A Dean’s Perspective

As a dean of humanities and fine arts at a public university, I see it as part of my job to make the argument that the humanities are at work in the world. In his president's column about the Presidential Forum panels in the Win ter 2007 MLA Newsletter, Michael Holquist referred to "the complex util ity of the humanities" (3). There are risks in making utilitarian arguments about the value and values of the humanities, but there are also risks in not making such arguments, since other disciplines constantly make them, and the fate of the humanities within the university?the valuation of their labor, their market share of student enrollments, the respect for their research?depends on how the humanities are valued by the world outside the academy and how they are valued within the academy by students and colleagues in other fields. I often talk about a 2002 New York Times profile of the only financial reporter to warn of Enron's fatal fiscal problems. The Fortune Magazine reporter Bethany McLean, at first the Cassandra of the business world, attributed her ability to read Enron's books while everyone else sang its fortunes to her liberal arts education, in particular to her double major in English and math. " 'When you come out of a liberal arts background,' she said, 'you want to know why something is the way it is.' In account ing, 'there is no reason why. There is no fundamental truth underlying it.'" McLean credits her liberal arts background with enabling her to see