Two recent news items from academia caught the eye.
One is that Harvard might establish a new institute for the study of civics and the Constitution. Presumably, this would be a self-governing body within the university with enough independence to pursue a distinct mission—in this case, a relatively traditional approach to its discipline. If Harvard does so, it will join other colleges and universities that have established similar programs, including Ohio State University (OSU), the University of Texas, and Arizona State University. These, in turn, have a model in Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, founded in 2000 by Professor Robert P. George.
The second news story comes from the University of Tulsa. There, philosopher Jennifer Frey, Dean of its Honors College, was let go after serving for two years. Frey had employed an approach, again rather traditional, somewhat akin to that found in the James Madison Program. Writing in the New York Times, she described the Tulsa program: “The curriculum I helped build and teach required students to read thousands of pages of difficult material every semester, decipher historical texts across disciplines and genres and debate ideas vigorously and civilly in small, Socratic seminars.” The result proved appealing to students: “It was tremendously popular . . . we attracted over a quarter of each freshman class to this reading-heavy, humanities-focused curriculum.”
Despite this promising start, a newly installed university provost decided that the Honors College needed a new direction, effectively ending the experiment. Commenting on this decision, Frey wrote: “It’s not that traditional liberal learning is out of step with student demand. Instead, it’s out of step with the priorities, values, and desires of a powerful board of trustees with no apparent commitment to liberal education.”
Taken together, the two stories raise a question: Can an institute like Princeton’s James Madison Program serve other disciplines, particularly English and the humanities? That model, which ensures a degree of institutional independence, might have protected Frey’s project from its unfortunate end. Despite the success of her curriculum, she was vulnerable to the prerogatives of the university administration.
To those concerned about the study of the humanities in academia, Frey’s dismissal hurt, not least because her success stood in such strong contrast to the grim news about the humanities that one usually hears. Such news was the focus of a widely-read 2023 New Yorker article, “The End of the English Major” by Nathan Heller. In it, we read that at OSU’s main campus, at Tufts, and at Notre Dame, the number of graduates from humanities programs fell by 46 percent between 2012 and 2020. At SUNY Albany, the figure was closer to 75 percent. Summing up more broadly, Heller wrote that over the ten years prior to his article, “the study of English and history at the collegiate level dropped by a full third.”
To get a better feel for the dynamics behind the numbers, Heller visited Harvard, where in 2022 only seven percent of freshmen planned to major in the humanities, down from 20 percent in 2012 and nearly 30 percent in the 1970s. For English majors specifically, the number of majors had plummeted by 75 percent over the fifteen years prior to 2020. “We feel we’re on the Titanic,” he quotes one professor in the department.
In sifting the causes for the decline, Heller focused on students and their loss of interest in pursuing the humanities. Not surprisingly, one factor is the change in students’ reading habits, resulting from the rise in online activities. With young people so wrapped up in their digital scrolling, it seems natural that they have paid less attention to books before college and are less inclined, and perhaps less able, to read at the level the academic study of English or the humanities demands. (Of course, Jennifer Frey would have something to say about this assumption.)
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Other forces have contributed to the lessening of student interest in the humanities, however. One is a strong tendency toward pragmatism, though in differing ways. With student debt at alarming levels, many students must pay attention to their post-graduate earning potential, and they often assume that the humanities are a poor bet in that regard. According to one, channeling her immigrant parents, “You don’t go to Harvard for basket weaving.”
In another indication of the practical mindset among students—perhaps positivist is more apt here—Heller finds that data-driven modes of thought hold sway among many Harvard undergrads. He quotes one: “Even if I’m in the humanities, and giving my impression of something, somebody might point out to me, ‘Well, who was your sample? How are you gathering your data?’” Whatever we make of this specific sort of hard-headedness, it makes for a poor fit with the study of literature. And one wonders whether there is something in the homes and schools that produce these Harvard students, and others in our top-tier schools, that fosters it.
In any case, student demand explains only part of the decline of the humanities. There is also the supply side: what has actually been offered to students by the English and other departments. Here, Mark Bauerlein—a Minding the Campus contributor—in his 2021 article “Truth, Reading, Decadence,” helps. Bauerlein taught English for decades, including a long stint at Emory University, where he is now an emeritus professor.
When he looks at the decline of academic English, he places a good deal of blame on the professoriate. Not least, he cites the spell cast by literary theory over their ranks in the 80s and beyond. Bauerlein himself felt the pull of this trend, like so many other young, ambitious scholars. They sensed an opening up of their discipline, with whole new, intellectually challenging realms of study to explore.
One particular aspect of these theories enhanced their attraction among academics. These approaches “deconstructed” literary works themselves, denying that a given novel, poem, or play had any stable, essential meaning to convey in the first place. What mattered more was the critic’s interpretive effort. As the new theories caught hold, the “search of the central truth of a literary work was over,” Bauerlein wrote. “No more truth, only ‘reading.’” He further notes that while this approach might appeal to critics and instructors, it was less attractive to the book-loving students who had previously filled English classes. But the potential loss of market share, as it were, did little to slow the spread of the movement. “I was drawn into theory in those years, and I can attest that we didn’t care.”
However heady those days were, they couldn’t last. Yet, as the passion for theory peaked and receded, what filled the void was not more traditional studies, but concerns with social justice and identity politics. This movement, in turn, attracted students (and instructors) for whom, “ . . . literature is but a pretext for arriving at an extra-literary truth, the realities of race, sexuality, and the rest,” as Bauerlein writes.
Which brings us to the dispiriting present and the question of what to do now. Here, the institute model might prove valuable. It would allow, for example, a concentration of interest and talent among both teachers and students, in a more encouraging environment than they might otherwise find. In his article, Bauerlein wonders whether a pupil looking for, say, a professor able to discuss Faulkner’s insights in human nature or the refinement of Pope’s poetry might actually be able to find one. If they are few at this point, an institute devoted to studies in a more traditional spirit could attract the best of those who remain. Likewise with students.
Indeed, a return to the study of literature as literature, and not as a jumping off point for social justice politics, personal therapy, or arcane theorizing, is the crux of the matter. Everyone knows, or at least intuits, that literature stands apart from other, more positivist, pursuits, whether chemistry, sociology, statistics, or what have you. In its creation as well as in its reading, literature engages the mind in distinctive ways. In her famous exchange with “a Professor of English,” Flannery O’Connor wrote that “the meaning of a story should go on expanding for the reader the more he thinks about it, but meaning cannot be captured in an interpretation.” If so, instruction ought to encourage, and certainly shouldn’t discourage, this sort of encounter with literature. For Mark Bauerlein, the failure to teach in this key explains a good deal of the decline of our English and related programs: “[S]tudents stopped caring about literature because professors stopped believing in its promises of revelation and delight.” The establishment of an institute of English or literary studies would lend itself to a future where the goal is clearly the study of literature in a manner fully respecting its integrity.
Finally, an institute, structured properly, could protect this act of renewal from whatever forces might threaten it, including those that ended Jennifer Frey’s nascent program.
The next part of this essay will examine the institutional aspects of such a project, using the James Madison Program at Princeton as a model.
* * *
If the study of English and literature is in trouble and the institute model might contribute to its renewal, it is worth examining how the model might work to assess its practicality. With this in mind, I sent several questions about the James Madison Program to its founder, Professor Robert George, who very graciously answered. What follows is based on those responses and on information found on the program’s website.
First, some basics. The program offers standard courses for credit in the Department of Politics or other departments. Along with those classes, it also provides lectures from guest speakers, seminars, reading groups, and various special events. The program’s students also visit the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments and can take a summer seminar program at Oxford. Another summer course in Athens will soon be added.
Beyond these basics, I asked Professor George about the program’s founding and its essential purpose. His response makes clear that its mission was never put in ideological terms. Describing the context of the founding, George cites Princeton’s distinguished history of constitutional scholarship, where Woodrow Wilson, Edward Corwin, Walter Murphy, and others have played prominent roles. “I wanted to build on that tradition to create an exemplary program in civic education,” he wrote.
It was this desire for continuity with earlier traditions that defined the program’s purpose. Its mission statement lists a dozen points of interest, which are focal points for study there. The list’s first bulleted item focuses on “the nature of free political institutions and the cultural conditions for the establishment and maintenance.” Following this, the list includes foundational constitutional concepts such as federalism, executive authority, judicial independence, and the role of religion in political life. The final bulleted item points to the thinkers whose work the program attends to, starting with Plato and Aristotle and going through the founders and on to Martin Luther King, Jr. By including these concepts and thinkers in its mission statement, the program places the long Western tradition at the heart of its curriculum, without limiting itself to any particular ideological perspective. Such an approach to its basic mission might translate well to an institute devoted to the study of English and other humanities.
In addition to its basic mission, I asked Professor George about the program’s relationship to Princeton and whether the university holds oversight powers in relation to the program. His response: “The University has the same role in relation to the Madison Program that it has in relation to all other academic units at the University.” Rather than an insular position at Princeton, the program is thoroughly integrated into the mainstream of the school. As an example, nearly all of its offerings are open to all Princeton students.
However, the Madison Program could not pursue its mission without some degree of independence. When asked about how it maintained a degree of autonomy, George mentioned the program’s funding. “The Program does not get an annual allocation from the University. Rather, each year it raises the funds necessary to meet its budget,” though Princeton’s Advancement Office does cooperate in the program’s fundraising efforts. Seen from Princeton’s perspective, this looks like a very good deal. It gets a strong academic division on campus, essentially open to all its students, and for a very low cost. Of course, this arrangement places a very substantial burden on the program to fund itself, but in return, it gets its measure of autonomy. This combination of independence and responsibility for funding also fosters a sense of accountability among the program’s leadership. It must meet expectations among donors to remain solvent, a pressure that other university programs might not face so squarely.
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In terms of its internal structure, the Madison Program has a key committee that plays an important role in both fundraising and governance. It is the Advisory Council, currently with 25 members. Judging from the information found on the program’s website, a number of these members have strong backgrounds in finance, though other areas of expertise are represented among members as well. They all, one can safely assume, understand and firmly support the Madison Program’s mission.
Because the Advisory Council shares in the governance of the program, it is a reservoir of institutional knowledge. Should anything happen to longtime director Robert George, the council would undoubtedly play an important role in the transition, as it surely will when George eventually retires. The council also provides an essential link between the Madison Program and the university. The university’s Dean of Faculty appoints its members, though his or her decision is based on the recommendation of the Director of the Program. Thus, the university has a say in this level of the program’s long-term guidance, but with critical input from its leader.
Even well-balanced institutional structures do not preclude the possibility of antagonism in a relationship such as the one between Princeton and the Madison Program. This points, in turn, to the importance of cooperation between the two. I asked George whether there had been any efforts to encroach on the program’s independence over the course of its 25 years, and his answer was no. “We have been treated extremely well by Princeton University. We could not have asked for a better institutional home.” There is a valuable lesson here for anyone interested in founding a similar institute for the study of English: If you establish your home at a university, find one that fully supports your mission and where you are genuinely welcome.
The Madison Program makes use of its independence in various ways, two of which have not yet been noted. One is the inclusion of Faculty Associates in its programs. These are members of the Princeton faculty from across a wide range of disciplines, including professors of economics, mathematics, engineering, Near East Studies, and others. When asked about their role, George makes clear that the associates are remarkably and widely learned, and share an intense interest in the civic mission of the Madison Program. Because of their diverse intellectual backgrounds, they bring valuable perspectives to it and are “very active participants,” as George puts it.
In a slightly more unorthodox vein, the Madison Program has also held seminars devoted to country music and jazz—George himself, a West Virginian by background, is an accomplished banjo player. There is no hard dividing line between the broader social life of a people and its specifically political dimension, and culture is directly related to the health of the polis. “We’re very interested in exploring and promoting the distinctive American musical genres and other distinctive contributions to American culture,” George said. When asked whether such music days would be possible outside the structure of the Madison Program, he answered yes, in theory, but doubted whether there would be enough interest elsewhere to actually do so.
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The academic world has surely entered a turbulent period. Among institutions of higher education and across disciplines, interested parties must be seeking paths to a sustainable and fruitful future. Nowhere is the need for fresh thinking clearer than in English and the humanities. As Italian ex-patriot Carlo Lancellotti, now a professor of mathematics in this country, recently wrote, “One thing that genuinely surprised me many years ago when I became acquainted with US academia was that on more than one campus the really nihilistic department, the one truly bent on destroying its own discipline, was the English department.”
While there are surely English departments where this is not the case, the study of literature, in academia and beyond, could use some saving. As a means to that end, the academic institute model, such as the one outlined above, may hold real promise, especially if planted in the country’s top-tier institutions.
What is at stake goes far beyond the confines of our college and university campuses.
Image: “Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey” by Ken Lund on Flickr
