{"id":57118,"date":"2021-05-03T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=57118"},"modified":"2021-05-02T14:25:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T21:25:34","slug":"theres-no-classics-catastrophe-at-howard-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/theres-no-classics-catastrophe-at-howard-university\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no Classics \u2018catastrophe\u2019 at Howard University"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cornel West and his co-author made a common mistake when they\u00a0wrote a recent essay<\/a>\u00a0in The Washington Post chastising Howard University for eliminating its classics department. Reducing the decision to a \u201cspiritual catastrophe,\u201d they overlooked a deeper and more urgent problem: the financial constraints facing historically Black colleges and universities, and the inequality that underlies them.<\/p>\n

Our approach to this issue is based in our perspective as philosophy professors at Howard who have reverence for the classics. Our department offers seminars on Plato and Aristotle alongside mandatory courses on the history of Africana philosophy. Classical texts have left an indelible mark on modern philosophy and there\u2019s no question that, in an ideal world, Howard would have a large, thriving classics department.<\/p>\n

But departments aren\u2019t free.<\/p>\n

The decision to eliminate the department was the result of an\u00a0intensive effort<\/a>\u00a0to determine how to best allocate the university\u2019s limited resources. Departments were assessed based on student interest, cost and benefit, and overall fit with the university\u2019s mission. No one wanted to eliminate any programs, and none of us cheer the loss of the department, but this change was necessary. Anthony K. Wutoh, the university\u2019s provost and chief academic officer,\u00a0has explained\u00a0<\/a>why that is, but we\u2019d like to offer additional insight.<\/p>\n

Pronouncements from the ivory towers of predominately white institutions about what Black colleges should do may score political points and draw public attention. But only those of us who research and teach at historically Black colleges and universities, known as H.B.C.U.s \u2014 unlike Dr. West, who has primarily worked at institutions with huge endowments \u2014 have the kind of understanding that comes from experience.<\/p>\n

To put things in perspective: Harvard\u2019s endowment is $42 billion, Yale\u2019s is $31 billion, and Princeton\u2019s is $27 billion. Howard\u2019s is only $712 million. There are reasons for this discrepancy. Almost all Ivy League institutions were founded before the Revolutionary War, while H.B.C.U.s did not get into full swing until\u00a0well after the Civil War<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These institutions were established to\u00a0educate Black Americans<\/a>, most of whom, before 1865, could not so much as dream of receiving any formal education. America\u2019s oldest universities were able to begin to build wealth much earlier than that. And as the historian\u00a0Craig Steven Wilder<\/a>\u00a0has documented, many of America\u2019s most storied predominantly white institutions directly or indirectly\u00a0profited from slave labor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, public and private H.B.C.U.s remain\u00a0underfunded<\/a>\u00a0relative to their predominately white counterparts. Just this year, Maryland reached a\u00a0settlement agreement<\/a>\u00a0in a federal lawsuit that accused the state of discriminating against and underfunding its four H.B.C.U.s.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Howard is doing relatively well for an H.B.C.U., but not so well that it doesn\u2019t have to make hard decisions. While the university did eliminate the classics department, it did not gut the humanities. Howard\u00a0recently designated<\/a>\u00a0philosophy, English and history as \u201ccore investment\u201d departments that \u201cconstitute the foundation of every great university.\u201d The university recognizes the value of humanistic inquiry.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear: Howard students are reading Parmenides, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau along with Angela Davis,\u00a0Charles Mills<\/a>\u00a0and Frantz Fanon. Students will continue to read Shakespeare and Walt Whitman alongside Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. In short, Howard students read the texts required at predominantly white institutions\u00a0plus<\/em>\u00a0the Black stuff.<\/p>\n

There is no spiritual catastrophe unfolding on Howard\u2019s campus. Quite to the contrary, our campus, students and faculty are in the midst of a Renaissance replete with all the accompanying spiritual and intellectual affirmations. The administration decided to eliminate the classics department, but it also started majors in\u00a0interdisciplinary humanities<\/a>\u00a0(which incorporates classical studies courses), bioethics, international affairs, and environmental studies.<\/p>\n

While the top predominantly white institutions rarely need to consider eliminating departments, the top H.B.C.U.s struggle to do everything that they wish to do for their students.\u00a0That<\/em>\u00a0is the real spiritual catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Author Bios:<\/strong> Brandon Hogan is the Director of Undergraduate Studies and Jacoby Adeshei Carter is the Chairman of the Philosophy department at Howard University. They are both H.B.C.U. graduates.<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally published in the New York Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cornel West and his co-author made a common mistake when they\u00a0wrote a recent essay\u00a0in The Washington Post chastising Howard University for eliminating its classics department. Reducing the decision to a \u201cspiritual catastrophe,\u201d they overlooked a deeper and more urgent problem: the financial constraints facing historically Black colleges and universities, and the inequality that underlies them. […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":57119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[14186],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-57118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-classics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThere\u2019s no Classics \u2018catastrophe\u2019 at Howard University - 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\/theres-no-classics-catastrophe-at-howard-university\/\" 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=\"There\u2019s no Classics \u2018catastrophe\u2019 at Howard University - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cornel West and his co-author made a common mistake when they\u00a0wrote a recent essay\u00a0in The Washington Post chastising Howard University for eliminating its classics department. 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