Sam Askew, Campus Carrier managing editor

Over the course of the 20^th century and into the 21^st, the field of academia, specifically the humanities, has seen many changes. Humanities up until the 1970s was dominated by men. Since then, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of women achieving graduate degrees. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), 61% of all master’s and professional-practice degrees in the humanities went to women, with 54% of doctoral degrees in the field going to women as well. Unfortunately, however, with the gender parity achieved, salaries have dropped in the field of humanities.

Kelsey Rice, assistant professor of history, has been at Berry as a professor for four years. 

“For the most part, women now dominate humanities,” Rice said. “That’s one of the reasons the salary has gone down. As soon as a field becomes female-dominated, the salary goes down. The field of history is about 50/50, with more men being tenured professors, but that’s going to change soon with the demographic of who is getting PhDs.”

According to Christina Bucher, associate professor of English, rhetoric, and writing, when she first came to Berry in 1995, there were two tenured women. 

“That’s not the case anymore,” Bucher said. “A positive change has been the increase of tenured women. However, some women get stuck in the associate professor position and end up doing a lot of service that takes away from scholarship.”

Bucher also serves as the chair of the English, rhetoric, and writing department at Berry. Unfortunately gender stereotypes have found their way into academia, as Bucher warns.

“Be very careful about unpaid labor,” Bucher said. “Be cautious about being asked to do too much service as opposed to giving attention to your own scholarship. I think women are still expected to do things like that.”

Female professors also see increased scrutiny on student evaluations that male professors don’t face. According to a study conducted by the United States Department of Education, the university work environment seems to be less accommodating for women than men. The proportion of women employed in positions off of tenure track was 5 to 16 percentage points higher than among faculty employed on tenure track, according to the AAAS.

Sarah Allred, associate professor of sociology, has seen additional changes to the field of academia in her years as a researcher and professor.

“The types of things that we have to know about or know how to do have expanded exponentially,” Allred said. “My sense is everything is a moving bar and it’s always moving higher.”

According to the same study done by the United States Department of Education, the familial roles that women are expected to fulfill have also cut into their time within the university.

“University women faculty believe they are restricted professionally by the university structure, perceptions, policy, because of familial responsibilities,” the study said.

Rice also said that there may be a disparity in job market knowledge based on how long professors have been hired. For instance, a junior professor may be more apt to accurately comment on the academic job market than a professor who has been in the same position for a decade or more.

“Every year the job market gets worse,” Rice said. “It’s a real problem, the kind of devaluing of academic work. A lot of people have ended up in contingent positions, non-tenured professors, meaning adjunct professors. It can be very difficult and random as to who lands and who does not. That’s not very optimistic, but it’s something you always have to be aware of.”

Some professors have also seen changes in the behavior of students that they teach. Students are becoming less motivated as the years drag on.

“Over the course of my career, I’ve noticed that I’m having to cut and cut the amount of reading I’m assigning,” Bucher said. “I’m pretty concerned about that. Trying to figure out that balance between maintaining standards and what you feel like students need to know versus meeting them where they are. I’m just a little concerned about the ability to read and comprehend.”

According to a study done by Education Week, more than 4 in 10 educators believed that students are not motivated to do their best in school. 

Allred specifies that we should not lose hope in the future of humanities.

“Listen and ask questions,” Allred said. “But at the end of the day it’s your life and you need to do what is right for you. Don’t second guess yourself.”

However, there are other things besides motivation and a decreasing job market that threaten the humanities and academia as a whole. Such things include artificial intelligence and politics.

“I’m seeing increasing political interventions in academia, particularly public schools,” Rice said. “You are seeing more and more kind of partisan and political crackdowns on academic freedom. The professoriate isn’t a bunch of radical Marxists trying to convert our students to revolutionary causes. We’re actually pretty boring people. Universities are old institutions, not radical ones.”

Yet, there’s always more to learn in an ever-increasing and competitive landscape of graduate studies and academia as a whole.

“We have to know more advanced statistical methods, different types of software programs,” Allred said. “The quantitative expectations for scholarship have increased. Also, looking more carefully at quality of people’s instruction is incredibly important. [Students] are investing a lot of time and money in this process, and [professors] wouldn’t be here without that. I think sometimes we forget that.”

One of the things that all three professors shared was that Berry has been remarkably supportive of their scholarly pursuits.

“Berry has been very supportive of its faculty in providing funding for research or to travel to conferences,” Bucher said. “I think Berry does a really decent job of supporting its teacher-scholars.”

Allred, having been at Berry for nearly 22 years, shared this conclusion.

“[Berry] has been the perfect home for me to grow as a teacher, as a person who embraces the notion of service and community engagement, and as a scholar; it has helped me find a way to connect all three of those,” Allred said.

In her short four years at Berry, Rice said that the history department has been very proactive in her scholarship.

“I’ve had the privilege of serving as the chair of the faculty development committee this past year,” Rice said. “That’s the committee that reviews faculty applications for research funding. So, I’ve had the opportunity to see what my colleagues are doing, not just in history but also in other departments. Faculty at Berry are engaged in all sorts of creative endeavors.”

While their study in the humanities has yielded many different results, there always seems to be one big thing that reveals itself and connects humans throughout history, according to Rice.

“We have these horrible challenges before us, and it will be bad,” Rice said. “Bad things are happening, bad things are going to happen. But there’s a certain comfort in knowing that this is not a unique experience we’re having. Our forefathers going back a millennium have had similar experiences and feelings of distress and uncertainty. Other people have experienced this. You matter collectively. You matter within a society and in a more holistic sense. That’s comforting to me.”

For Allred, the trouble comes whenever we do not recognize the humanity that is seemingly everywhere.

“I’ve learned that boxes can be helpful, figuratively speaking, but they can be very problematic if we don’t allow our minds to step out of the boxes,” Allred said. “I’ve learned that people are fascinating and we’re very complex, but we have one thing in common: we need to be allowed to be valued and to be viewed as a human, not an other.”

Despite the rampant suffering we see in the world today, human creativity and ingenuity shine through and offer a light to those in need.

“There’s suffering all around us, but there’s also alleviation of that suffering sometimes that is a result of humans connecting,” Bucher said. “Those moments are for me, and I’m not a religious person, moments of grace. For me, moments of grace are those unexpected moments when you connect with another human being, most times a stranger, where you feel that bond. It’s usually at a time when you need something, you need that connection.”