We are, in the twenty-first century, amid a “world-wide crisis in education” (Nussbaum 2). In virtually every nation, “the humanities and the arts are being cut away, in both primary/secondary and college/university education” (Nussbaum 2). The future of their disciplines under assault, notable scholars such as Martha Nussbaum and Toby Miller have in their texts vehemently defended the value of the humanities. In their respective books Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities and Blow Up the Humanities, Nussbaum and Miller agree that the humanities must vindicate themselves in a world shaped by the economic logic of profit and loss.
Given that historically “economic growth [has been] so eagerly sought by all nations”, the direction of education is in trouble all over the world (Nussbaum 6). The New York Times has identified that it is “economic downturns [which] have often led to decreased enrollment in the disciplines loosely grouped under the term ‘humanities’ which generally includes languages, literature, the arts, history, cultural studies, philosophy and religion” (Cohen). In an economic climate affected by shrinking university endowments and lengthening unemployment lines, policy-makers, colleges, and universities continue to cut funding for such “useless” education as in the humanities in order to “stay competitive in the global market” (Cohen; Nussbaum 2). Losing their places in not only curricula but also the minds and hearts of parents and children, the arts and humanities are increasingly brushed to the side as institutions lean towards more vocational interests (Nussbaum 2).
In countries such as the United States and Canada, where the liberal arts system of education is traditional, there are increasingly “strident calls for the curtailing of the liberal arts” (Nussbaum xv). Additionally, due to the growth in populations of lower-middle and working- class students in higher education which began in the 1970s, more undergraduates are pursuing degrees which seem economically viable in relation to their socioeconomic statuses. These enrollment surges in public universities in combination with the economic crises of the Global North have largely resulted in the turn away from the humanities (Miller 8). For example, the share of students in the United States pursuing education in the humanities—eight to twelve percent of the nation’s 110,000 undergraduates—is “less than half the figure from the 1960s” (Miller 6).
Considering the threat which economic instability poses to the vitality of the humanities, this paper aimed to investigate the attitudes towards the humanities in the context of McGill University. Though established in 1821, McGill College (as it was previously known) did not become active until 1829 when it incorporated the Montréal Medical Institution as its first academic unit and the first medical school in Canada (Crawford 2). McGill’s Faculty of Arts commenced its teaching in 1843, including under the auspices of its departments all scientific education at the university outside of medicine. It was not until 1971 when the diverse departments in this faculty were divided, and a unique Faculty of Science was created (“The Origins of Science at McGill”). Today, most students currently attending McGill are enrolled in six of the university’s eleven faculties, namely the Faculties of Arts, Science, Medicine, Education, Engineering, and Management (“McGill University Enrolment Reports”).
The McGill Daily, an independent student run newspaper at McGill University has since its inception in 1911 reported on events relevant to “McGill and related communities” including the “split” of the arts and sciences into two distinct Faculties (“Statement of Principles”). Originally published by the Daily Publications Society, an autonomous not-for-profit organization composed of most McGill undergraduates and graduates, all volumes of this newspaper have been digitized and made available online by McGill’s libraries. Based on this source’s “stated principles” and the relative freedom from commercial controls which it exercised, it has been assumed for the purposes of this paper that The Daily accurately represents in its issues the situation at McGill University at the time of each’s publication. Further, though most are written by only one author, the opinions included in the articles of this major university-adjacent publication are assumed to be representative of a significant population of the student and faculty bodies.
To uncover the opinions held by this population, a qualitative analysis of the articles in The Daily specifically concerning the splitting of the original Faculty of Arts into those of Arts and of Science has been conducted. McGill’s Faculty of Arts was contrasted with the Faculty of Science along the lines of C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” definition; In his 1959 Rede Lecture appointment at the University of Cambridge, Snow explained that “at one pole [there are] the literary intellectuals […] at the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists” (Snow 4). The two polar groups/cultures into which Snow believed the intellectual life of “western society” has been split have been acknowledged in contemporary debates. Discernable by Snow’s definitions, they are the same academic subject areas which have been throughout history battling for intellectual and fiscal appreciation (i.e., funding).
In the context of McGill University, the Faculty of Science—with programs in the physical, natural, and other sciences—fits within Snow’s culture of scientists. It is this Faculty’s traditional scientific education which is regarded by modern policymakers as of “crucial importance for the future [economic] health of their nations” (Nussbaum 7). Conversely, the culture of literary intellectuals which Snow associates with “novels, history, poetry, [and] plays”, can be compared to the education in the humanities central to McGill’s Faculty of Arts. Given that the decreased enrollment in and appreciation for humanities programs can be attributed to economic instabilities, a brief illustration of the state of Canadian economic affairs around the 1970s is relevant to this study on a Canadian university. Most notably, in 1963, less than a decade before the “split” event under investigation occurred, the Economic Council of Canada was established. Until this council was disbanded in 1992, one of its major responsibilities was to “assess medium and long-term prospects of the economy […] [and] study the effects of economic growth and technical change on employment and income” (Forward). As previously mentioned many nations cut their funding for education in the humanities, it can be reasonably assumed that this council might have also considered this course of action in the 1970s as it would in later decades. It must be conceded, however, that in the 70s—immediately following the government’s decision to return the Canadian dollar to a floating rate—the currency appreciated sharply (Powell 70). “Strong global demand” and “large inflows of foreign capital” are some of the causes which affected the strength of the Canadian dollar during this period.
Ultimately, this study had as its goal the creation of a narrative which weaves primary source evidence with inductive analysis to answer the research question: do articles in The McGill Daily covering the 1971 split of McGill’s Faculties of Arts and Science reveal an attitude towards the humanities which mirrors that which can be currently observed and attributed to the status of the global economy? Prior to investigation, it was hypothesized that the answer to this question would be yes: that articles in The Daily would reveal attitudes which value the operations of McGill’s Faculty of Science over the Faculty of Arts’ despite the relative economic stability in Canada at the time of these articles’ publication. Coverage of the event began in October of 1970, approximately eight months before the official commencement of McGill’s Faculty of Science, in an article titled “Senate splits Arts & Science”. This piece addressed the arguments for and against the split which were raised in a meeting of McGill’s student senate. One counterargument to the motion stated that the spending of upwards of $40,000 on the “setting up of the two faculties was directly counter to the budgetary decisions recently taken by the University” (Schusheim 1). This claim seems to place McGill’s financial situation—one threatened by shrinking government funding—in alignment with many other university institutions at the time and today.
An article written in the following month quoted Edward J. Stansbury (the Dean at that time of the Faculty of Arts and Science) defending the split against economic and other counterarguments. Stansbury claimed, “in the long run the split will facilitate flexibility of programs” (Balkan 1). Further, Stansbury briefly addressed his interest in the Dean of Science position, one which would necessarily be promptly appointed. There was no acknowledgement of the equally pressing need for a Dean of Arts. The newspaper issued the following day, November 17th, announced the approval of the split by McGill’s Board of Governors, officially setting the plan into action (Schneiderman 1).
Subsequent articles referencing the event reiterated arguments for and against the motion which was at this point already underway. Stansbury is again quoted endorsing the split in a December 11th article titled “Behind the A & S split”, arguing that it was necessary due to the “enormous size of the [combined Arts and Science] faculty and its inefficiency in coping with academic matter”. This piece also addresses a new perspective, held by the Arts and Science Undergraduate (student) Society, which suspected hidden motives behind the splitting of the faculty. According to this article, the ASUS inferred that “science professors felt themselves academically superior to the Arts faculty and therefore wished to be disassociated from them” (Abramovitz 25).
An issue of The Daily published over a month later featured two articles on the topic of inquiry with similar subjects but dissimilar (and telling) placements within the newspaper’s pages. Featured on the front page, “Little change foreseen” acknowledged the confirmation of Edward J. Stansbury as the Dean of Science. Stansbury, a consistent supporter of the decision to split the faculties was said to have been “honored and pleased to be chosen head of the new faculty”. Five pages later, a more somber article is featured. “No Dean of Arts yet” elaborates on just that, explaining that unlike the Faculty of Science the reimagined Faculty of Arts was still without a dean. That this issue was merely remarked upon offhandedly and on the sixth page of the same newspaper which recognized the new Dean of Science on its first page seems significant. Relative to the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Science and its operations seem to be prioritized and more highly appreciated by McGill University than its Arts counterpart. Similar to the division between the two cultures which Snow discusses in his lectures and determines to be a large threat to modern society, the Faculties of Arts and Science are in this newspaper separated physically and intellectually as they have also been at McGill in real life. Most noteworthy of all pieces covering the split between the faculties was the article last covering the event at the time. Titled, “Arts Faculty to be phased out”, this article effectively fills the gaps in the narrative which has been constructed thus far, placing all events in a far more sinister context. This article begins, “Due to the dire financial situation at McGill and the refusal of the provincial government to provide adequate funds, the Board of Governors today announced plans to phase out the Faculty of Arts within five years” (O’Reilly 1). The author of this piece then responds to the question most informed readers might ask themselves next, namely, if this was in fact the “real motivation behind the recent split of the Faculty of Arts and Science into two” (O’Reilly 1). Though prior articles had so explicitly cited proponents of the split (such as now Dean of Science Edward Stansbury) as affirming the long-term fiscal benefits of the motion, the argument presented in this piece reflects a stance nearly opposite. The Chancellor of McGill was quoted not only arguing that such “frills” as the humanities could no longer by afforded by the university but that the only departments from the Faculty of Arts worth saving were those which had been “operating at a profit” (O’Reilly 1). Finally, as the article states, “the plan also account[ed] for the fact that a new Dean of Arts, who was to have been selected by January fifteenth, ha[d] yet to be named” (O’Reilly 1). A succinct explanation for the lack of urgency expressed in the December issue, this potential truth directly relates this situation to a larger societal problem.
Too similar is this rhetoric to that which Nussbaum responds in her work; McGill in this situation presents itself as an institution which “prefer[s] to pursue short-term profit by the cultivation of the useful and highly applied skills suited to profit-making” (Nussbaum 2). Most specifically, the Chancellor’s use of the word “frills” relates this split situation to the greater depreciation of the arts and humanities to “nothing but useless frills” (Nussbaum 2). The extent to which the motivation behind McGill’s decisions is related to economic
fluctuations external to the university is difficult to determine based on content analyzed in this study. Though as aforementioned Nussbaum and Miller identified “shrinking University endowments” as a major impetus for the cutting of humanities programs, the financial status of the university was neither blamed on these nor played on one side of the argument more than the other. Opponents to the split objected the risk this costly process would pose for the already fiscally unstable institution; proponents claimed the decision would be eventually economically beneficial. It is plausible that the phasing out of the Faculty of Arts was by those in charge always regarded as the next course of action, a perception motivated by the belief in sciences as economically and intellectually superior. Ultimately, the hypothesis of this research was found correct, amid (and nearly despite) economic influences, the coverage in The Daily of the split of the Arts and Science faculties is representative of larger educational issues identified by scholars such as Nussbaum and Miller at the time.
Though the texts analyzed in this study were few and presumably omitted much contextual information, they were plenty to draw these conclusions. As Chancellor D.O. Hebb justified the split as necessary to “separate the wheat from the chaff of a university education”, there was a decisive attitude regarding the importance of the humanities (“Arts faculty to be phased out” 1). This event in McGill University’s history, which allowed the “university [to] make a real contribution to society […] in producing men and women of use, not in producing an idle intellectual elite” effectively illustrates the ongoing and frustratingly exhausting need to defend education in the humanities in an increasingly capitalistic society.
