Letter to the Editor

Monday, Feb. 9, a Chronicle article asked, more or less, “What can a humanities degree do for you?” As the Director of Academic Engagement for the Humanities here at Duke, I have a few answers.

1. It can provide you with a wide array of analytical tools by which to dissect terms like value, gender, doubt, skill, and education. You will learn to develop arguments and counterarguments of rhetorical finesse and insight that are also empathetically responsive to human experience. In this approach you have a stronger chance to meet the needs of a multi-dimensional world with critical responses of corresponding complexity.

2. It can give you an edge in knowledge acquisition and creative problem solving that has tangible effects. Data from the Association of American Colleges and Universities 2013 report “It Takes More than a Major” showed that over 70 percent of employers look for the the following attributes in college graduates—capacity for critical thinking and analytical reasoning, effective oral and written communication skills, the ability to locate, organize and evaluate information from multiple sources, innovation and creativity. Humanities majors have not cornered the market on these proficiencies. However, in humanities coursework—which at Duke includes the creative and performing arts—these modes of learning are front and center in the classroom and in the research and scholarship produced.

3. It can help you place what is presented as a common-sense, economic prosperity-driven funding plan for higher education within the history and immediate context of North Carolina General Assembly’s attitude towards higher education’s longstanding role in producing a diverse, broadly informed, critically adept citizenry.

No major is a “golden ticket” to security, however you want to define that term. What you do within your major, optimizing the myriad opportunities to deepen, interconnect and apply your studies inside and outside Duke’s classrooms and being able to speak about your choices with confidence—that is what helps craft a landing place for you after graduation. With humanities disciplines, much of that optimizing is in the hands of the individual student. There is great freedom to uncover the key questions you want to try to answer and the modes of analysis you will bring to bear upon them. I am one of many people at Duke interested in helping you craft an intentional and rewarding path in the humanities, and I’d welcome the opportunity to meet over coffee and discuss.

Jules Odendahl-James, Ph.D., M.F.A.

Program Director of Humanities Advising