President's Corner

Traditionally, IU's president discusses the broad range of opportunities and challenges facing IU in his State of the University address.\nIn this year's speech, which I will give at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Frangipani Room at the Indiana Memorial Union, I plan to break with that tradition. I will instead focus on one issue of utmost importance to this campus, this University and this nation: the future of the arts and humanities.\nThe past decade has brought a decrease in student majors in the arts and humanities, serious constraints in federal funding and a general loss of public status for the liberal arts. I believe the arts and humanities face an impending crisis, which not only threatens the heart of the academic enterprise, but also endangers our souls, both as individuals and as citizens of our various communities.\nSeveral decades ago, 75 percent of incoming freshmen indicated their primary reason for attending college was to develop a philosophy of life, which is a surrogate for interest in the liberal arts. Now, 75 percent say their primary motivation is to gain career skills.\nResearch funding reflects the same trend. While the National Institutes for Health allocates $20 billion annually, the combined annual support for research from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts is slightly more than $200 million.\nThese changes have consequences. We run the risk of becoming a people who are readily entertained by a rapidly growing media and who can check stock quotations anytime, anywhere. All the while, we lose touch with our history, with sophisticated aesthetic pleasures and with the wisdom necessary for moral action.\nThe arts and humanities are essential for an educated citizenry. We are justly proud of our professional programs at IU, but they must be supported by liberal arts instruction. These subjects develop ways of thinking about the experience of being human that no investment in technology can produce.\nOf course, the liberal arts also provide excellent preparation for a career in the quickly changing workplace, where lifelong learning and critical thinking are essential.\nIn my speech, I will discuss some strategies ' both short- and long-term, both within our University and elsewhere ' that we can use to advance the arts and humanities. It is an important subject, one that I will return to often in the coming months.\nWhat's on your mind? You can e-mail President Brand at pres@indiana.edu.