The humanities, Andrew Delbanco says, offer us “transformative moments” in the mysteries of the human condition.

And that is why Delbanco, director of American Studies at Columbia University, believes it is hard to place a number-crunching value on an education that prepares one for life — and not just a job.

Delbanco was in Davis Oct. 22 to speak on a seemingly perennial topic — the decline of the humanities. His talk, “Enough Already: Why Are the Humanities Always in Crisis?” drew more than 50 people to Bistro 33 for the first of three speaker events in this year’s Public Intellectuals Forum.

Delbanco acknowledged at the outset that American angst about education is long-running. Back in 1776, Abigail Adams lamented that “education has never been in a worse state,” and that professors are too preoccupied with their own pursuits — and not their students.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and not much has changed, said Delbanco, named “America’s Best Social Critic” by Time magazine in 2001. The difference is that we live in an Internet-driven world beset by a spreading financial crisis that is hitting fields like the humanities especially hard.

“Most of us do agree the humanities have been marginalized, besieged, or as my kids put it, generally dissed,” he said.

The percentage of undergraduate students majoring in the humanities is falling, and the salary gap between professors in the humanities and the sciences continues to widen, he noted.

For students, many are looking for a more practical — not contemplative — edge to their college degrees.

Delbanco, who admits to being “suspicious of statistics,” wonders how this affects the very nature of the undergraduate educational experience. Measuring quality learning and instruction is simply hard to do.

‘Aha’ moments

Teaching basic English literacy so students can read and write well enough for the workplace — a constant pressure by universities on the humanities units — is quite different from giving students and teachers the time and space for an “aha” moment to occur.

Such inspiration, however, can change a life, Delbanco noted, illustrating this by handing out a passage from Herman Melville’s 1850 novel White Jacket. While the highbrow prose of a writer like Melville may take to digest, it offers powerful insights into universal topics in human nature for young minds.

Just reading a book can change a life.

Delbanco recalled one very quiet student of his who was transformed by reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, switching from a career her parents wanted to force on her to that of teaching.

In today’s Twittering world of social media and other distractions, many young people seem to be losing touch with the benefits of history, art, music, philosophy and other “civilizing” fields of study. Instead, he said, they feel pressure — from families, peers and society — to get practical college degrees that land them good jobs with so-called security.

Delbanco said it is no secret that American higher education is “running scared” of countries like China and India that seem intent on producing hordes of “technocrats.”

Even in the U.S., the push to be practical in education is increasingly fashionable, he said. Some efficiency-minded types are demanding that colleges offer three-year degree plans instead of the traditional four-year approach — saving money and time, they argue.

Humanistic education, on the other hand, goes against the cultural mainstream.

“Humanistic study is profoundly un-American and controversial,” he said. “The humanities are focused on the past, but Americans are generally not too interested in the past.”

‘Digitized culture’

The life of the mind is not an easy one to shape nowadays, Delbanco said. Technology is changing the way we spend time and perhaps even the way we think.

“Machines are supposed to clear space and save us time, but they actually consume time” and cause us more stress, he said. “In our digitized culture, attention spans are shrinking.”

Back on campus, higher education is shrinking. Universities are suffering more crowded classrooms and rising student fees, both of which affect the learning experience,” he said.

“I’ve never heard a good argument that a large lecture hall is a better learning environment than a small group,” Delbanco said. “When it’s done well (in a small group), it’s education at its best.”

Measuring what?

The thing not to do, he said, is jump on the educational fad bandwagon. The move to “standardize” higher education, illustrated in the federal law No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, is another threat to the beleaguered humanities.

After all, how does one measure the value of writing, reading, creativity, interpretation and imagination?

“There is an increasing pressure for assessment,” he said. “There’s anxiety that this is percolating up to higher education.”

‘Spirit of contemplation’

It is true, Delbanco acknowledged, that the humanities are to blame in part themselves. The ideological wars of the last few decades have Balkanized many fields, and an increasingly heavy focus on faculty research seems to be shortchanging students on quality instruction time, he said.

Students are not interested in arcane research, Delbanco maintains. Rather, they truly want to grapple with the “big questions” of life, love and death, he said, citing studies on this topic.

On the research point, Delbanco received some collegial “push back” by Carolyn de la Peña, an associate professor of American studies who also directs the UC Davis Humanities Institute.

“Research does matter,” said de la Peña, who asked Delbanco if he thought humanities research should change somehow.

“It’s a slippery word, research,” the Columbia humanities professor explained. “I’m all for general research that has applicability in the classroom.”

PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS

The forum is a joint venture between the UC Davis Humanities Institute and the Center for History, Society and Culture. In the 2009-10 Public Intellectuals Forum, three speakers will offer their perspectives on “Beyond the Crisis: The Future of the University.” The next scheduled talks:
• Nov. 12—Leo Chavez, “Beyond Academic Walls: Unpacking the Latino Threat Narrative,” Bistro 33, 226 F St, Davis.
• April 27—Don Randal, “The Values of the University,” Studio Theater, Mondavi Center.
More information: dhi.ucdavis.edu