History Majors During the Humanities Crisis

Description

This qualitative case study explored the experience of members and associates of
one university history department in order to examine the phenomena of choosing and
working within the history major in the context of current declines in humanities
enrolment. Drawing on interviews with 7 professors, 8 student majors, and 10
professional staff, it analyzed beliefs about how students should choose their majors,
benefits of historical thinking, the current climate of crisis in history, and resources to
support history students. Participants agreed that students should choose a major based on
intrinsic factors and shared a common vision of the meaning and importance of historical
thinking. However, participants experienced tension between these intrinsic values and
extrinsic pressures regarding the humanities crisis and the efficacy of student-support
resources. These results have implications for understanding pressures felt by current
humanities students and for developing new resources to better support history majors.
Author Keywords: case study, choice of major, historical thinking, history department, humanities crisis, student affairs