John Ross, If protecting university humanities courses from oblivion means chopping out the difficult bits, it’s hard to see the point, Times Higher Education, 5 July 2025
When Australia’s national university announced the impending demise of its 60-year-old music school as a stand-alone entity, at least one Canberra Times reader wasn’t complaining. “ANU should focus on equipping students with practical skills for today’s workforce rather than expanding liberal arts programs,” he commented. “While music and cultural studies have value, degrees in highly specialised or niche fields often leave graduates with limited career prospects. Prioritising disciplines that drive tangible societal contributions, like science or technology, would better serve students and the community. You know I’m right.”
It’s a longstanding sentiment that drives a lot of higher education policy, from the fees that are charged, to the research projects that are vetoed, to the courses that are jettisoned when money gets tight. The humanities are froth. They’re an indulgence that doesn’t lead to jobs.
Never mind that school curricula spend a lot more time on Shakespeare and Mozart than quantum mechanics. Never mind that employment outcomes for HASS and STEM degrees are pretty much identical. Never mind that almost half of domestic PhDs are in society and culture, creative arts, management or education. Never mind that we’re all supposed to have seven careers anyway, and whatever we start out studying might have little resemblance to whatever we’re doing to earn a crust by the time we reach our prime.
ANU says its proposal to cut academic jobs in composition, performance, theory and musicology doesn’t mean those skills will have no place in the School of Creative and Cultural Practice – the national university’s proposed new home of music, visual arts, design, art, heritage and museum studies. “Live performance, composition, the creative use of music technologies and music production will continue to be taught at ANU,” said arts dean Bronwyn Parry. “The school is designed to reflect the way creative practice is evolving today.”
Apparently, creative practice is evolving away from mastery of the underpinning skills, much like foreign language learning is evolving away from fluency – which is just a bit too hard – to “cultural proficiency”. Aren’t universities supposed to be places for acquiring hard-won skills? If protecting university humanities courses from oblivion means chopping out the difficult bits, it’s hard to see the point.