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humanities and business

Are “once robust” humanities fields being “broken up and stripped for parts?

John Fea   |  November 27, 2019

Carnegie Mellon literary critic Jeffrey J. Williams writes about hybrid fields such as digital humanities, environmental humanities, food humanities, medical humanities, legal humanities, business humanities, and public humanities.  He calls these fields “The New Humanities.” Here is a taste of...

Economists Make the Case for More History Majors:

John Fea   |  October 23, 2019

Over at The Washington Post, Heather Long calls our attention to Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller’s new book Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral & Drive Major Economic Events.  Here is a taste of her piece: As humanities majors slump to the...

Episode 54: Why College?

  |  September 22, 2019

Increasingly, college campuses have transformed from places of rigorous scholarly pursuits into glorified centers for job training. But is this what college is really for? Host John Fea and producer Drew Dyrli Hermeling sit down and discuss the need for...

Johann Neem: “Abolish the Business Major”

John Fea   |  August 17, 2019

It is hard to argue with Western Washington University historian Johann Neem on this point.  The business major is an “anti-intellectual” degree program that should have “no place in colleges.” Why? Neem develops his thoughts in his new book What’s...

The Humanities Will Set You Up for Life

John Fea   |  April 5, 2019

More reasons to consider that humanities degree. Here is a taste of Amanda Ruggeri’s article at the BBC website: George Anders is convinced we have the humanities in particular all wrong. When he was a technology reporter for Forbes from...

Financial Planners Need to Read Shakespeare

John Fea   |  June 27, 2018

Check out “The Enduring Value of the Humanities,” Craig Lee’s article about the humanities at St. Olaf College, a liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota.  Here is a small taste: As the founder of GW Randall & Associates, a successful...

Do Business Schools Belong in Universities?

John Fea   |  February 20, 2018

For Miami (OH) University historian professor Steven Conn, the answer is clearly “no.” Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Conn makes his case. Here is a taste: It is hard to shake the conclusion that business schools have largely failed —...

Want to Get a Good Job and Be Happy?

John Fea   |  February 8, 2018

Go to college and major in the humanities. A recent study from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences is positive news for humanities students.  It reports on something we humanities folks already knew:  humanities majors get jobs, make good...

More Good Reasons to Study the Humanities

John Fea   |  October 19, 2017

These come from Ilana Gershon and Noah Berlastsky at The Pacific Standard. Here is a taste of their piece “Studying Humanities Teaches You How to Get a Job.” “If you’re studying interpretive dance, God bless you, but there’s not a lot...

Hire a Humanities Major

John Fea   |  October 18, 2017

Check out Scott Jaschik’s interview at Inside Higher Ed with Randall Stross, author of A Practical Education: Why Liberal Arts Majors Make Great Employees.  Stross has a Ph.D in Chinese history from Stanford and currently teaches business at San Jose State University. ...

The Problem With Majoring in Business

John Fea   |  September 29, 2017

To be fair, Chris Gehrz‘s post at The Pietist Schoolman is actually titled “The (Potential) Problems with Majoring in Business.”  Gerhz responds to a Chronicle of Higher Education list of the most popular majors at the nation’s 40 largest public universities.  As...

Humanities in a “Tech World”

John Fea   |  September 4, 2017

Mike Walden is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and Extension Economist at North Carolina State University.  In this piece he explains why the humanities are needed in a “tech world.” Here is a taste:   There’s another reason for...

“Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World”

John Fea   |  July 7, 2017

If you haven’t heard it yet, check out Episode 21 of the Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast.  We talk with Scott Hartley, a venture capitalist and author of The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the...

A Leading Silicon Valley Engineer: “I now wish that I had strived for a proper liberal arts education.”

John Fea   |  July 1, 2017

Borrowing from the late humanist David Foster Wallace, Tracy Chou wants to know what water is.  Chou is an entrepreneur and software engineer who has worked at Pinterest and Quora.  Knowing what she knows now,  she wishes she had a...

Harvard Finance Professor: We Need the Humanities

John Fea   |  June 13, 2017

Harvard’s Mihir Desai argues that we “all lose” when Wall Street is divorced from the humanities. Here is a taste of Carrie Sheffield’s piece on Desai at Salon: Mihir Desai, a Harvard finance professor, has a striking discovery he’s keen to share:...

Why Computer Scientists Should "Stop Hating" the Humanities

John Fea   |  April 27, 2017

This issue keeps coming up. Yesterday during a faculty meeting I listened to a colleague explain digital humanities to a group of more traditional-minded humanists.  He discussed the digital humanities as an effort to bridge the divide between computer scientists and humanistic inquiry....

Episode 21: Why We Need More Historians in the Silicon Valley

  |  April 23, 2017

The liberal arts vs. STEM. A degree in the humanities vs. a degree in business. The current conversation around higher education consistently pits the study of history, philosophy, or English against more “practical” pursuits like engineering or computer science. But...

Business Majors Need Liberal Arts to Advance in Their Careers

John Fea   |  June 29, 2016

Over at The Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum (see our interview with him in Episode 3 The Way of Improvement Leads Home podcast) explains why business majors need the liberal arts. Here is a taste: American undergraduates are flocking to business programs, and...

Why Historical Thinking Matters

John Fea   |  May 28, 2016

If you still need to be convinced why the study of history is absolutely essential to American democracy, check out Mark Oppenheim‘s interview with Jim Grossman. Oppenheim runs m/Oppenheim Associates.  He has a 30-year organizational consulting and search track record that...

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