But Donoghue’s point is that economic pressures render faculty influence moot. These pressures are and will continue forcing liberal arts institutions to compromise their commitment to knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Here I wonder if we’re not facing a situation that is markedly different from what RJ’s quote (or the one from Haskins) implies. It seems to me that it’s no longer only an issue of the some segments calling for more practical education, calls that could be ignored; what I find worrying is that we’re now looking at structural shifts–such as the growing reliance on adjunct faculty on financial grounds–that can’t simply be outlasted.

One thing that should slow down the “demise of the liberal arts education” is that the majority of those who choose to obtain their doctorate and become professors at institutions that offer a creditable degree — one that commands respect in the business world — will be men and women who value contemplation. Those academians hold a good deal of power over the students who attend their classes.

I don’t believe that this statement holds truth: “Healthy humanities departments populated by tenure-track professors who discuss books with adoring students in a cloistered setting – have largely vanished. Except in a few private wealthy universities (functioning almost as museums), the splendid and supported irrelevance of humanist inquiry for its own sake is already a thing of the past.”

“Adoring” — maybe not. But “adoring” probably wasn’t an appropriate word for the majority of thirteenth century students either.