Liberal arts schools hope to boost waning interest in ‘useless’ majors – The Coloradoan

CSU graduates prepare to walk the stage and receive their diplomas during commencement at the Lory Student Center on Saturday, May 14, 2016. Students in the schools of Art, Art History, Dance and Music received their degrees in the ceremony.(Photo: Austin Humphreys/The Coloradoan)Buy Photo

When Michael Cooley graduates this weekend, he'll leave Colorado State University with a degree in philosophy.

Cooley took every philosophy class that Front Range Community College offered during the course of earning his associatedegree. He then explored the possibility of continuing to study philosophy at CSU.

"But then, in the back of my mind, I was like, 'Well I don't want to work retail or Starbucks for the rest of my life,'" he said. "That's what I had heard."

However, through research, he said he found data to suggest philosophy majors have successful careers, and he decided to stay the course. After he graduates, he'll attend the University College of London, with an emphasis in philosophy, politics and economics. Ultimately, he wants to shape health care public policy.

Cooley is the type of student colleges hope to attract to their liberal arts programs many of which have faced a nationwide decline in recent years.

Robert Townsend heads the Washington office of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The academy launched a project called the Humanities Indicator to track data about the number of humanities degrees conferred each year.

They've noticed a lull in recent years nationwide, and Townsend said he's heard from concerned liberal arts educators across the country.

"There are a lot of department chairs that I've been talking to who are thinking hard about how they might attract students and bring them into the classroom," Townsend said. "There's a recognition that they're finding it more difficult to get students even into the intro level courses, which have traditionally served as a gateway or an entry point to attract students into majors."

CSU administrators are among those examining how to better market the College of Liberal Arts to students who are increasingly told to shy away from "useless" majors in favor of degrees with clear paths to profitable careers, such as engineering and business.

Despite more students graduating from the College of Liberal Arts than any other college at CSU last year, its growth has slowed considerably. There were 1,556 liberal arts majors last year at CSU, compared to 647 engineering majors.

However, enrollment in the College of Engineering has grown 79 percent over the last decade and 43 percent over the last five years. The Warner College of Natural Resources has grown 80 percent the last decade and 46 percent over the past five years.

College of Liberal Arts enrollment hasgrown by 8percent the last decade and has decreased by 6 percent over the past five years. The College of Health and Human Sciences showed similar declines in thelast five years.

At CSU, the response to a decline in liberal arts majors has taken shape in several forms.

The College of Liberal Arts has created a position for a full-time recruitment officer to better communicate the value of a liberal arts degree to teenagers trying to pick what they want to study.

The idea there is to help the students get better information about what the advantages of a liberal arts degree are, both in terms of career-oriented things and also in terms of personal satisfaction, said Benjamin Withers, dean of the college.

Withers said hes working with department chairs and faculty to make sure they clearly articulate to students the skills theyre learning beyond the content matter of the class.

Individual departments within the college are taking action as well. Matt Mackenzie, an associate professor of philosophy, said this semester he created a PowerPoint that helps himpresent to introductory classes the benefits of a philosophy major.

He talks often to prospective students and their parents to explain the skills the students learn in a liberal arts major will benefit them when they enter the job market.

Employers tend not to care whether you know about 17th century French poetry or Ancient Greek philosophy, but they do care if you can think critically and independently, write clearly, communicate clearly, he said.

He provides examples of high-profile figures with philosophy backgrounds, such as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Briar andcomedian Stephen Colbert.

He also provides examples of career paths that might not seem obvious at first, including government, business, law and even medicine. Mackenzie pointed to a 2015 op-ed in the Washington Post by a Harvard Medical School professor who argued that liberal arts majors give students multidisciplinary skills that make them well suited for the job market.

And then, of course, there's the question of money.

Mackenzie cited PayScale, a website that compiles salary data about various college majors. Although the salary of a liberal arts major will likely not compete with, say, that of a petroleum engineer, Mackenzie said liberal arts majors can still find well-paid jobs.

From my personal perspective, the last few years have really highlighted the deep need that we have to be producing and sustaining informed, critical and engaged citizens, Mackenzie said.The historical and current mission of the liberal arts is to do those things, and we want people to pay the bills and pay the rent and have middle class salaries.

Philosophy majors, according to PayScale, have a median early-career salary of $44,700. History majors have a median $42,200. Sociology majors have a median salary of $40,400.Humanities majors have a median salary of $40,900.

By comparison, a petroleum engineer starts out at $96,700 a year, according to PayScale.

However, the encouraging data comes mid-career for liberal arts majors, as their salaries climb. For example, the median mid-career pay for a philosophy major climbs above $80,000.

So, the task that falls to liberal arts educators now is to step up their marketing game. When they share career, salary and life satisfaction data with students, they become more convincing.

"I didn't start out as a salesperson for the liberal arts," Mackenzie said. "But, over time, talking to parents, students and prospective students and myself having to think about why I love the liberal arts and why I'm so passionate about teaching it I've actually become much more hopeful and positive about what liberal arts education can provide and should provide."

Communication studies: 193

Journalism and media communications: 155

Economics: 153

Criminology and criminal justice: 102

Interdisciplinaryliberal arts: 70

Source: Colorado State University

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Liberal arts schools hope to boost waning interest in 'useless' majors - The Coloradoan