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Civitas Outlook
Topic
Pursuit of Happiness
Published on
Jun 20, 2024
Contributors
Benjamin Storey
Jenna Storey
"Part of a bookshelf containing books by Aristotle (1)" by Wikipedia user Tetra. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 / Cropped from original.

Will Republicans Save the Humanities?

Contributors
Benjamin Storey
Benjamin Storey
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Benjamin Storey
Jenna Storey
Jenna Storey
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Jenna Storey
Summary
Colleges in red and purple states have been going on a hiring spree.
Summary
Colleges in red and purple states have been going on a hiring spree.
Listen to this article

For the first time in decades, certain parts of the long-suffering humanities are a growth sector in higher ed. Even more surprisingly, this expansion is being driven by state legislatures and governing boards dominated by Republicans.

At public colleges in red and purple states like Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, about 200 tenure- and career-track faculty lines are being created in new academic units devoted to civic education, according to Paul Carrese, founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) at Arizona State University. These positions are being filled by faculty members trained in areas including political theory, history, philosophy, classics, and English. Since there are only about 2,000 jobs advertised in all those disciplines combined in a typical year, the creation of 200 new lines is a significant event.

Because a political party intensely critical of higher education has backed the founding of those programs, some worry that they will debase academic standards, subject intellectual life to political imperatives, and constrain teaching within certain ideological limits. Others hope that this burst of hiring might help colleges better prepare students for civic life and rebuild interest in the humanities.

Continue reading the entire article at The Chronicle of Higher Education

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