Louis Proyect
2014-10-20 12:21:14 UTC
The biggest wake-up call came from John Agresto, past president of St.
John?s College in Santa Fe and former deputy chairman of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. (St. John's in Santa Fe, which celebrated
its 50th anniversary by hosting the ?What Is a Liberal Education For??
conference, has an older campus in Annapolis, Md.) Quoting worrisome
statistics about the humanities today ? English, long a go-to
concentration, now accounts for just 3 percent of majors nationwide, for
example ? Agresto said the liberal arts are ?dying.?
Agresto said that much humanities instruction has been co-opted by
hyperspecialization and especially by critical theory. He said
overly-critical approaches at once demean the subject matter and limit
students? free inquiry. For example, he said, when professors portray
the founding fathers as mere ?white racists,? no student or parent ?in
their right mind? would pay $50,000 a year to study them.
full:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/20/conference-speakers-say-liberal-arts-must-return-purer-form-survive
---
From Wikipedia on John Agresto:
In 1986 Agresto was nominated by President Reagan to become Archivist of
the United States. At least thirteen national historical and archival
organizations opposed Agresto's nomination, some objecting to what they
claimed was his political partisanship[1] The American Studies
Association said that his was "a mediocre political appointment" and the
Organization of American Historians claimed he lacked "the technical
qualifications for the job."[1] Opposition to Agresto was also based on
his two-year refusal while at the NEH to comply with federal affirmative
action hiring requirements. (Agresto vowed to resign rather than comply,
but backed down after Congress threatened to abolish the Endowment.[2])
During the confirmation process, it was disclosed that a pro-Agresto
witness at a Senate hearing had received a $10,000 "chairman's grant"
from Agresto six months earlier, after an application for a $30,000
grant was rejected by a humanities panel.[3] The nomination produced
controversy for over a year before it was withdrawn.
John?s College in Santa Fe and former deputy chairman of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. (St. John's in Santa Fe, which celebrated
its 50th anniversary by hosting the ?What Is a Liberal Education For??
conference, has an older campus in Annapolis, Md.) Quoting worrisome
statistics about the humanities today ? English, long a go-to
concentration, now accounts for just 3 percent of majors nationwide, for
example ? Agresto said the liberal arts are ?dying.?
Agresto said that much humanities instruction has been co-opted by
hyperspecialization and especially by critical theory. He said
overly-critical approaches at once demean the subject matter and limit
students? free inquiry. For example, he said, when professors portray
the founding fathers as mere ?white racists,? no student or parent ?in
their right mind? would pay $50,000 a year to study them.
full:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/20/conference-speakers-say-liberal-arts-must-return-purer-form-survive
---
From Wikipedia on John Agresto:
In 1986 Agresto was nominated by President Reagan to become Archivist of
the United States. At least thirteen national historical and archival
organizations opposed Agresto's nomination, some objecting to what they
claimed was his political partisanship[1] The American Studies
Association said that his was "a mediocre political appointment" and the
Organization of American Historians claimed he lacked "the technical
qualifications for the job."[1] Opposition to Agresto was also based on
his two-year refusal while at the NEH to comply with federal affirmative
action hiring requirements. (Agresto vowed to resign rather than comply,
but backed down after Congress threatened to abolish the Endowment.[2])
During the confirmation process, it was disclosed that a pro-Agresto
witness at a Senate hearing had received a $10,000 "chairman's grant"
from Agresto six months earlier, after an application for a $30,000
grant was rejected by a humanities panel.[3] The nomination produced
controversy for over a year before it was withdrawn.