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.