“The Endless Appetite”: Honors Education and the Spirit of the Humanities

Authors

Andrew Martino, Southern New Hampshire UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

2015

Document Type

Article

Citation

Published in Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, Spring/Summer 2015, Volume 16, Number 1.

Comments

Copyright © 2015 by the National Collegiate Honors Council.

Abstract

In a world that no longer privileges thinking, we might need to consider what we are asking of our students—and why—when we ask them to think. What follows is a manifesto of how honors education can serve as a resistant force against the increasing encroachment of a wholly utilitarian concept of education. With the costs of higher education on the rise, the call to justify getting a college degree has been indissolubly linked to the ability to obtain a job once the student graduates. What has been lost along the way is the justification of getting an education for the sake of enriching one’s life and one’s community, a model of education that is increasingly available only to the privileged. The humanities have taken the brunt of criticism aimed at such a justification, but the jobs-based model that so preoccupies social discourse is a misguided objective that will eventually turn our work force into semiliterate specialists whose main task is to keep the economy moving.