Many colleges and universities have made cuts in these programs, often bolstering STEM programs at their expense. It's a situation that has sparked no small amount of impassioned editorials. The headline of a recent article at The Guardian by Alice Speri referenced an 'existential crisis at U.S. universities,' and Speri's reporting features numerous examples of undergraduate and graduate programs facing cuts or outright elimination.
Academic and writer Marina van Zuylen, who holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard, left Columbia to devote herself to an unusual project: Bard College's Clemente Course in the Humanities, which offers free humanities courses that can later be converted into college credits. She taught there voluntarily for 25 years, until a philanthropist decided to fund the initiative and turn her commitment into a professorship. This is a clear example that Van Zuylen's priority is not personal recognition.