In this essay, I’ll attempt to bridge the gap between What Every 1 Says Project goals and Benjamin Schmidt’s article “The Humanities Are in Crisis” (2018). Schmidt argues not that the crisis doesn’t exist, but that students are wrong in their understanding of the humanities. Their perception formed from things such as “student debt, postmodern relativism, vanishing jobs, don’t seem to fit the decline in the humanities at this time. He mentions possible other reasons such as, “the democratization of access” for new populations, “shifting from traditional humanistic fields of study to new ones,” and so on. After analyzing different types of institutions and related fields that show similar declines against computer sciences, he concludes with “[students] are fleeing humanities and related fields specifically because they think they have poor job prospects.”

Ben Schmidt

Continuing, Schmidt shows that job prospects in the humanities are equal to those in various kinds of sciences. He then questions why students have misunderstandings about the humanities. The author mentions that “worried relatives express the same” misguided perceptions about job prospects and income available to humanities students. And then, rather subtly on the issue of the role of the dominant demographic influence over humanities curriculum, Schmidt concludes as to why he feels the humanities are in decline. First he states that the only subsection of the humanities that has held steady is “ethnic, gender, and cultural studies” then he states that humanities, in general, has held steady in “black colleges and universities,” and he finally implies that the “dominant incumbent curriculum “continues to drive” new (first-generation?) students away. My interpretation of what the article is saying is:

1. The author is not pessimistic since the decline in the humanities has leveled off for several years.

2. Job prospects equal that of many other fields of study.

3. Increase in enrollment is possible if the curriculum becomes culturally appealing according to the institutional demographics of the student body, and if students perceive a degree in humanities to be a comparatively viable financial option.

So, do the goals of What Every 1 Says match Schmit’s conclusion?

WE1S respond[s] to the perceived long-term decline of the humanities, including after the most recent “crisis” period touched off by the Great Recession” by providing “discourse research on how the humanities are articulated in public and at crossover points between the public and the academy.” In this case, the WE1S project addresses Schmidt’s concerns about how “relatives express . . . misguided perceptions about job prospects.” The prospectus of WE1S explicitly states that it “will provide a richer stock of themes, narratives, examples, and evidence types that can be drawn upon in discussing the humanities” as a means to help “parents and students to talk to each other about what life or career is about.”

The prospectus includes the fact that the WE1s project takes place in “‘cultural analytics’” which is a study of “social behavior and norms, and social learning in human societies” (Wikipedia). The idea of "cultural analytics" thus suggests that WE1S examines according to the actual demographics of colleges and universities to determine how students learn about the humanities. More precisely, it implies that it uses such an examination to provide solutions to student misconceptions. Further, as the prospectus states, WE1S” will provide methods and tools for humanities researchers investigating the role of complex ideas in society.” Therefore, WE1S will not only provide advocacy resulting from its uniquely positioned insights but also offer those same tools, through its open platform policy, to researchers outside the WE1S project.

If Schmidt’s conclusion is correct, then the prospectus bullet point of questioning things like "when parents and society tell a first-generation immigrant student to major in science, engineering, pre-medicine, pre-law, or pre-business; yet the cultural and personal identity of that student is vested in a deep humanities and arts heritage; then where does that excess “humanity” go and how is it expressed and cultivated?” suggests that the WE1S project will find ways of answering the crisis in the Humanities. The results will then be available to “create resources and recommendations to help guide discussion about the humanities by journalists, politicians, business people, university administrators, parents, and students.” Thus as a means toward resolution, WE1S addresses the issues in Schmidt’s article “The Humanities Are in Crisis.”