PHILADELPHIA — In the wake of a steady decline in undergraduate enrollments within the humanities, the outgoing president of the Modern Language Association (MLA), called on scholarly organizations such as MLA to do a better job of making the case for why a liberal arts education still matters.
In an interview with Diverse at the 132nd MLA Annual Convention in Philadelphia, Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah said that the declining numbers of students majoring in the humanities is reason to be alarmed.
“I think we need to do a better job in explaining what we’re doing,” said Appiah, a New York University philosophy professor and one of the nation’s most recognized public intellectuals. “We have the greatest collection of humanists that have been assembled, but the value of that is not being as generously shared, I think, as it could be. So as long as that goes on, I think that we will be continuing to face downward pressure.
“So, we have to work very hard to make the case that, both for the purposes of life, citizenship and work, a solid education in the humanities is a crucial thing for many, many people.”
Appiah, whose term ended as president of MLA on Sunday, said that the association is committed to engaging with middle and high school literature and language teachers much more directly. The Association’s Working Group on K-16 Alliances has been geared toward K-12 teachers.
That’s a good step in helping middle and high school students interested in pursuing higher education know that majoring in subjects such as English or Philosophy can provide a solid foundation for equipping them with life skills, Appiah said.
“I think the key thing that humanists ought to be insisting, is that you have to think of education as a preparation for life. It’s not just the preparation for work,” said Appiah, who is the best-selling author of several books, including In My Father’s House: Africa and the Philosophy of Culture, Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. “The humanities give you tools for critical thinking, for reflection on what your life is about and what is meaningful in whatever work you are doing.”
