Young people never fail to impress. It is profoundly moving to hear students affirm what our classes mean to them, intellectually and personally. As part of the University led portfolio review of impacted majors across several departments and areas of interdisciplinary study, under the threat of pausing and threat of closing “third-tier” majors, the College of Arts and Sciences held a town hall. We were unsure how many students were going to attend. At 6:00 On a cold Wednesday night the week before the long Thanksgiving break, students filled the large Killian room to talk about the value of the Humanities.

On the negative register, our students face structural impediments to study in the Humanities. Students described how the large programs and professional schools create silos, monopolizing student time with onerous degree requirements. The large programs and professional schools treat students like numbers. Faculty do not create opportunities to dive into deep discussion. The large programs and professional school do not teach human intelligence and communication. Advising is across the board terrible, slotting students into classes that do not speak to them intellectually or emotionally. The Humanities are invisible at Syracuse, as is probably true nationally. Parents are a part of the problem. Tuition is unaffordable. Students are stressed out by neo-liberalism. They are confused about the lack of commitment from the Administration to the Humanities and to student interest in intellectual exploration and growth.

On the positive register, students described passionate commitment to a broad-based civic interest based on human value, purpose, meaning and connection. They love their classes and the Humanities and they love their faculty. They know we see and look at for them. Students want basic things like Religion, Medieval Studies, Languages, History, Women and Gender Studies, Jewish Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Asian American Studies, Art History. We heard shout outs to Dante, Japanese anime, queer sexuality in the medieval period, Dead Sea Scrolls, the Crusades, Buddhism, German language studies, Kabbalah, Italian language studies. In this digital age of AI, students underscored the critical importance of the written word and student essay.

A takeaway: the Humanities and vulnerable programs across the Humanities cannot suffer in silence or give in to pessimism. With student support behind us, faculty need to double down, restore public trust in the work we do, secure our place in the University, make a lot of noise and be visible in public, contribute op-eds and send letters to students newspapers, set up Instagram accounts and other online platforms, lobby and lean into this political moment.

On a personal note, I want to underscore the centrality of Religion and the seamless presence of Jewish Studies and the Jewish Studies Program in the mix of this discussion about the Humanities and its future at Syracuse University.