The University of Nebraska Board of Regents’ decision last month to eliminate the philosophy major at the University of Nebraska at Kearney falls in line with a trend that has been seen across the country.
Steven Volk, the co-director of the Consortium on Teaching and Learning with Great Lakes Colleges Association — an association of more than a dozen liberal arts colleges in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — noted that the percentage of humanities degrees has been declining since the early 2000s and especially since 2012.
Volk, who is a professor of history emeritus at Oberlin College in Ohio, noted that less than 10% of all undergraduate degrees in 2020 were in the humanities. He added that’s down by about 25% since 2012.
“We’re seeing particularly sharp declines in four major areas. That would be in history, English, philosophy and art history,†he said.
People are also reading…
The online publication Inside Higher Ed noted that Liberty University, Western Oregon University and Elizabethtown College have dropped philosophy as a major in recent years.
The impending elimination of the major at UNK elicited a passionate response during public comments before the regents’ Feb. 11 vote. About half a dozen people, including Thomas Martin, a UNK philosophy professor, spoke against the move.
Martin argued that the board’s decision to eliminate the bachelor of arts degree in philosophy is further evidence of academia devaluing the humanities in favor of workforce development.
In an op-ed, Martin said the number of credit hours a UNK undergraduate student must take in humanities courses has decreased from nine to three — the equivalent of one class.
To Martin, the deemphasis on humanities courses makes for a servile future workforce that will not be conditioned to understand what it means to be human and navigate life and relationships accordingly. That, he said, puts the state and the nation on a path akin to perhaps the United States’ greatest historical rival.
“We’re moving towards an education that the Soviet Union would have been proud of,†he told the Omaha World-Herald. “The student simply becomes a worker. … (It’s) all about careers, careers, careers. You’ve learned a means of life, but you don’t know what the ends of life are.â€
The elimination of the philosophy major at UNK came down to the small number of graduates the program produced, said Charles Bicak, UNK’s senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs. According to documents provided to the regents, philosophy coursework will continue and a minor will still be offered.
“It’s a decision that comes … not without great thought, consideration and effort at improvement,†Bicak said.
Bicak added that current philosophy majors will be able to complete their degrees.
At the regents meeting, NU President Ted Carter said UNK produced a five-year mean of 1.6 philosophy degrees. That number falls well short of the minimum mean of seven degrees as specified by Nebraska’s Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education.
Some exceptions are in place for degrees that don’t meet that criteria to remain viable at their respective universities, said Michael Baumgartner, the commission’s executive director. Those include whether the program meets a unique need in the state or region, whether it provides access to underserved populations and whether an interdisciplinary program is critical to the role and mission of the institution.
But with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska at Omaha also offering bachelor’s degrees in philosophy, the UNK philosophy program didn’t enjoy those protections.
Over the past five years, UNL has added liberal arts majors such as emerging media arts and acting while eliminating other majors such as classical languages and medieval and Renaissance studies. It also has added and eliminated various majors outside of liberal arts in that time frame, although most of the added majors appear to be outside of the liberal arts spectrum.
The Nebraska State College System — which consists of Chadron State, Peru State and Wayne State — actually has added four philosophy courses since 2012 for a total of 23 courses.
Jodi Kupper, vice chancellor for academic planning and partnerships for the state college system, noted that while philosophy is offered only as a minor at member schools, students can combine those courses with other liberal arts courses in pursuit of an interdisciplinary/liberal arts degree. The state college system has awarded a five-year mean of 49 degrees in that field.
Volk, with the Great Lakes Colleges Association, advocates integrating the moral and ethical questions posed by humanities courses such as philosophy into such programs as engineering and business.
“My way of thinking about this: How do we build much more integrated higher-education futures that both connect to careers and employment but that (also) connect to humanity and the ethical issues that humans face within those fields?†he said. “That, I think, is a much more successful way than saying we have to have a philosophy major because it’s necessary.
“I would say we have to have philosophy because it’s necessary,†he said. “But it needs to be in every field and not just in philosophy."