There is much in the air this year about the place of the humanities at Stanford and about the optimal place of the humanities in an undergraduate education. First, there is no gainsaying that despite its nationally recognized quality, and despite real sympathy for it on the part of many non-humanist colleagues, the humanities faculty is not at the center of Stanford’s life — far from it. Enrollments have been declining for decades, and we humanists are sometimes taken to task by the University leadership for failing to counter this trend — the expression of a nation-wide trend in a university that is furthermore situated in the holy land of technology, Silicon Valley. Second, there is no debate either that our students find burdensome the piling up within the first year of freshmen seminars, IHUM and PWR. Many would rather jump immediately into the usually massive requirements of the majors they want to pursue, be they pre-medical or engineering. Each issue calls for a blunt comment.

First, Stanford has to decide whether it wants to be “CalTech North” or comparable to our East Coast peers — say, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. If we want more majors in the humanities, the faculty should offer undergraduate courses more attractive to 17-21-year-old American students, and a little less attractive, perhaps, to its individual boutique research interests. More fundamentally, deans and provosts should get the enrollments in the humanities that the admission process deserves — input in, output out. Only a small minority of high school applicants to Stanford (I have heard 15 percent) intends to pursue the humanities. This figure is an iron barrier to higher enrollments. Given that Stanford very much gets to choose which students it admits, an admission process that would, from the start, earmark a yield of, say, 40 percent self-declared humanists would result in a larger number of freshmen with humanities focuses coming to us. The quality of the freshman class would not go down, since we take in about 1,700 freshmen out of a deep pool of about 35,000. Stanford should stop moping about declining enrollments and stop trying to increase numbers by tinkering with, e.g., humanities departments’ open houses, wine and cheese or flashy hires. These tricks can have only a marginal impact. Stanford, rather, must seize the bull by the horns. Unless, of course, we are reconciled with becoming “CalTech North.”

Second, in recalibrating undergraduate education and the place of the humanities in it, Stanford should not forget its duties to America. The cliché is true that by virtue of its strengths (and of the pre-existing social capital of many admitted students), Stanford produces “leaders.” With power and privilege come responsibilities. If we produce leaders in their fields who do not have a good grasp of fundamental issues — those issues that the humanities and softer social sciences (e.g., economics and political science) debate and teach — we will have provided America with influential graduates who will not understand the world beyond their specialized training, and, as citizens, will vote and contribute money without finesse to causes. The question is not to inculcate in our students the “right” values (force-feeding will engender reactions). It is not primarily relevant whether our students will end up Republicans or Democrats. What is relevant is that they be subtle participants in the life of the nation — smart and subtle Republicans or Democrats. Thus, whether 18-year-olds like it or not in the moment, they should be exposed to good courses in the humanities. To repeat, to educate students in this humanistic manner is a duty. For Stanford to ignore it is to make a Stanford education a mere product facilitating vocational careers, and a product sold and bought.

These two issues are distinct but, if faced as suggested above, will come together. More students focusing on the humanities will change the atmosphere and make issues of responsibility and clear-sightedness in political action more evident to others. A sense that Stanford cares about its responsibilities will make it more attractive to humanists. “CalTech North?” A prestigious label without duties attached? Your choice, our choice.

Philippe Buc

Professor, Department of History