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Rob Townsend

@rbtownsend.bsky.social
1.5K followers 757 following 1.4K posts

Director, Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs and Humanities Indicators (bit.ly/1vcZlh4) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Quotes and RTs ≠ opinions.

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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Slides for my talk at St. John's University on the value of humanities skills in the workforce are now available at bit.ly/4hTHhnS (LinkedIn). Happy to share if you would like the original slide deck.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“The ability to formulate an argument, the ability to evaluate an argument, the ability to read a bit of text and extract an argument from that text; I think these are really skills that … are going to come in handy” bit.ly/47gO70E
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Humanities degrees see lowest award rates in decades
Bachelor’s degrees in humanities were awarded at a significantly lower level compared to the past decade in 2025, according to a Sept. 8 report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humaniti...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“AI has not rescued the humanities. What it has done is reveal, with unusual clarity, what happens when societies allow the institutions that cultivate judgement to erode.” bit.ly/4d3OWxd
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AI just made the case for philosophy majors; the humanities should not waste it - Oxford University Press
Sophie Goldsworthy, Global Academic Publisher, explores how AI companies hiring philosophers may have made a compelling case for the study of humanities disciplines.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
New: Focus groups and interviews with young people (bit.ly/3V50oTf) and the secondary teachers and counselors (bit.ly/4hjtkOE) who work with them provide important insights into how the #humanities fit into students' educational journeys and development as whole people.
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Pathways and Barriers to the Humanities: The Perspectives of High School and College Students
Young people are the biggest stakeholders in their own education, and yet we know little about how students think about coursework, attending college, and their broader life goals. Focus groups and in...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Many students just don’t feel comfortable with long-form reading that they’d do in an English or history class... If students don’t feel comfortable with text, they’re more likely to be attracted by something that doesn’t require them to do that reading.” bit.ly/4rw2bge
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The humanities have a reading problem - The Boston Globe
As reading skills decline, students may be steering away from the subjects that require them to read deeply. Colleges should help prepare them before they arrive.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"College should prepare us for the world, but most of all prepare us to live. If universities keep pushing humanities to the sidelines because they may not be as profitable as other fields, we risk forgetting the purpose of education." bit.ly/3TMocLa
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Opinion | Let the humanities be economically useless
When I told friends and family I wanted to pursue a secondary major in philosophy, the most common response was, “How will that make money?” No matter how much I explained I liked the subject and foun...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Thanks to Jennifer McNabb and Jess Cruz for two terrific days at UNI talking to faculty and students, and an opportunity to learn more about the terrific new Humanities Hub program here.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"The emerging conventional wisdom: In the age of AI, human skills such as creativity, communication and collaboration could provide a crucial professional edge, whatever the field." bit.ly/4ydZr9K
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Humanities Degrees Are Poised For A Comeback. AI Gets The Credit.
Since 2012, the number of humanities majors has plunged as students chased degrees with what looked like guaranteed career payoffs. But the job market has changed.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Enrolment in humanities courses is holding up in the UK despite concern about their supposed declining popularity in an employability-focused environment": bit.ly/4dD0JCL
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Enrolments on humanities degrees teeter on the edge
History and social sciences tick upwards but languages and creative arts continue to fall, while vocational subjects rise
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Slides for my talk at Coastal Carolina are now posted at bit.ly/4h74zoJ (on LinkedIn). If you can't download, or just want the PowerPoint version, please don't hesitate to ask.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"This future will be one of our own making as we professors erode the basics of humanities instruction and assessment to keep LLMs from turning writing assignments into opportunities to offload work." bit.ly/46ZGlYW
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The Cures for AI Are Killing the Humanities (opinion)
The retreat from take-home essays jeopardizes the future of the humanities.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"Townsend said colleges and universities could address those concerns by making the skills students develop through humanities courses more explicit, including research, writing, and communication skills." bit.ly/4h7xZDg
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"That presents universities with a paradox. While artificial intelligence is making it easier to generate text and information, skills traditionally associated with the #humanities —including critical reading, writing and analysis—could become more valuable." bit.ly/3T6LN8Y
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Humanities Degrees Hit Lowest Level Since 1991—And The Decline May Continue
American students continue to turn away from the humanities, with bachelor’s degrees in the field falling to their lowest level in more than three decades.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"The humanities, the arts, they allow you to do the critical thinking. They allow you to think about what are the stories that are going to resonate with this population or this population. That’s human creativity. Currently, AI can’t replace that." bit.ly/4AaYvnW
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Spelman’s new leader is a roboticist who’s bullish on the humanities - The Boston Globe
Ayanna Howard on why she’s ‘bullish’ on the humanities.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"Instead of casting our adaptation as a defeat for religious studies... I instead focus on it as an opportunity to extend the reach of religious studies in ways that sharpen and expand the discipline’s skillset while supporting students and health professions." bit.ly/4xmuv5K
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Applied Religious Studies for Health Professionals in Tucson
Abstract Interactions with health sciences and professions are shaping the field of religious studies. This article situates the University of Arizona’s Religious Studies for Health Professionals degr...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Hard to believe it has been 25 years. My memories of the day for the September 11 Digital Archive bit.ly/2Q5zWqr.
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story170.xml · September 11 Digital Archive
Copyright © 2002new Date().getFullYear()>2002&&document.write("-"+new Date().getFullYear());, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media and American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Grateful to the Baker Nord Institute for hosting a terrific discussion about the state of the humanities, and Maysan Haydar for a great conversation with her Public Humanities class!
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Reposted by Rob Townsend
Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 10/09/2026
As a higher ed finance person, I keep emphasizing that more students are enrolling in high cost of educating fields like health and engineering and fewer in lower-cost fields like the humanities. This squeezes institutional budgets as cross-subsidies disappear.
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Report: Humanities Majors Disappearing
Anxiety about job prospects and heavy reading loads have led to dramatic declines in humanities majors since 2012, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
“Humanities students learn skills like fact-checking and writing good prose that fills in a lot of the gaps that come from working with AI... The hard part is figuring out how to get people to recognize that.” bit.ly/4r1OsO1
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Report: Humanities Majors Disappearing
Anxiety about job prospects and heavy reading loads have led to dramatic declines in humanities majors since 2012, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The decline in #humanities bachelor's degrees slowed substantially in 2025 (bit.ly/4yh0sgK), but a separate analysis of enrolled majors (pictured below) indicates further losses ahead, with the pace of decline accelerating since the pandemic (bit.ly/3UtRqyC).
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
"If we can improve the world of #humanities scholarship in order to defuse an impending problem, then even if the problem turns out not to be as harmful as we expected, our time will have been well spent." bit.ly/4xbsIAu
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AI-Produced Humanities Research: On the Dangers of Technical Incrementalism - Philosophy & Technology
Philosophy & Technology - Academic researchers are already submitting AI-generated manuscripts for publication, sometimes without acknowledging the role of the AI. This raises a host of moral...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
"The humanities have a distinctive role in higher education: they create the time and space to question inherited ideas about who is recognised as human, how we relate to other forms of life and what we mean by progress." bit.ly/4iaO1OU
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Why universities need humanities in a planetary crisis era
The current ecological, economic and political crises present universities with challenges that cannot be addressed through science alone. Higher educ...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
"Liberal arts majors aren’t meant to lead you directly into a career. They’re meant to teach you how to think for yourself based on curiosity and passion, not how to achieve a certain job title." bit.ly/4yqrNgR
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
“I study the #humanities because it gives me the broadest base to be a great person and a great teacher. Now it seems they just want to beat down the humanities to look futuristic, like they are on the cutting edge. But of what?’’ bit.ly/4gX1hoe
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College Students and Professors Are Fighting Cuts to Humanities Departments
Montclair State students and faculty have joined a national debate over the future of the humanities in higher ed.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
“Maybe on your syllabus you have a little more information that by taking this course you’re going to acquire some of the most important requirements in the job market today” bit.ly/4qTizXB
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The Reinvention of Liberal Arts Colleges
To remain relevant amid evolving attitudes toward higher education, Brandeis University and institutions like it are redefining their purpose
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"humanities scholars’ unwillingness to write to anyone who isn’t already a member of the club has contributed to our decline... the world outside our campus gates loves the humanities—book clubs and music performances and podcasts, oh my!" bit.ly/4gzOyZG
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Did We in the Humanities Cause Our Own Demise?
How much are we to blame for the lack of public trust in higher education?
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
“There are good reasons for suspicion about the integration of AI into the humanities. But we should also admit that many of the objections to AI overstate the comparative advantages of human work.” bit.ly/4y9LM2V
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Opinion | The Humanities Can’t Ignore AI
Like it or not, we need to learn the tools and their limitations.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
New: "if you care about your students and the future of the #humanities... You need to engage with AI, understand both its appeal and its limitations, and integrate that awareness into your teaching." bit.ly/4y9LM2V
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Opinion | The Humanities Can’t Ignore AI
Like it or not, we need to learn the tools and their limitations.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
New federal rule strips disparate-impact liability from NEH, NEA, and IMLS Title VI regulations, leaving intentional discrimination as the sole basis for enforcement: bit.ly/3UlrO71
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
"Business leaders are looking for people who can bring “their humanity” to the table ... here at Purdue Fort Wayne, the English and Humanities departments are seeing that reflected in their enrollment, which has remained stable and even grown slightly over the last three years." bit.ly/4yillII
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BANTER: Revenge Of The Humanities Majors – Which PFW Majors Are Winning In 2026? - InkFreeNews.com
If you were cruising the parking lots of Purdue University Fort Wayne this first week of classes around noon, you were part of a familiar...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Computer science majors now dropping faster the English majors. Does that count as good news? bit.ly/4xycWkl
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Once Seen as a Sure Thing, Computer Science Has Lost 53,000 Majors
But engineering and health professions saw big enrollment gains last year, according to new data.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
"The humanities now face their own version of the koan: if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Intellectual innovation is occurring...but increasingly without a broader educated public listening." bit.ly/4izp1ku
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The Intellectual Revolution We’re Missing
Why the Humanities Look Stagnant Just as Their Foundations Are Shifting
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
"At engineering schools, Horn said, an AI major is "signaling, 'Hey, this isn't just coding.'" On the #humanities side, he said, the idea is broader. "Liberal arts has never been more important in this era of AI — figuring out who are we and what are we meant to do."" bit.ly/4xpw1oy
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UCLA and USC Announce New AI-Focused Degree Programs
The University of Southern California will offer a degree in AI, and the University of California, Los Angeles, is starting a Department of Digital Humanities to apply AI to fields like sociology, arc...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
“We want AI to be a humanities pursuit as much as an engineering and science pursuit.” bit.ly/4gWaqyh
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New artificial intelligence major bridges the sciences and humanities - The Ithacan
The Department of Computer Science at Ithaca College launched an artificial intelligence major, available for students to start declaring at the beginning of Fall 2026. The major, part of a series of ...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
"Students will learn how new technologies shape culture and the human biases that enter into the use of these new tools. Top of mind is the rise of generative artificial intelligence and training students to use it ethically" bit.ly/4irzK0k
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UCLA launches county’s first bachelor’s in digital humanities that combines tech, history and culture
UCLA’s new major combines classical humanities with technical know-how to examine a digitized and increasingly AI-enhanced world.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The "evidence" on the problems in history (to supplement the evidence-free Vanderbilt report), now available at bit.ly/3UV1mkC
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"there would be little point in welcoming students into the humanities if this comes at the expense of the very critical faculties these disciplines are designed to cultivate." bit.ly/4d4LPoC
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YUCESIR | The Death of Critique in the Humanities
Opinion Columnist Defne Yucesir, an exchange student from University College London, discusses how the humanities field in academia has fundamentally changed with a growing absence of critique. S...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"liberal arts programs do even more than enrich democracy. They build essential workforce skills. And unless we stop cutting them, and start encouraging students to major in them, we’ll be left with a narrower, less flexible and ultimately less prepared labor force." bit.ly/4ca9rI6
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Liberal arts degrees: The data-driven case for their economic value | Column
An FSU professor who wrote a book about college majors and entry-level jobs explains why the degrees still matter.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“Although conservative attacks on the humanities have recurred periodically over the past several decades, the present moment is markedly different in scale and coordination” wapo.st/4xp8m7S
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Why colleges are cutting Black studies departments, majors and classes
More than a dozen schools have scaled back such programs, citing low enrollment, budget issues and state laws, a Washington Post review found.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"English is the most versatile major: 69% of its graduates work outside the field’s top two industries, the highest share of any major" bit.ly/4zCHT8n
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The Most Versatile College Majors for Entering the Job Market, According to a New Analysis
As hiring falls across 20 top college majors, new LinkedIn data shows which degrees work best for versatility, with liberal arts such as English in the lead.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"Our yearnings, frailties, talents and tics will inform crucial decisions about society’s management of A.I., so we would benefit mightily from the clearest possible insights into the human psyche and soul." bit.ly/4cXWYYe
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Opinion | College Students Worried About A.I. Should Study the Humanities
The future’s a riddle. Shakespeare isn’t.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
"About 63% of arts and humanities students say they would feel embarrassed if someone found out they used AI for schoolwork, compared with 45% of business students" bit.ly/4i91N4L
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
"As AI technology advances, the importance of uniquely human capabilities—such as judgment, collaboration, and critical thinking—has grown, prompting the creation of a program to enhance engineering students’ cognitive skills.": bit.ly/46mWCGV
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Exclusive: Korea University Launches 'Human Intelligence' Micro-Degree for Engineers
Exclusive: Korea University Launches Human Intelligence Micro-Degree for Engineers First program to boost engineering students judgment, collaboration as AI advances
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
"Alumni across the humanities disciplines don’t merely find work across a wide berth of opportunity. Their ability to think critically and embrace complexity...helps them excel wherever their career paths take them." bit.ly/4cCHBV5
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Our alumni's careers are dazzling proof the humanities can take you anywhere
Recent Princeton alumni from the University’s 50-plus humanities departments and programs have gone on to a breathtaking array of careers.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
"if one of the most venerable schools in the country doesn’t need a writing center in order to be “elite,” why would a public university, or a regional liberal-arts college, or a community college need one?" bit.ly/4grpvGQ
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Why the Closing of Harvard’s Writing Center Matters
Students, faculty members, and alumni are asking how seriously the school is taking human learning in the age of AI.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
"the Humanities Brigade brings together first-year students in a year-long cohort that combines integrated humanities coursework across both semesters, community-engaged learning and paid professional experiences focused on social justice." bit.ly/4ijpt6i
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From the Classroom to the Field: Salem State University's Humanities Brigade Reports After First Year
/PRNewswire/ -- When Salem State University launched The Humanities Brigade last fall, it set out to answer a question that has long followed humanities...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"Now, especially at public institutions, they’re trying to cut down the number of hours you need to get a degree. Most of those cuts will be in the humanities and the social sciences." bit.ly/4hEv1rR
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Oxford American Roundtable: The State of Humanities Training at HBCUs
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"AIs do not invent the exclusions of the #humanities, but they reproduce and amplify them, extending their reach into the public sphere." bit.ly/4qwfIE8
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Not only elite universities should define ‘the humanities’
Across the world the humanities are practised within radically different systems of funding, governance, language, employment, accreditation and insti...
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
"we should reinvest in #humanities education... Preparing young people for the future means preparing them to operate intelligent machines and to exercise sound judgment about their use." bit.ly/4xdA7QS
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We need the humanities in the age of AI
AI makes the humanities more essential, not less. While technology enhances capability, philosophy, history, literature, and ethics cultivate judgment, wisdom, and moral reasoning.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
"Students in the humanities and social sciences become more civically engaged: They report greater interest in politics and social issues and are more likely to participate in demonstrations. Students in business and economics, by contrast, place greater emphasis on financial success" bit.ly/4ilf7mi
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Opinion | Yes, Higher Ed Shapes Students’ Politics. Here’s How.
Different disciplines have different ideological effects.
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