The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 8th, 2015
As grantsmanship is to STEM fields, advocacy must become for the liberal arts, if a broad-based humanistic education is to remain part of the public university. Those of us in the liberal arts are generally spared the relentless grind of grant applications that keep the lights on and the doors open in the sciences — but we also get less practice in explaining what we do and why it ought to be funded. That needs to change.
It’s not enough for us as faculty members to continue to work as usual and hope that the decline in support for the liberal arts will reverse itself. No matter how excellently those of us in the liberal arts do our research, teaching, and service, the value of our work is being edged out of public higher education.