Randolph-Macon College in Ashland
In the fall 2012 semester, 5,303 Virginia college students were enrolled in English language or literature degree programs. Five years later, that number was 4,160, and in fall 2022, 2,775, according to the State Council for Higher Education. That’s a 47.7% decrease, and other humanities disciplines saw similar decreases in enrollment. For history degrees in the same period, enrollment decreased by 30%.
The humanities are defined as languages, literature, art, history, philosophy and other disciplines studying humanity or the human condition.
This trend is not being felt so dramatically at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland.
Randolph-Macon sees the humanities continue to thrive because of dedicated faculty and the school’s liberal arts curriculum, according to Alisa J. Rosenthal, Ph.D., provost and vice president for academic affairs.
“Even if you might be a major in a nontraditional liberal arts field, like nursing, your nursing faculty are absolutely communicating to you the real importance and value of that full liberal arts education, including the study of humanities,” Rosenthal says.
Alisa J. Rosenthal, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Randolph-Macon College
As for what’s driving this trend, Rosenthal cites a shift in students’ reasons for going to college in the first place: More students say that getting a job is their top reason for pursuing a college degree.
“That often lends itself to believing a narrow, more technical major is the best way to get a job,” Rosenthal says. “I would highlight that employers regularly say that that’s not the case. What they’re looking for [is] many of the skills, talents and habits that we associate with the liberal arts.”
Another reason may be the sense of “immediacy” students feel to select what they perceive to be a lucrative major. “It’s much easier when you’re 18 years old and you’re looking at a set of majors to recognize what you might do with a nursing major than … an English major,” Rosenthal says. “There’s sort of an immediacy piece to that for people.”
Additionally, there’s been a devaluing of the humanities, she says.
“The emphasis on STEM, which is obviously hugely important for a whole variety of reasons, has tended to come with a denigration of the humanities and social sciences,” Rosenthal says, “suggesting that those are, somehow, less important. I think people pick up on that cultural message.”
Rosenthal says Randolph-Macon ensures that its students understand their future career options well, while emphasizing that a college degree is not simply a means to an end.
“We work really hard to help students see how any of these fields that they might be interested in studying translate into careers on their way out,” she says. “We’re not training you for your first job. We’re educating you for the range of careers you’re going to have across your lifetime, many of which don’t even exist yet.”
The University of Richmond is another school that values the humanities amidst this cultural shift.
“Students in the humanities develop critical and creative thinking skills, become excellent writers, analyze complex problems, and have experience making decisions in an ethical context,” says Jenny Cavenaugh, dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at UR. “These are all skills employers want. Beyond employment, students in the humanities grapple with big questions about what it means to be human.”
Jenny Cavenaugh, dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Richmond
The National Humanities Alliance has called the intensive humanities programs UR has developed “exemplary” in the context of U.S. higher education. The Humanities Fellows Program allows sophomores and juniors to work on individualized research projects in the humanities, while Humanities Connect brings students and faculty together in a yearlong study group and project lab around a shared theme.
According to Nathan Snaza, coordinator of humanities in the School of Arts & Sciences, the humanities at UR are not defined as a set of departments but a “cluster of intellectual practices” taken up in every field of study across the university’s schools.
“The humanities are critical,” Snaza says. “We all need to be able to understand history, to think philosophically about what’s ethical or about what makes truth claims valid, and to think about how we interpret and make sense of the texts that shape our lives.”
