Everyone who cares about federal funding for the humanities has been worried about what the President’s budget would reveal about the commitment of the Obama administration to the sector. Many of us were at least a little disappointed that NEH and NEA did not do better last year, although in the end Congress was more generous than the Executive Office. Of course NEA got a huge bump last year with the transfer of stimulus money, but apparently humanities projects were not considered “tool-ready” and NEH did not receive stimulus funding. We all recognized that President Obama needed to confront huge deficits, but nevertheless the pretty generous George W. Bush years gave us grounds for hope — after all, a few million dollars makes a big difference to the cultural agencies. So we hunkered down to see what the FY 2011 budget, which appeared two days ago, would bring.
Not much. NEH was one of the few programs whose funding was actually cut (by $7.2-million for programs), even though the agency was not on the official list of “reductions” for next year. The proposed allocation would be close to what NEH requested a year ago, and one could argue about the precise dimensions of the “cut.” But it is surely less than we reasonably hoped for, even in a bad year. The cuts are severe for “national programs,” the funds designated for national competitive humanities grants. There were generally cuts in proposed NEH funding for most divisions of the Endowment, although Chairman Leach’s new “Bridging Cultures” initiative is funded at $2.5-million (but “We the People,” Bruce Cole’s initiative, is cut by $3-million, so it is really a transfer of funds from one category to another). I won’t go into detail about NEA, but its budget for FY 2011 is comparable to that of NEH, so arts supporters are also disappointed.
There is other bad news for segments of the humanities community. Despite the increases in the education budget, the $119-million Teaching American History program is no longer listed as a line item in the budget, and it may be an endangered species. The National Archives budget is nearly flat, but the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (which funds historical editing, among other things) has been cut from $13- to $10-million — a punishing reduction. The Smithsonian and the Library of Congress held their ground.
To return to where I started, the humanities community, like all sensible observers of the federal government, realized that the budget deficits incurred in response to the recession and the two wars would necessitate some serious budget cutting. The proposed cuts are modest, but of course they leave NEH far behind its level in the early 1990s, and make it seem unlikely that the endowment will recover its best funding levels anytime soon. We clearly will have to do more with not so much, but since this comes at a time when the universities are reeling financially, philanthropic foundations have cut back, and private donors are in a defensive crouch, it will really hurt. At a time when our universities are increasingly focused on the near term and measurable social impacts, humanists have reason to worry about support for both their academic and public activities.
3 Responses to The FY 2010 Budget and the Humanities
sjhuskey - February 4, 2010 at 10:25 am
I’m of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, 7.2 million dollars, the amount by which the NEH budget is being cut, is less than 1 percent of 1 percent of the total budget that President Obama has proposed. The cut to the NEH’s budget will not even have a negligible effect on the bottom line of the national budget. On the other hand, how much money do humanities scholars really need to do their scholarship? We need books, some money for travel, computers, and software. That can add up, of course, but we’re a bargain compared to the sciences. Nevertheless, I have to register my protest against the administration’s shortsighted promotion of science and math education at the expense of the humanities. What good will science and math education be if our students don’t understand the lessons of philosophy, literature, and history?
uwfoundation - February 4, 2010 at 11:10 am
Last night, the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted a well-publicized and well-attended panel discussion on “The Humanities in the 21st Century” that was open to the public.The panel, moderated by UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin, included Pauline Yu (President of the American Council of Learned Societies), Don Randel (President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), and Jim Leach (Chairman, NEH). Possibly the first time that the leaders of the three top humanities funders in the U.S. were together in the same place, it was a discussion worthy of coverage by the “New York Times” yet didn’t even attract the attention of reps from the local Wisconsin media. The points noted by Stan Katz were among the issues considered, as were a number of others that should be of interest to anyone concerned about the important role that the humanities play in promoting an informed and inquisitive electorate as well as “civil” discourse, both vital to a healthy representative democracy — and both seemingly becoming more rare every day. Despite the challenges, I think nmost people left the auditorium optimistic about the future of the humanities, but I am still uneasy about what the future holds for a country where many people apparently know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
22074041 - February 4, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Although we all concur in the need for greater civic participation and learning, and in the need for greater depth to public understanding of issues, another area – not yet mentioned — is essential, too. Underlying many of the major global and security issues with which we now deal as a nation (Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, Haitian recovery), are issues of cultural, religious, language, and ethnic differences. Without understanding these — “using” the humanities — we will encounter only further challenges to our success and safety in this global environment. Naomi F. Collins, Ph.D.