 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
About the Author
Dan Greenberg is a longtime observer of science policy and politics. He is the author of "Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism" (University of Chicago Press), as well as other books, and has published widely in newspapers and popular and professional magazines.
About Brainstorm
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
Laurie Fendrich
Dan Greenberg
John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
Brainstorm Alumni
Marty Nemko, guest bloggerBob Zemsky
Recent Posts
Truth in Publishing: Blurbs and Acknowledgments, Continued | Comment [1]
Truth in Publishing: Curb Those Blurbs and Syrupy Acknowledgments | Comment [5]
Colleges Are Protected From Failure | Comment [17]
Ripe for the Gripe | Comment [12]
'Rebranding' Engineering | Comment [14]
Featured Articles By the Author
Where Are Arts and Humanities in the D.C. Money Chase?
“When I find myself in the company of scientists,” W.H. Auden wrote some 50 years ago, “I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.”
Auden might have written the same today. The scientists, for all their complaints of financial neglect and political bashing, continue to do relatively well in pay, facilities, and status, outdistanced only by the law faculty, medical-faculty superstars, and football coaches.
Lamenting the disparities between scientific and humanities-and-arts faculties, two seasoned academic observers wrote in The Chronicle (March 17, 2006) that “never before has there been such inequality among the disciplines and schools that make up a university. … Disciplines like history, sociology, philosophy, the visual arts, and literature were once seen as the heart of the university. … But over the last 10 years, faculty members in those disciplines have become the poor relations of the hard-science powerhouses.”
Some obvious factors partially explain the difference. Science requires expensive instruments and machines. Science is visibly useful for military, economic, and medical purposes. The arts and humanities get along with far less support, and their value to society is not easily documented in material terms. Reflecting those differences, the federal government provides $30-billion a year for science and engineering research in universities while the National Endowment for the Humanities is budgeted for $144-million a year, not all of it for universities.
But that’s not the whole story. With well-supported outposts in Washington, the sciences ceaselessly pursue government money, while the arts and humanities are virtually absent from the game. Money for medical research is the focus of the Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents the 126 allopathic medical schools in the U.S. Keyed to the interests of medical-school management, the AAMC keeps a close watch on the National Institutes of Health and its $29-billion budget, without which medical research and education would collapse. Meanwhile, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Research
looks after the interests of the rank and file of scientists.
Under a tacit division of labor, the Association of American Universities, representing 62 major research institutions, keeps an eye on the National Science Foundation. The American Association for the Advancement of Science diligently monitors all federal spending for the sciences, and annually publishes a detailed accounting of the ups and downs. These organizations are well-staffed with experienced Washington hands who know their way around Capitol Hill and the research agencies. Other organizations concerned with particular scientific disciplines also maintain offices in Washington.
A sympathetic gathering place for their interests is the House Science and Technology Committee, which frequently holds hearings at which witnesses from the sciences hold forth on their needs and anxieties. The S&T Committee has no control over money, and ranks low in the pecking order of House committees, but the steady drip, drip, drip of lamentation from the science establishment helps reinforce the claim that Washington is failing the sciences, and, by extension, the American people.
The arts and humanities lack the faintest resemblance of this formidable enterprise for monitoring and expanding government support of science. The Modern Language Association, which embraces these fields, does not maintain a Washington office. If there’s an arts and humanities counterpart to the science operation, it is well concealed.
If Auden came back, he’d find that nothing has changed.
Posted at 04:51:23 PM on May 12, 2008 | All postings by Dan GreenbergComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Rockefeller's Gift to Harvard
Next: The Humanities' D.C. Money Chase -- Part II
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Let us further review the situation. A few years back, only 2% of all U.S. humanities faculty had ever held a Federal grant. That statistic has likely not changed very much.
Now why is that so? The excellent posting above touches on many of the macro issues involved, so let’s examine a few of the micro issues – down there in the trenches of the campuses. (Warning: this is going to be a bumpy ride….)
First of all, college and university administrations are at fault.
Do they actually encourage arts and humanities faculty to conceive mega-projects? No, not usually. Because the arts and humanities faculty are concentrated in those “service” general education courses (like English comp, etc.) and the “overheads” that the NEA, NEH, and DOED allow (sometimes capped as low as 8% compared to well upwards of 50% in the sciences) just don’t permit the sub rosa “diversion” of funds to administrative priorities the way science grants do. A major arts/humanities grant is a headache for an administrator; the faculty are often actively discouraged from applying.
Do faculty in the arts and humanities want to apply for mega-grants (as opposed to “professional development” grants)? No, not usually because they and their disciplines – in their current incarnations – cultivate the professor as “shabby curate” with a vengeance.
Arts and humanities faculty rarely work together on large multi-campus projects in their fields. Oh, they could, of course (that’s why there actually are 2% of their number with Federal funding), but they do not, in general, feel comfortable with that.
Arts and humanities faculty are, by and large, far more emotionally and professionally committed to disciplinary boundaries than are their scientific colleagues. And college/university administrations and department hierarchies have a great deal of difficulty granting humanists “recognition” for both inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary activity, not to mention international activity. These are often still seen as “distractions” and “diversions” from teaching and publishing (unless, for example, consutation of a non-digitized manuscript is necessary for the book).
For example, it rarely occurs to an American English professor (or administrator) that an international digital library project on, say, the effects of Shakespeare’s works on even just west-European theater might actually benefit from being a trans-national as well as a multi-disciplinary effort. “No. We’re the native speakers of English [really?] and we can do this individually or with a few friends and research assistants just fine, thank you. And besides we teach literature in translation all the time.” And whyever would they think to collaborate with their computer and information science colleagues?
For many of the sciences, projects of international scope and multi-disciplinarity are an everyday occurrence. And the sciences are now morphing the fruit of their disciplinary “intersections” into new departments (e.g. bio-physics, bio-chemistry, etc.)
“Learning communities” for most arts and humanities faculty are simply convenient groupings of students. Even though the theories of the highest echelons of the arts and humanities recognize the “social construction” of language and of perceived “reality” (not to mention artistic and literary “taste”), they rarely “indulge” personally in the “social construction” of anything in their fields, including “reading” and “writing” and “painting” (theater and music are frequent exceptions, of course, by necessity).
And university administrations foster this cult of the individual in the arts and humanities, rewarding the publication of a book or the exhibition of a sculpture far more than the coordination of a six-figure grant project. (Which is why there are so few seven-figure grant projects in the arts and humanities; professors need to “cut their teeth” on the six-figures, and even the fives and the fours.)
So, what the arts and humanities need is some grass-roots organizing on the campuses, with true support from their administrations. Only then can the professional associations be forced to step up to the plate and lobby for the arts and humanities alongside of the sciences. They have to have more projects of potentially major significance (as measured, for example, by the parameters above) to lobby for in Washington.
Right now, university administrations and the “shabby curates” of the arts and humanities are indeed aware of the disparities in salaries and working conditions but are unwilling to “talk the talk”, let alone “walk the walk” that the science faculty (as well as those same administrators) do together daily to survive and thrive in the 21st century university.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 13, 02:23 PM · #
There are many reasons why funding for the humanities is not what it should be, but it is not for lack of any effort on the part of the humanities community. The National Humanities Alliance is a vocal advocacy presence in Washington, DC, for the National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal programs supporting humanities research and education. There is no doubt that we are fighting an uphill battle—especially with the relatively scarce resources available to the humanities for all activities, including advocacy—but there are those who are working hard to ascend the Hill.
Just this March, advocates from institutions around the country came to Washington for the Alliance’s Humanities Advocacy Day to make the case to Congress and other policymakers; this event was a repeat of an intense advocacy effort that has taken place annually for over a decade. Every year, NHA and other humanities groups testify before Congress on NEH appropriations as the visible part of an extended, systematic annual budget and appropriations funding strategy. All of this is part of a wide community effort. There is a Congressional Humanities Caucus in the House of Representatives with eighty members and growing. The Alliance is supported by more than ninety scholarly societies, humanities institutions, colleges and universities, higher education groups, and associations of museums, libraries, and state humanities councils. While not all of these groups have a Washington office, many maintain an active presence in Washington in the same way that science, industry, and other interest groups operate effectively in Washington without having established bases here. This includes the Modern Language Association (mentioned in this blog), an original and among the most active continuing supporters of the Alliance.
Many of Mr. Greenberg’s comments about the disparity of federal support for the sciences v. the humanities are right on the mark, but his assertion that the humanities lack a visible advocacy structure is not. Just google “humanities advocacy” or go to our website, http://www.nhalliance.org/ for a snapshot of the Alliance’s activities and links to other organizations working on the extensive challenges our community is facing. Mr. Greenberg does make a strong case for the work to be done, and I would encourage anyone interested in doing more to get involved.
Jessica Jones Irons
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
21 Dupont Circle NW
Washington, DC 20036
— Jessica Jones Irons · May 14, 08:34 AM · #
It would be most interesting if the NHA would address Comment 1 which asserts that the issue isn’t just how little funding there is but the local conditions for the arts and humanities in the nation’s colleges and universities.
Unless and until higher education administrations foster the arts and humanities with a vision beyond that of the low-cost adjunct labor of the general education classroom, Federal funding will remain low.
A commitment to a broader vision for major inter- and multi-disciplinary as well as international projects in the arts and humanities is essential for the expansion of funding opportunities on the Federal level – and the corresponding benefits to the campuses, not to mention the disciplines themselves.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 14, 09:30 AM · #
I would like to follow up on the NHA comment, particularly because the Association of American Universities was specifically mentioned by Mr. Greenberg.
Mr. Greenberg is right that AAU’s first priority is the partnership between the federal government and universities which produces much of the nation’s basic research. But support for the humanities, and specifically for NEH, is also an important priority for AAU.
I’m glad that Mr. Greenberg agrees with our often stated view that Congress and the Administration should make the modest investment that would give NEH the resources it needs. NEH supports students and faculty who study history, literature, music and other disciplines that help us to understand where our country has been and to think about where we should be headed.
This is why AAU and its member universities consider our work on behalf of NEH and the humanities to be a very important part of our mission. We organize our universities to advocate for NEH just as we do for the scientific research agencies. For example, here is our current advocacy document on the proposed FY09 NEH budget: http://www.aau.edu/budget/09Adv_OP_NEH.pdf.
And here is the testimony of our president, Bob Berdahl, last year before the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, on behalf of NEH funding: http://www.aau.edu/budget/Test_NEH_4-19-07.pdf.
Finally, here is AAU’s extensive report, published in 2004, on the importance of the humanities at our universities: http://www.aau.edu/issues/HumRpt.pdf. It makes a series of recommendations to government and to our universities for enhancing the study of the humanities and calls for greater funding of NEH.
I must also correct the odd assertion by Mr. Greenberg that AAU, by “tacit agreement,” focuses primarily on the National Science Foundation in its advocacy for federal funding of research while allowing other groups to take the lead on other agencies. It’s hard to disprove something that is supposedly “tacit,” but let me be clear, there is not now nor has there ever been such an agreement, tacit or otherwise, and this simply is not the reality of the work we do or how the university community works on these issues. Forgive my bragging on their behalf, but my colleagues at AAU are leading the way in advocacy for NSF…AND NIH…AND the Department of Energy Office of Science…AND NASA…AND Department of Defense basic research (and, as noted above, NEH).
Barry Toiv
Vice President for Public Affairs
Association of American Universities
— Barry Toiv · May 14, 04:38 PM · #
These association representatives protest too much, methinks. Especially in light of the less than stellar success of their efforts on behalf the humanities – as evidenced in the NEH budget of $144 million for the entire nation, etc.
You’ve obviously touched a nerve, DG.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 14, 07:39 PM · #
No nerve touched. Just correcting the record. But you’re right. NEH should receive more. Write to your representatives in Congress. Feel free to use the materials I provided links for in my earlier posting.
— Barry Toiv · May 14, 10:20 PM · #
Mr. Toiv says, “No nerved touched,” as if he’s proud of the fact. $144 million for the NEH is disgraceful, and the AAU has something sin-of-omission to do with it. (Give anybody on the street a word-association quiz with the word “humanities,” and he or she will probably answer “universities.”) None of that press-secretaryese (“Let me be clear…my colleagues at AAU are leading the way…”) is going to fly in denying it. Flacks should never, ever venture into blogs.
— LuckyJim · May 15, 05:37 PM · #