By Robert B. Townsend, Director of the Academy’s Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs and Codirector of the Humanities Indicators
Few need to be told that the academic humanities have been beset by challenges over the past fifteen years, but the evidence tends to be scattered. To provide a clearer picture of the state of the field, the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project recently released the results from a new national survey of humanities departments in fourteen humanities and humanities-adjacent disciplines, the fourth such survey since 2008. Drawing on responses from more than two thousand department chairs, the report demonstrates both the challenges the field experiences today and the resilience of many departments in the face of those difficulties.
The challenges facing many of the humanities disciplines became evident early in the study. While developing the sample for the survey, the Indicators staff found that the number of colleges and universities awarding degrees in most of the humanities disciplines had been declining in recent years—a clear reflection of contemporaneous reports about departments being shuttered and majors eliminated. This finding was particularly notable because in the three previous rounds of the survey, the number of institutions awarding degrees in most disciplines had been increasing. For example, from 2017 to 2022, the number of institutions awarding degrees in most of the traditional humanities disciplines in the survey fell by at least 4 percent (in English) but the declines were as high as 17 percent in American studies and 16 percent in religion.
The approximately 8,200 departments granting degrees in the fourteen disciplines included in the survey employed about 131,160 faculty. However, only in linguistics, musicology, and race/ethnic studies did a clear majority of department chairs express optimism about the future of the discipline at their institutions (Figure 1). The survey also found a significant split between departments based on type of institution. While a slight majority (51 percent) of department chairs at research universities were optimistic about the future of their discipline, only 29 percent of chairs at master’s institutions shared this outlook, with more than a third of them noting they were pessimistic.
Figure 1: Share of Department Chairs Feeling Optimistic or Pessimistic About the Future of Their Discipline at Their Institution, by Discipline, 2023–24
This sense of ambiguity about the future among many department chairs was best expressed by one chair, who observed that “the position of the humanities at our institution is fragile. We have seen many retirements go unreplaced, with the number of faculty in humanities departments shrinking. This has required that existing faculty teach courses in new areas or leave central areas uncovered in the curriculum. The possibility of program closure has been in the air as well, making it stressful for all of us.” As that comment suggests, pessimism about the future tended to correlate to reported declines in the numbers of tenure track faculty and undergraduate majors in response to other questions in the survey.
While a majority of departments in every discipline except English saw their tenure track faculty numbers remain steady or increase from 2020 to 2023, a sizeable share of departments in every discipline reported a decrease of one or more tenure-line faculty over the previous three years (Figure 2). English departments stood out in this regard, with 59 percent of such departments reporting a decrease. More than 40 percent of history, anthropology, and languages other than English (LOTE) departments also reported a decline in tenure-eligible faculty.
Figure 2: Share of Department Chairs Reporting a Change in the Number of Tenure-Line Faculty from Fall 2020 to Fall 2023, by Discipline
Departments in every discipline surveyed were more likely to indicate that they had seen an increase in the number of nontenure-track faculty members in their departments than a decrease. For the first time in four rounds of the survey, the share of nontenure-track faculty in the disciplines exceeded 40 percent. In most disciplines, 60 percent or more of the faculty were either tenured or on the tenure track, but in the three largest disciplines (English, LOTE, and communication) a majority of the faculty were employed off the tenure track. Many of the disciplines that could be compared to an earlier survey showed a small decrease in their share of tenure-line faculty.
Looking ahead, most department chairs expected that the number of tenured/tenure-track faculty members in their departments would either remain the same or increase over the next three years. However, in four disciplines (history, religion, American studies, and English) more than a third of department chairs anticipated a decrease in the number of faculty.
Despite some declines in the number of faculty, the disciplines continued to teach a substantial number of students. In fall 2023, the fourteen disciplines included in the survey had a total enrollment (these are “duplicated” counts, so a student enrolled in more than one course in the subject would be counted in each course) of over 5.6 million students in undergraduate courses and approximately 422,070 juniors and seniors majoring in these disciplines. Graduate programs had 88,530 students, with 181,900 enrollments in graduate-level courses.
The communication discipline stood out for the largest number of declared majors (an average of 115 per department), but a relatively small number of student enrollments (390 per department). In comparison, English and history departments had an average of 67 and 63 majors, respectively, but an average of 1,174 undergraduate enrollments per department in English, and 864 per department in history.
The survey also included information on the number of minors, certificates, and other microcredentials awarded nationally in humanities disciplines. LOTE departments were notable for the large number of minors awarded among the humanities disciplines, with a median of 15 per department, while communication departments awarded the largest number of certificates and other microcredentials (a median of 18 per department).
Notably, while more than half of the departments in most disciplines award minors, awarding certificates and other microcredentials was relatively rare. Women’s and gender studies programs were an exception, with 46 percent of the departments awarding certificates and other microcredentials, whereas in all other disciplines only a third or less of the departments did so.
The survey also found that more than a third of the departments had experienced at least a modest decrease in undergraduate enrollments from 2020 to 2023, with the largest disciplines being the most likely to report declines. A majority of LOTE and communication departments reported a decline in undergraduate enrollments (54 percent each), and well over 40 percent of English and history departments saw declines. In every other discipline except classical studies, more than one-in-five departments reported an enrollment decrease.
In the four largest disciplines (communication, LOTE, history, and English), departments reporting a decline in enrollments were distributed across institution types, with one-third or more of departments in each Carnegie classification reporting a small decline in enrollments. However, the largest shares of departments reporting declines were found at master’s colleges and universities. This trend was also observed in most of the other disciplines surveyed.
Almost all of the departments used one or more recruitment strategies to attract students and increase the number of majors in their discipline (Figure 3). Slightly more than 70 percent of departments indicated that they were engaged in some kind of outreach to students in other majors or those without a declared major. More than half of the departments reported offering “events, classes, or other activities designed to aid majors in thinking about future jobs or careers,” and adding “high-interest introductory courses intended to attract students.”
Figure 3: Share of Departments Employing Various Strategies to Attract Undergraduate Students, Fall 2020 to Fall 2023
Recruitment practices varied widely among the disciplines. Around 80 percent of departments in classical studies, race/ethnicity studies, and women’s/gender studies indicated that they were focused on attracting students from other departments at their own institutions. In contrast, 80 percent of the religion departments prioritized outreach to students from community colleges—the only discipline to prioritize that approach. Most of the larger disciplines placed greater emphasis on events, classes, and other activities to support their students’ future careers.
The survey found that most departments offered three types of programs to help their undergraduate and doctoral students prepare for future careers. For students at the undergraduate level, internships in a work setting were the most common, with 72 percent of departments providing this opportunity. Additionally, more than 60 percent of departments offered their undergraduate students occupationally oriented presentations by employers and alumni. However, in every case far fewer departments required students’ participation.
In addition to capturing broad trends in the field, the survey also provides vital benchmarking data for individual departments and administrators. An accompanying website offers a more comprehensive overview of the findings, as well as detailed profiles for each of the disciplines with tables that provide comparisons by Carnegie classification, highest degree offered by the department, and institutional control. Departments have historically used benchmark numbers to guide their fundraising efforts, securing funds for scholarships and faculty support to help “bring their numbers up to the national average.”
We welcome questions about these findings and suggestions for further areas of research. Please direct any inquiries to Robert Townsend, codirector of the Humanities Indicators, at rtownsend@amacad.org.