Consider the spread of COVID-19, global environmental degradation, and the deep divisions around race in this country. Our collective responses to these and other challenges arise from understanding human behavior, the stories and beliefs that guide us, the cultures and values that we build and share, and the visionary aspirations of thinkers past and present. “Where there is no vision,” James Baldwin wrote, drawing from the book of Proverbs, “the people perish.” 

At this critical moment in history, humanistic knowledge – the study of languages, history, culture, the arts, anthropology, archaeology, communication, philosophy, political science, psychology, religious studies, rhetoric, sociology, regional studies, and interdisciplinary areas – is crucial to envisioning and realizing a better future for the world. For this reason, we believe that humanistic education and scholarship must remain central to campus communities and conversations. 

On behalf of the thousands of students, faculty, and members of scholarly societies devoted to the study of humanity, we call on all higher education leaders to uphold the central importance of the humanities and social sciences as you make important decisions that will shape the institutions under your stewardship for years and generations to come. 

This is a time for institutions to explore new modes of organization that facilitate innovation while maintaining the integrity of a diverse range of academic disciplines, and to do so with a full embrace of American higher education’s tradition of shared governance.

COVID-19 and its economic consequences are placing immense pressures on college and university budgets across the United States. Preparing for decreases in tuition revenue or state funding or both, many institutions have announced freezes on hiring, reductions in numbers of contract and adjunct faculty, and cuts in funding for research. Some are considering eliminating entire departments and programs. 

We respect the autonomy of every institution of higher learning and the good-faith efforts of administrators forced to make difficult decisions in historically unprecedented conditions of uncertainty and financial shock. With that respect must come an urgent reminder of the vital contribution made by the humanities and social sciences to the public good – a keystone of charters and mission statements adopted by colleges and universities across the country. 

Humanistic study in American colleges and universities provides communal contexts in which students, increasingly diverse in background and experience, learn together about human reasoning, beliefs, and aspirations, social and political systems, and acts of creative expression produced across centuries and around the world. Humanistic study compels us to wrestle with complex questions, with difference and conflict as well as similarity. It furnishes us with diverse visions of the world and encourages us to refuse to take things for granted – capacities necessary to sustain a just and democratic society.

Humanistic education provides not only skills for democratic life, but also skills sought by employers, such as the analysis of conflicting evidence, complex problem-solving, clear communication, and the ability to judge matters in cultural and interpersonal context. 

As stewards of humanistic scholarship, we are in a position to share our knowledge of our fields, their condition, current directions, and value to students and to global society. To sustain the centrality of humanistic studies in one of our nation’s greatest assets – our private and public system of higher education – we offer our support to colleges and universities seeking the best path forward in difficult times.  

Joy Connolly
President
American Council of Learned Societies

Richard Ekman
President
Council of Independent Colleges

Sara Guyer
President
Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes

Robert M. Hauser 
Executive Officer 
American Philosophical Society

William C. Kirby
Chair, Board of Directors
American Council of Learned Societies

Erica Kohl-Arenas
Faculty Director 
Imagining America 
 

Anthony W. Marx 
President 
The New York Public Library

Mary Miller
Director
Getty Research Institute

Robert D. Newman
President and Director
National Humanities Center

David Oxtoby 
President 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Lynn Pasquerella
President
Association of American Colleges and Universities

David Scobey
Director
Bringing Theory to Practice 

Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action

Association of Research Libraries

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University

Center for Research Libraries

Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library

Federation of State Humanities Councils

Institute for Advanced Study

National Humanities Alliance
The Phi Beta Kappa Society

Social Science Research Council

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

University of Connecticut Humanities Institute

African Studies Association

American Academy of Religion

American Anthropological Association

American Association of Geographers

American Association of Italian Studies 

American Folklore Society

American Historical Association

American Journalism Historians Association

American Oriental Society

American Philosophical Association

American Political Science Association

American Schools of Oriental Research

American Society for Aesthetics

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

American Society for Environmental History

American Society for Theatre Research

American Society of Comparative Law

American Society of International Law

American Sociological Association

American Studies Association

Aphra Behn Society

Archaeological Institute of America

Association for Asian Studies

Association for Jewish Studies

Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Austrian Studies Association

Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

Burney Society of North America

College Art Association

College Forum of the National Council of Teachers of English

Daniel Defoe Society

Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society

German Studies Association

Hispanic Society of America
 

Immigration and Ethnic History Society

International Center of Medieval Art

Latin American Studies Association

Linguistic Society of America

Medieval Academy of America

Middle East Studies Association of North America

Midwest American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Midwest Modern Language Association

Modern Language Association of America

National Communication Association

National Council on Public History

North American British Music Studies Association

North American Kant Society

Organization of American Historians

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

Philosophy of Education Society

Renaissance Society of America

Rhetoric Society of America

Samuel Johnson Society of the West

Shakespeare Association of America

Sixteenth Century Society & Conference

Society for American City and Regional Planning History

Society for Cinema and Media Studies

Society for Classical Studies

Society for Eighteenth-Century French Studies

Society for Eighteenth-Century Music

Society for Ethnomusicology

Society for French Historical Studies

Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender 

Society of Architectural Historians

Society of Biblical Literature

South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Southeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

World History Association

Signatories as of December 15, 2020