A perennial crisis in higher education has become more acute over the last few years due to soaring costs, public distrust and declining enrollment. Now, the crisis has come to Asheville.
Last month, under the direction of Chancellor Kimberly van Noort, the UNC System Board of Governors accepted the proposal to eliminate the drama, philosophy, religion and ancient Mediterranean studies (classics) programs and to reduce languages and literature classes at UNC Asheville, the only liberal arts college in the UNC System. Van Noort suggests that these changes will not affect the liberal arts identity at UNCA. But the liberal arts aren’t cultivated by osmosis. It requires departments, people, positions and intention to teach them well. The virtues of liberal arts can’t be assumed in an otherwise pragmatic curriculum oriented toward making money. An economic lens will not tolerate a liberal ideal.
I teach at Montreat College, which is about as conservative as UNCA is liberal. You may think I’m celebrating these changes as the downfall of the progressive agenda or some other stereotype of a religious conservative in your head. But I’m not. I mourn these changes. Asheville is worse off as a community for gutting the foundation of a liberal arts core. Liberal, after all, stands for liberating or freeing. The liberal arts cultivate a free citizenship — an ever-present need, but especially so when fear, power and resentment rage. These are the arts that are for a liberated people, to help students become thoughtful, engaged and charitable. I may have a different aim or goal for a liberal arts core than UNCA, but we’re both trying to develop a similar type of person — regardless of the convictions.
Underneath these changes is not liberation, but economics. These changes are based on quantitative measure because we’ve lost any idea of qualitative concerns. The liberal arts teach students what is qualitatively different or better: What makes a good life? What is a good education? What is beautiful? What makes a life worth living? These changes aren’t due to UNCA being liberal; these changes are due to a culture obsessed with the market. There is no other rationale. Unsurprisingly (as is so often the case), no science, technology, engineering or mathematics programs were cut. Those “make sense.” Professional majors go on undisturbed — designed not about how to reason or how to live but how to make money.
Higher education has lost the crisis if changes like these continue to be made. One imagines the finance gurus of TikTok or Instagram saying young people shouldn’t go to college. (I’m self-aware enough to know that social media are the main teacher of students in my classroom.) If education is a degree factory or credentialing service, then they would be right. Changes like these prove that a college education offers nothing that a YouTube lecture couldn’t provide. Life is about money. Time is measured by your hourly rate. It’s a waste to spend your time on children or appreciating beauty or pleasure. Everything is a dollar sign adding to the proverbial bottom line.
Without any counterbalance to the logic of the market, our students will be adrift, purposeless and hopeless. These changes show us leaders of institutions aren’t much different from social media influencers. They’re operating by the same economic logic but with advanced degrees. It’s an education that’s bankrupt — even if they remain financially solvent.
Here’s a parable: A group of owners run a soccer league, but times are tough. It costs too much to buy soccer balls, so they’ll rearrange the sport. With so many constraints, buying so many balls doesn’t make sense financially. So, coaches will coach their teams. Players will move around the same. The field will have the same shape with the same lines. They’re doing soccer things, making soccer movements. But now the ball will be assumed in all that happens. As long as the ball is assumed, it doesn’t make a difference if it’s there or not. It’s still there in concept.
Financially, things are going well. They still have a league.
Of course, now the game doesn’t make any sense, essentially.
Those who have ears, let them hear.
— Alex Sosler
Asheville
If only those who want to get rid of religious studies would get rid of religion…therein lies the real rub.
But see, Alex, you’ve offered a philosophical parable to the Philistines…
This friend speaks my mind.
Keith Thomson, UNC Asheville ’89
Well argued, professor! My eldest son and I both attended religious affiliated (one Catholic, one Protestant) liberal arts undergraduate institutions similar to Montreat College, and I could not agree more with your assessment. “Liberal” in political philosophy means exactly what you say it means: respecting the autonomy, freedom, and pursuit of happiness and “the good life” for all beings, the compassion and wisdom to accept differences and be respectful while disagreeing, and for conservatives, being slow to change traditional institutions such as the academy (which has been around since the ancients). Liberal arts (philosophy, history, religious studies, classics, including the ancients) existed before the excessive dominance of global financial capitalism and its menacing influence in management of previously public goods and the debacle of new public management in how we run health care/ hospitals/ education/ etc. Now it focuses much too narrowly on the bottom line/ fiscal metrics/ shallow performativity/ productivity/ and production). Maternity wards that processed throughput (birthing mothers) efficiencies (units/time) from 72 to 48 to 24 hours resulting in immediate upticks of infant mortality and maternal deaths and injuries in the wealthiest country in the world are a case in point. Sometimes cutting costs kills and harms people and society (watch “Here’s to Flint 2016” documentary on YouTube for another case study in what not to do to balance a budget to appease bondholders or taxpayers). A liberally educated, morally reasonable adult worthy of administrative and/or political leadership should be able to identify and respond effectively to this line of reasoning and make the ethical, reasoned decision to do the right thing. This is why we need investment in public education beyond trade, mechanical skills, and technological skills. North Carolina ranks near last on percentage of GDP spent on public education. Write or call your representatives, please. Our future depends on it.
LOL, I’m sure the community will be devastated by the loss of the ancient Mediterranean studies major and the 2 people pursuing that degree.