The Circle of Life: Reinvigorating the Humanities with Undergraduate Public History Curriculum

In November of 2018, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point announced its final plan to eliminate six majors, including history.1 Although this is perhaps the most recent, notable instance of cuts to humanities programs and the liberal arts across the United States, it is not the first and it will probably not be the last.2 These cuts are in response to the deadly triumvirate of declining enrollment numbers, budget shortfalls, and the nascent stress on career-oriented majors.3 Despite, or maybe because of this grim reality, graduate programs in public history abound; in fact, they are growing in Europe and other parts of the world.4 Such developments, however, have ethical implications in that they seem to leverage student concerns about employable futures to secure much-needed student dollars. Instead of focusing on creating new programs that are not only costly, and may not provide those seemingly sure paths to careers (as university administrators are all too happy to tout), this article argues that we should be focusing on reinvigorating our discipline by integrating public history projects and curriculum into all history classes and not limit them merely to those designated formally as public history courses or programs.