As Interest Fades, So Does Common Sense

By Barbara Fister. A friend Tweeted a link to a New York Times “death of the humanities” piece recently. You may have read it. The title is “As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry.” It triggered in me a kind of autocomplete fugue state. I tweeted back a string of inanities. 

• As interest fades in the public welfare, colleges pretend they care as they scramble to pay for the stadium and tuition rises.
• As interest in learning fades, colleges make sure they have climbing walls.
• As interest in scientific inquiry fades, colleges slip science into the premed curriculum and hope they'll get away with it.
• As interest in being premed fades, students scramble to choose other majors.

One inanity deserves another. Michael Bérubé pointed out last summer that the numbers don’t add up to a crisis in the humanities. Read more...