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FACULTY FOCUS
The power of science is to transform the world in ways that not even scientists can predict. The power of the humanities is to interpret the world in ways that anyone can appreciate. Einstein knew that science had given [ Charlie ] Chaplin the means to be famous. Einstein also knew that Chaplin could live without the knowledge of science, but as Einstein told Chaplin on many occasions, he himself, Einstein, could not live without the knowledge of the humanities.
Clive James, author developments. Thus, they want people who can demonstrate clear logical thinking and good expression, he said, rather than those with pure technical knowledge.
He said people in senior business roles complain that many job seekers lack adaptive thinking and emotional intelligence, which can be gained through an arts and humanities education.
Here, Acton explains to Campus Review why higher education systems need to be reconceptualised with this focus.
CR: Peter, how can studying the arts and humanities help bridge the gap between university and workplace needs?
PA: The most important aspect of this is something that’ s emerged only in the last few years. I think the way jobs are changing now, and the fact that so many jobs are being replaced by computers, will give people much shorter horizons as to how long they’ re going to spend in a particular job. People are looking to put together portfolio careers and so on.
I think we are looking for a different set of capabilities than we were, perhaps 20 or 30 years ago. The vocational model, where you learn something at university then go into the workforce and apply it doesn’ t make a lot of sense to employers or to individuals. I think we need a workforce that is able to adapt quickly to new ideas, is able to learn new skills quickly and can move between jobs and across jobs in a lot of companies, with a great deal of facility, which wasn’ t the case a few years ago. And that’ s where the humanities come in.
What skills do the humanities and arts give students? The ability to think clearly and in particular to express yourself clearly, so people know what you are on about. Another important aspect is being able to generalise, to be able to see patterns in information and data, and to be able to work from analogy to be able to draw conclusions about one particular thing based upon experience and knowledge of another. I think that’ s the sort of thing you get from studying, say, history or literature, and you don’ t get it if you were just learning a technology, like accounting or IT.
In Australia, there’ s a big push to get more students into science, technology and mathematics fields. How do arts and the humanities help students in those fields? I would hate to be seen as an opponent of having more people studying science, technology, engineering and so on, I think that’ s incredibly important. But I don’ t think it needs to be an exclusive thing. I would say that they’ ll probably be better scientists if they have a smattering of the humanities as part of their education.
Why would they be better scientists? The ability to think clearly through issues to be able to understand what’ s being borne out by the data and what isn’ t, to find intelligent ways of testing whether what you’ re looking at is a bunch of rubbish or if it stands up.
How would you get students to study these sorts of subjects in scientific degrees? I’ m not a university administrator; it would be quite hard to do it … But there are two things one needs to do and this is where Humanities 21 is active. We need, I think to persuade individuals that this is a useful investment to make of their time, that it’ s not a luxury. It’ s not something that a student will regret and say,“ Gosh, I wish I spent a bit more time learning a bit more detail about biology instead of going to the philosophy class,” or whatever it is.
I think people need to have more confidence that this will do them good. On the other side something I think will also drive it we need to work with those business that don’ t yet understand that here’ s some real value in people who bring that set of skills as opposed to assuming the only valuable employee is somebody who can draw up a set of accounts on Day One. Any intelligent humanities graduate can learn accounting quickly but not all accountants can learn to think properly.
How can you get students to see the practical value behind studying the arts? It partly comes from persuading business to think differently and what we found at Humanities 21 is when we’ re talking to senior people in business they get it. Chief executives will say,‘ Well, what are my problems? Well, I can’ t find people who can express themselves properly. I can’ t find people who can anticipate how other people are going to think.’
It’ s all those kinds of skills. People at the top of business are saying,‘ Yes, there is a gap there. Our current education system isn’ t delivering that enough. The people we are putting on aren’ t bringing those skills. We need to rethink it.’
I think there’ s still a battle to be won inside organisations, though, because from the point of view of a junior recruiter in the HR department, it’ s much safer to get somebody with some kind of practical diploma than to get somebody who studied medieval history, although it may well be in 10 years time that medieval history person will be promoted way beyond the person who came in with the work-ready skills. ■
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