Martin Henry
ON MONDAY, the Depart-ment of Liberal Studies [DOLS] of the University of Technology (UTech) held its first annual symposium on 'Affirming the Humanities in the Age of Technology'.
One of the presentations provided data on the responses of UTech students to the humanities. Responses, documented on video, ranged from the 'a wha dat' response in the runaway majority like Golding in West Kingston, to an appreciation of the humanities as a vehicle for expanding their vision and making them better people, a tiny minority.
Over the last decade or so, UTech has invested substantially in building a department of liberal studies to lead the humanisation of a technological curriculum through a general education programme.
All students are required to do courses in communication and have access to philosophy, sociology, psychology, Caribbean cultural studies, and languages, plus a string of humanities-based electives.
RELATIONSHIP TRAINING
The humanities have been alternatively called the 'liberal arts', artes liberales, in Latin, arts befitting a freeman. So designated in contrast to arts serviles, the servile, technical arts considered lower.
The liberal arts were supposed to train people for freedom, and to serve as the guarantors of freedom. This, I think, has a particularly poignant significance in our own ex-slave society.
The 'humanities', "those branches of knowledge concerned with human beings and culture, as philosophy, literature and the fine arts, as distinguished from the sciences," were so named because of their special relationship to what our predecessors thought it meant to be human and how they thought humans should be humanised for life in civilised society.
If something needs affirmation, a state of disaffirmation is implied, or at best, a challenge to it. The perceived challenge to the humanities, which the DOLS symposium was about, is nothing less than a challenge to what it means to be human.
But the department faces its own status, integration and perception of usefulness challenges within a university of technology to which students come largely to get a skills-based, job-oriented degree with as little as possible expenditure of sweat on peripheral things like hard thinking and reading about abstract issues.
The Cinderellisation on the humanities is far advanced everywhere.
HUMANITIES AND TECHNOLOGY
The symposium chair and head of communication delivered a bold affirmation position paper up front:
"The university must adopt the philosophy that the humanities form the core of education and are vital to the preparation of graduates who are competent workers, good citizens and accomplished individuals. The study of the languages, literatures, culture, philosophies and societies in our global village should not simply be electives that a student may chose to ignore. These areas of study provide students with a social reference and moral and cultural compass for the application of their professional skills."
The symposium flew in as keynote speaker Dr. Kim Mallalieu, an MIT graduate and senior lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UWI, St. Augustine. The accomplished integrationist in an experience-driven, wide-ranging address came to discuss disciplinary convergence in an age of convergence, and putting the humanities to work.
"As it is for every other discipline today, the security of the humanities in academia rests on those committed individuals who are willing ... to innovate. To survive, the humanities, like all other disciplines, has to redefine itself and find its power niches."
Management master, Peter Drucker, made the cogent observation that management is both a technology and a liberal art. And "management will increasingly be the discipline and practice through which the 'humanities' will again acquire recognition, impact, and relevance."
Presenters spoke about humanising the technological curriculum and overcoming internal colonisation in the university with its restrictive power structures.
They addressed challenging the sacred canon of established traditions and boundaries, and about the challenges and prospects of language education. They underscored the relevance of the humanities in an age of technology, and redesigned and broadened the very concept of university scholarship.
They explored applying the idea of multiple intelligences to teaching the humanities and delved into the understanding of self in an age of technology.
DEBUNKED THE VIEW
A panel of Aggrey Brown, Trevor Munroe, Camille Facey, a senior vice-president at Cable & Wireless, and Gillian Rowlands, well-known career and human relations development professional (a panel which I had the privilege of moderating) discussed 'The Role of the Humanities in Educating the Workforce'.
They discussed its implied propositions that the business and purpose of education is to produce a workforce, and that the humanities is just one more tool in the workers kit to get the job done.
The robust discussion debunked any such view while affirming the important role of the humanities in developing values-driven, self-aware, team-oriented workers for today's enterprises.
To continue the conversation, the department of liberal studies is toying with the idea of launching a humanities association and would be happy to hear from interested persons.
Martin Henry is a communications specialist.
