The Public Humanities: A New Way of Thinking About Higher Education

I am under no illusions that a strategy of serving non-traditional students alone will end the current “crisis of the humanities.” However, I feel that we can change perceptions about that crisis by revealing the hidden value of the humanities.

There are any number of occasions now where politicians—on both sides of the aisle—dismiss the humanities as a waste of student time and money because it is assumed that humanities graduates cannot find work that is as lucrative as those in the STEM fields. What if we were to measure the value of the humanities differently and more expansively than we currently do?

I am convinced that the future of the humanities will be determined by our reception by “the public,” and that to thrive the humanities must be re-imagined as “the public humanities.”

The Goldberg Center hosts a public lecture series titled The Clio Society, our first event of the academic year being just a few weeks ago. My colleague presented on the history of British food, and the ways in which the increased consumption of wheat, sugar and meat led to health challenges that we continue to confront today. I was gratified by the large number of people in attendance, and especially the words of one audience member who said “Thanks for bringing the ‘Land Grant’ system out into the community. Outreach should be an important goal of OSU. Bravo!” Those in attendance, of course, were lifelong learners, who were deeply appreciative of the lecture and eager to learn more about the “industrialization of food.”

Origins, the Goldberg Center’s monthly publication, situates some pressing current event in a wider and deeper historical context. Aside from current geopolitical issues, Origins articles have explored the history of domestic violence, the prison crisis, the politics of the Olympics and the drought in California. Our monthly readership for this free publication numbers in the tens of thousands.

Attendance at Clio Society lectures and readership of Origins signals to me that there is a audience hungering for the insights and wisdom of humanists, a hunger that is overlooked when we define the value of the humanities strictly in terms of the vocational placement of traditional undergraduates. The Clio Society and Origins are part of a larger trend of self-improvement through informal education. The thousands of viewers of TED talks are emblematic of this trend that to me harkens back to the late 19th-century Chautauqua movement. At a time when few people attended institutions of higher education, many middle-class Americans engaged in self-improvement through informal education. The humanities are a central feature of such contemporary informal educational opportunities.

Clio lectures and Origins articles are free services that we happily provide as a statement of and commitment to our land grant mission of disseminating knowledge to the public. If we included these audiences in any measure of the value of the humanities we would no longer talk about a “crisis in the humanities.” I would never want to be forced to charge money for these services to lifelong learners, but fear that if we continue to value academic disciplines by their economic return—to learners, to the institution and to the companies that hire graduates—then we may be forced to do just that. I do not relish the prospect of selling badges or other micro-credentials for those who attend our lectures or read our e-magazine. I do not want those to be the markers of the value of the humanities.

The “crisis of the humanities” will evaporate when we make lifelong learning and service to the public the most important measures of the value of higher education.