I don't doubt that the president of Cornell has his heart in the right place, and perhaps his plan suits his role as a university president, but crying "more federal funding!" and "let's hire a few more humanities profs!" is a woefully parochial way to kick off a "national conversation" about the humanities. If he and others are going to venture off-campus and make the case for the humanities to the wider public, they might have better luck if they don't start with the assumption that "the humanities" and "academia" are always the same thing.
I don't doubt that the president of Cornell has his heart in the right place, and perhaps his plan suits his role as a university president, but crying "more federal funding!" and "let's hire a few more humanities profs!" is a woefully parochial way to kick off a "national conversation" about the humanities. If he and others are going to venture off-campus and make the case for the humanities to the wider public, they might have better luck if they don't start with the assumption that "the humanities" and "academia" are always the same thing.
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