A Humanities Haven?

“The humanities are in crisis.” It’s a popular sentiment in academic circles and for good reason: Nationwide, the number of humanities majors is trending downward and departments are shrinking. In recent issues of The Student, students in the Arts and Humanities in Action (AHA) Program have reflected on the valuable skills one develops with a humanities degree, as a way to push back against this crisis. But as an elite liberal arts institution that prides itself on exploration and interdisciplinary education, where can Amherst sit?

Rising economic uncertainty and unemployment rates have pushed students toward disciplines like STEM and Economics to ensure financial stability. A culture of hyperproductivity, on top of these anxieties, has forced us to instrumentalize college degrees for career preparation rather than education. These all contribute to the contraction of public support for and participation in humanities disciplines: In fiscal year 2022, the National Endowment for the Humanities had a budget of $180 million, 2 percent of the National Science Foundation’s $8.84 billion budget.

Foundational to a liberal arts education is a belief that humanities disciplines are important — that the study of human society and experience has both personal and societal value. Amherst students undeniably recognize this value: even in the midst of this crisis, around 30 percent of the class of 2022 graduated with a humanities degree. Thanks to Amherst’s financial resources, certain institutional supports for the humanities have persisted amid government defunding: Resources like the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, events such as LitFest, and programs like Mellon Mays render Amherst students undeniably privileged in terms of access to the humanities. The crisis of the humanities, at Amherst, is not merely a microcosm of national trends.

Amherst seeks to provide a liberal arts education to a diverse student body, but enrollees are confronted by a landscape that contradicts this mission. The systemic inequality of the U.S. job market makes humanities studies and careers increasingly unobtainable for lowincome, BIPOC, first-generation, and international students, all of whom occupy a relatively precarious position in the market and are incentivized to seek more secure careers.

While humanities professors acknowledge the scarcity of tenure-track positions in academia, there’s lack of support for humanities students seeking nonacademic career paths. There is a much more clear understanding among STEM majors about what careers are available to them and how their skills could be applied in the workplace. Of course, a case can be