{"id":54319,"date":"2020-10-09T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=54319"},"modified":"2020-10-08T21:45:25","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T04:45:25","slug":"the-pandemic-is-not-an-excuse-to-kill-off-the-arts-and-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-pandemic-is-not-an-excuse-to-kill-off-the-arts-and-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"The pandemic is not an excuse to kill off the arts and humanities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In these unsettling times, the epigram attributed to Winston Churchill that we should \u201cnever let a good crisis go to waste\u201d has become a touchstone for many political and business leaders.<\/p>\n

For the university sector, however, the maxim suggested by Game of Thrones<\/em>\u2019 arch manipulator Petyr Baelish is arguably more fitting. \u201cChaos is a ladder,\u201d explains the character known as Littlefinger, focusing more emphatically on the opportunism that is only implicit in Churchill\u2019s more humorous aphorism.<\/p>\n

Some of the institutional responses seen in the UK, US and Australia bear the hallmarks of the Machiavellian manoeuvres that Littlefinger endorses, with the swingeing cuts at some universities going far beyond what is necessary, even amid a global pandemic.<\/p>\n

Take the decision by the Ohio-based John Carroll University to eliminate its art history department<\/a> or the recent declaration<\/a> by Monash University\u2019s Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, in Melbourne, that musicology and ethnomusicology specialisms are to be disestablished<\/a> as part of cuts that will see the loss of almost 280 jobs.<\/p>\n

These and other decisions have been taken when the full financial impact of Covid-19 is still unknown. The UK\u2019s University and Colleges Admissions Service, for instance, revealed in June<\/a> that universities there have seen a 12 per cent increase<\/em> in the number of student from outside the EU holding an offer to begin studying this autumn, compared with last year; the increase for students overall is 1 per cent.<\/p>\n

In the US, the situation is similar, with 2020 enrolments in both public and private four-year universities showing an overall modest increase<\/a> over the previous summer. And The Guardian <\/em>has reported<\/a> that early enrolment figures at some Australian universities are suggesting a 37 per cent increase compared with the same time last year.<\/p>\n

Because of the ways higher education institutions now typically govern and manage themselves, however, it has become increasingly hard to interrogate the financial basis for academic decisions, crisis or no crisis. A recent article<\/a> , for instance, observed that detailed operational data for universities are now largely inaccessible to academic staff, let alone the taxpayer.<\/p>\n

Yet the academic implications of such financial decisions can be profound. On Monash\u2019s own website, its School of Music proclaims<\/a> that musicology and ethnomusicology are subject areas for students who are \u201cinterested in the big issues\u201d and big questions like \u201cwhy does music matter?\u201d and \u201chow do understandings of music differ across time, place and culture?\u201d. Are we to assume that Monash no longer believes that such questions are important for its students?<\/p>\n

For John Carroll University, similarly, the question that seems not to have been considered is what the loss of art history might mean for its understanding of what a liberal arts curriculum actually is.<\/p>\n

Are we now witnessing, in fact, the very purpose of a university being permanently realigned? The post-Covid changes to Australia\u2019s higher education fee system, passed<\/a> by the Australian parliament this week, have laid out clear financial incentives for students to move away from creative arts and humanities courses towards ones with apparently better job outcomes.<\/p>\n

These changes were backed up by what Australia\u2019s education minister Dan Tehan later admitted<\/a> to be erroneous data concerning the supposed poor employment rates for arts graduates. The underlying message is, however, clear. Pandemic or not, universities should be focused on providing \u201cjob-ready\u201d graduates for the Australian economy, not independent-minded, culturally literate, critical thinking ones.<\/p>\n

This renewed push to cement a fundamentally instrumentalist justification for the humanities is also finding an (otherwise unlikely) ally among advocates of explicitly progressive social justice causes. For instance, Monash music professor Cat Hope has recently introduced gender-based quotas in course content<\/a> and argued for the decentring of traditional subject areas on the basis that \u201cstudents graduating from Monash University should be familiar with repertoire that reflects the workplace to which students aspire\u201d. Final-year performance recitals must now include a work by a composer identifying as female or non-binary. Other issues that might bear on why one composer might be favoured over another, such as class, culture or quality, inevitably recede into the background while identity itself becomes an incontestable criterion of value.<\/p>\n

To be sure, graduate employability and a commitment to gender equity are laudable aims. But by giving any externally imposed condition a controlling interest in course design and content, we run the risk of ceding the principle of scholarly freedom to political expediency. Research and teaching become an exercise in world view affirmation rather than examination, one in which scholarly labour is valued first and foremost for its capacity to meet predetermined targets rather than its ability to encourage students to question, seek evidence, think independently and to examine controversial and unpopular positions. All the while, the underlying economic and political context that controls life on and off campus remains essentially unchallenged.<\/p>\n

If the current crisis is indeed also an opportunity not to be wasted, then let that hold true for academics themselves, not just for those who manage them. Now is the time to redouble efforts to defend the autonomy and integrity of scholarly work and robustly interrogate the reasons we are given for any externally imposed discipline-altering decision. As the president of John Carroll\u2019s staff union noted<\/a>, if instead we acquiesce to becoming employees who can be redirected or fired at any time without a substantive academic or financial justification, \u201cthen we don\u2019t have true academic freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

Without that, we lose the ability to do the fundamental job of a university: to be society\u2019s critic and conscience.<\/p>\n

Author Bio: <\/strong>Peter Tregear is Dean of St Mark\u2019s College in Adelaide and former head of the Australian National University music school.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In these unsettling times, the epigram attributed to Winston Churchill that we should \u201cnever let a good crisis go to waste\u201d has become a touchstone for many political and business leaders. For the university sector, however, the maxim suggested by Game of Thrones\u2019 arch manipulator Petyr Baelish is arguably more fitting. \u201cChaos is a ladder,\u201d […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":54321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[357435],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-54319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-arts-and-humanities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe pandemic is not an excuse to kill off the arts and humanities - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-pandemic-is-not-an-excuse-to-kill-off-the-arts-and-humanities\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The pandemic is not an excuse to kill off the arts and humanities - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In these unsettling times, the epigram attributed to Winston Churchill that we should \u201cnever let a good crisis go to waste\u201d has become a touchstone for many political and business leaders. 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