don't you think?

I am a graduate of a smaller university and we had and have humanities. It is a state full of culture, is multi cultured even if it is filled with asshole republicans.

Republicans have ruined the state. That's all I meant.

Unless you or someone you know well live in a place all you know is what makes the news. We rarely make the news except for horrible things because...republicans.

In spite of it all Brownback tried to eliminate all of the humanities from the state. People worked harder to preserve them. Even republicans, the moderate republicans (how they vote is a mystery to me) because they know that our humanities define us in all of our cultures and their glory (or not). We beat it, we beat a governor who tried to rid us of all of those things and we still have a vibrant community in the state.

Thank you. You should know that being a Dem in this state is hard enough. We got pounded when we thought we were good, pounded. They are taking a wrecking ball to us and...AND Brownback is back and his nasty little pal Kobach and there is still one evil Koch brother here who sits in the capitol building when voting occurs. We were their first victims before we even knew about it and we remain a victim of them. We are doomed I fear but the arts will remain, we do it even if there is no pay in it because our souls, just like every liberal state, depend on it.

no music, no literature, no art history, no theatre, no philosophy, no languages?

Red state legislatures are analyzing which academic disciplines attract more liberal students and employ more liberal faculty, and they're eliminating them from their states' universities under the totally innocent "cost cutting" rationale. It's along term strategy to de-liberalize academia.

Then, when money becomes available again, they'll "restore" curricula more friendly to cons, like religious studies, ROTC and the like.

Samuel Ramey and Joyce DiDonato, I believe.

I have played with many of their staff for years, always top notch. Their students in all parts of music do well. Their jazz department is good, great staff.

this will also filter down into public school music education. Just awful...

when I saw this. I did not know you had retired, we rarely speak but I did know that you taught there. This is so darned sad.

live, many excellent people accepted lower salaries just to stay here. As a consequence, KU has been a better school than one might expect.

Even my tiny university has humanities. Otherwise it is not a university?

are why we can’t have nice things

I've heard about this trend for years. An adjunct college professor friend in NY mentioned this when explaining that he'd lost some classes due to the changes in curriculum, leading to less enrollment in classes that are no longer required. This was years ago.

Lack of interest, lack of ability (many college freshman have poor language and writing skills), emphasis on "practical" courses have all contributed to this. He was always complaining about the majority of his students who couldn't write a college level essay, or remarking on the few who had superb skills.

You might expect something like this at the land grant Kansas State, but I can't imagine KU flushing humanities.

I am 57, and an engineer. I have thought about taking some Humanities focused courses when I retire. I love History and am trying to get a better appreciation of English Literature and Art. I have listened to some Humanities focused audiobooks and watched some Great Courses with more of a focus on Humanities.

I like the idea of bringing together the various disciplines of History, Literature, and Art into a Humanities curriculum.

Unless you think the university should just raise tuition on everyone else in order to fund these programs.

What about the basketball program? How will they be able to pay all of that without everyone else paying huge tuition costs?

We need to revamp it all. I cannot imagine a college degree is worth much these days with so many jobs being low paying how could you ever afford to pay back those loans for the education that really did not help you the way much of life and jobs are set up now?

When I went it was worth every bit of time and effort to get that degree. 5 year Music Ed program, 5 years and I owed nothing when I was done. It was an expensive little University, $16 an hour in 1971. LOL, I cannot imagine that anyone graduates and ever is out from under the fees they charge now. Thankfully both my boys had huge music scholarships, one paid nothing the other paid a bit more than that.