In my recent first look at Engageli, I wrote about the importance of scaling the humanities seminar. The short version is that budget pressures will force universities to make cuts to programs that are the most costly to run. Since STEM programs tend to generate more grant money and social sciences programs can often teach at least the lower-level courses in large numbers, the humanities are vulnerable. The pedagogy of the seminar constrains the size of even the 100-level composition classes that all students take (in contrast to the vast majority of other 100-level courses). We are not good at scaling seminar-style courses with quality yet. Consequently, programs that rely on seminar-style pedagogy are vulnerable during hard economic times. Faculty are more likely to be let go, and programs are more likely to be cut.
Continue reading in eLiterate...
