Meanwhile, and probably not coincidentally, employers across the country express concern that newer hires often lack the very skills learned through humanities courses, such as critical thinking, contextual understanding, and the ability to write well.
Harris recently left the U after serving two years as dean to take an impressive position as senior program officer in higher education and scholarship in the humanities with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City, which is committed to the humanities, the arts, and higher education.
Harris began in her new role November 1. But before she left the U, we asked her to share why she believes the humanities matter. We are living in profoundly complex times that demand mastery of the skills we teach in the humanities to successfully navigate many key aspects of daily life. We need to strive for a population that is as widely educated as possible in the critical realms of knowledge that are not simply aimed at problem-solving, but that instead permit our citizens to understand how to frame the most pressing problems that exist now, and to forecast what those will be in the future.
That requires creative thinking, not just problem-solving capabilities. In the wake of national trauma, we look to the poets and writers, to artists, historians, musicians, and philosophers… to help us ease the pain. All the available data that have been collected over the past decade by reputable sources such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences see their Humanities Indicators project show us that humanities degree holders do every bit as well financially over the span of their working lives as do those who hold degrees in business, education, and in many of the sciences.
But just as important, we also know from that data that humanities degree holders have among the highest rates of lifelong job satisfaction and fulfillment because they are pursuing meaningful work and enriching their lives—and the lives of others—by using the skills they acquired through their humanities majors.
It might be going too far to say that studying the humanities makes you happier over the long haul of life, but I do think the humanities give us the tools to seek out enriching and deeply rewarding resources that move us towards fulfilled lives of meaning and purpose.
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There is no question that STEM education is tremendously important as well. But in the absence of a strong background in the humanities, STEM education alone will leave our society impoverished and ill-prepared for the rapidly changing world ahead. Far from being degrees to nowhere, humanities degrees—as all the data show us—are degrees to everywhere. Like many, I was fortunate to have parents who read to me when I was very young, and who frequently took me to the local public library when I was a child. We also read in school, of course, but I particularly remember the ways reading fiction became a mainstay of everyday life in the summer.
Instead of summer camp, we would head to the library every week and check out books to keep us busy. We lived in a place where it was too hot to play outdoors during much of the day in the summer, so indoor reading kept us occupied and out of trouble for hours at a time. At first, reading was simple entertainment, but books quickly became an entry point into entirely unknown worlds of adventure, mystery, fantasy, history, and more.
Also, my father was a geologist, and he had a profound sense of the earth as an historical document that could be read. Every road trip with my father turned into some sort of teachable moment that wove together the history of the earth with the history of the people living on the planet. Those early conversations forever shaped my sense that we are responsible to and for other humans and for the planet. I believe these claims and I know they are based on solid research.
- Here are 9 reasons why humanities matter. What’s your number 10??
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I see much more, too. For example, I think that innovations based on research results in the natural sciences and medicine are more likely to be successful if their implementation is carried out in collaboration with humanists. But for now, let me just say one more thing. The arguments in the list above are quotes. They come from an exciting infographic put together by some creative researchers working in a whole new field called Digital Humanities.
And that leads me to my 10th reason: One of the problems with tracing arguments such as these is the lack of precision. We start off discussing the humanities, and then we segue into AHSS. It is a bit popularistic, I agree. Why does technological innovation, for example, need to be carried out with the input not only of physicists and chemists, but also French teachers and art historians? There are many strategies to take. In addition to that, I think the significance of research in SSH I do not differentiate them can be also be justified by the following argument:.
The human factor plays a crucial role in solving the grand challenges of mankind ageing, energy supply, environmental issues, climate change, etc. The biggest problem in the world is lack of mutual understanding among people, social groups, religions, nations. They separated students into fiction and non-fiction arms.
They randomly assigned eighty-six participants to read one of six texts—three were fiction and three were nonfiction. For physicians, empathy is an important quality. To be fair, literature does not need scientific justification for its enlightening and beautiful qualities, and the studies referenced above are not without their faults. Take, for example, Galen, the famous Greek physician in the 2 nd century AD.
One of the most influential figures in Western medicine, he dissected and vivisected animals to study their anatomy. Moreover, he was the only ancient source to describe a plague of smallpox passing through the Roman Empire.
Thus, he laid the groundwork for future physicians. But he also considered himself a philosopher. Sir Charles Scott Sherrington , one of the greatest neurologists in the history of the specialty, also immersed himself in medicine and the humanities. He was one of the first to use diphtheria antiserum on a human. He mapped the motor cortex of an ape as well as human dermatomes. He received honorary doctorates from twenty-two universities and shared the Nobel Prize with Edgar Adrian for characterizing the reflex as possessing reciprocal innervation in the muscles.
Why the Humanities Matter by Aaron Rothstein – LIT MED MAGAZINE
But Sherrington was more than just a clinician-scientist. He published a collection of his poems, served as a trustee of the British Museum, and published a book, Man on His Nature , where he reflected on human consciousness in both a philosophical and scientific manner.
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He studied art, collected old books and manuscripts, and wrote history, poetry and philosophy. Siddartha Mukherjee, a hematologist-oncologist, wrote a history of the gene The Gene and a history of cancer The Emperor of All Maladies. Atul Gawande, one of the most famous surgeons in the world, writes books and essays about checklists, mortality and the history of surgery. President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Edward Jenner in , praising Jenner for developing the smallpox vaccine.
Nevertheless, medical science cannot do everything. It cannot go beyond explaining the way human biology works or how we can alter disease pathology. It cannot point out the moral failings of its own experiments. It is morally neutral. For guidance on these questions, medical science, as the ancient Greeks understood, needs help from the humanities, from the study of history, literature, and philosophy, the three great pillars of the humanistic tradition.
Why the humanities matter now more than ever
Indeed, it would be hubris and an instance of overreach to say that studying the humanities will make one a great physician or will necessarily make one moral. But the humanities do light the way for us. They prompt difficult questions about ethics, human relationships, life, and purpose. They give us pause when an aspect of a study is unethical; they illuminate the historical background of our profession and the decisions we make. They also put human beings in context—stories from literature and history provide us with an understanding of the wide variety of human experiences.
In sum, the humanities offer guidance for practicing the art of medicine and a sense of the limits of medical science. They substitute the complexity of human beings for the simplicity of a data point. This is more than enough reason to encourage our aspiring doctors to study them. Your email address will not be published. Skip to content Search for: Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database 25th Anniversary.