"Our Arabic program is half a millennium old but couldn't withstand the corporatization of the contemporary university because it isn't nuclear engineering"
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It’s so tragic, because it also shows us how multiculturalism and languages have always to an extent been a part of our history - surviving centuries of intra-European warfare, but of course it cannot contend with capitalism and neo conservatism.
To be honest, if the "we" in question are academics invested in the Humanities, then I'm tempted to say there was nothing we could have done. These are deep and structural forces at work here.
Whether we as a *society* could have done better is a different question. And surely we could have...
Probably when we stop pitting the humanities against the sciences, as if the latter is more important than the former. For our society to advance (in the right direction) we need both.
Tbh the post contains a bit of geomancy. MES is not going to be abolished in the current plans, but its specialization tracks will be curtailed. Not good, but not the same as stopping MES (moreover, until now, these plans do not concern MA programs afaik).
Very bad anyway, and things will get worse.
This is horrible, you cannot merge stuff like that. I don’t want to hold a diploma in Asian Studies which only covered one country barely enough. Humanities have always been the step child of universities since the damned Industrialism but this is taking it too far.
We devalue humanities and languages until we need them. I have examples from my own work. The ability to communicate with others is how engineering gets done. Somebody has to speak the other language too. And have some understanding of the culture.
The Age of the STEMlord is upon us, and hopefully somebody's working to hide away knowledge until the technofeudalists are done and we can have a Second Enlightenment.
Knowing how things are now, it wouldn't even be nuclear - mining or petrochemical would probably foot the bill for the next big lab building and therefore control the direction of the uni for the Rest of Our Goddamn Lives. But still...
This is unacceptable. Without the humanities, there is nothing.
It's worse in NZ. Arts, creative arts, education and social care are being amalgamated into one department. Even European languages have been systematically cut. We need to find ways of taking back universities from the managerial class of inept, short-sighted philistines. We need a new 🟥 movement.
So are people just supposed to get STEM degrees (or marketing if you can’t do math) and begin careers in resource extraction while Door Dashing on the side to make rent?
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https://www.change.org/p/stop-cuts-on-dutch-higher-education
It shouldn't have anything to do with turning universities into businesses, which in any case is a bad idea.
Whether we as a *society* could have done better is a different question. And surely we could have...
Understanding the laws of nature are awesome, but ultimately we also live in human landscapes that we need to understand and navigate.
@gsoh31.bsky.social
Very bad anyway, and things will get worse.
I really hope they don't ratify these measures
This is unacceptable. Without the humanities, there is nothing.
https://bsky.app/profile/polyparadigm.bsky.social/post/3l5no244qno2o