Why History Courses Are Declining

[rangerrebew]

Why History Courses Are Declining
September 21, 2016 Mark Bauerlein   1 Comment

A few years ago, when critics of academia warned that the humanities were sinking, academics shot back with data showing that enrollments were steady and the departments were doing just fine.  They also sprinkled smug remarks about Chicken-Little conservatives who were just upset that the hegemony of the traditional canon had crumbled.

We don’t need to answer this ad hominem.  The evidence speaks for us.  Earlier this month, the American Historical Association released a survey of 123 history departments and found a 7.6 percent decline in enrollments over a two-year period, 2012-13 to 2014-15.  Enrollment slipped in 96 departments and rose in only 27 departments.  In absolute numbers, enrollments in those schools went from 390,000 to 360,000.

 http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2016/09/why-history-courses-are-declining/

[Oceander]

To quote my own signature line (which quotes someone else):

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana