 17% as defined here) than in STEM fields (about 13%). STEM majors earn fewer credits in the humanities than do students majoring in other areas; and students majoring in the humanities, business, social sciences, and education apparently earn no more than a required minimum of their credits in STEM courses.
Bulletin
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The Academy Rolls Out Three New Research Tools

The American Academy introduced a fully revised Humanities Indicators website (http://HumanitiesIndicators.org), a new report showing contraction across a number of funding streams for the field, and a new data forum designed to spur further dialogue about the state of the humanities.
Bulletin
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Humanities Indicators Prototype Launched

In 2002, the Academy’s Initiative on Humanities and Culture issued its first Occasional Paper, Making the Humanities Count–a study of the need for a systematic and sustained effort to collect data on the state of the humanities in the United States. The Academy took up the challenge, and on January 7, 2009, it launched a prototype set of statistics: the Humanities Indicators.
Press Release
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Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant Will Help Create Humanities Indicators

The Academy, in conjunction with a consortium of national humanities organizations, will create a prototype set of indicators – statistical data about the people who work in the humanities and about the work they do – to provide a comprehensive picture of the state of the humanities in the United States, from primary to higher education to public humanities activities.
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Project Outcomes

Project Outcomes

The Humanities Indicators project releases frequent data updates throughout the year pushed to subscribers and periodic publications that package interesting data that responds to questions and concerns in the field, or support other Academy projects.

The Humanities Indicators staff serve as a resource for college administrators, policymakers, and the media, answering questions about the trends, and occasionally providing data runs tailored to their specific needs.

The ongoing media references to the Humanities Indicators demonstrate that they continue to be a valuable resource for informing the public and stimulating debate about trends in the humanities. From 2014-2018 the Indicators were cited over 400 times in the press. Recent coverage has included The Hill, Inside Higher Ed, NBC News, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, WBUR, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Jerusalem Post, and BBC. 

The recent Humanities Indicators report, The State of the Humanities 2018: Graduates in the Workforce & Beyond, was downloaded by over 10,000 unique users.

Humanities Indicators Media Coverage

Project Information

The Humanities Indicators are funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project was developed with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities; Elihu Rose and the Madison Charitable Fund; John P. Birkelund; Peck Stackpoole Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation; Sara Lee Foundation; Teagle Foundation; Walter B. Hewlett and the William R. Hewlett Trust; and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the funders.

Project Date
-
Contact Information
Robert B. Townsend
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