History Lounge by Xinran Li ‘23
By Zora Lotton-Barker ’25
Staff Writer, Radio Content Creator & Copy Editor
As of late, the Save Our Departments movement, a student group of the same name advocating for the preservation of the Mount Holyoke arts, languages and social sciences departments, has garnered attention across campus. As the College merges departments and cuts programs, some students are increasingly worried about what budget cuts will mean for their areas of study. As a prospective history major, I have a lot to lose from potential budget cuts and the downsizing of departments.
College students are already limited in their class choices based on the specializations of their professors. This is especially true with history, a department where students often have particular areas or periods of interest that cannot be fully covered in single courses due to the amount of material required to cover a wide time span. This reduces class options even more and can actively deny students a chance to explore their interests. For example, a Mount Holyoke student can’t learn about the intricacies of the Weimar Republic or the economic failures which led to the rise of Hitler in a world politics class that covers the 1900s to the present.
The purpose of higher education is to allow and encourage students to further their scholastic inquiry more than was possible in high school, but that is often not the reality.
In high school, I took Advanced Placement European history and Advanced Placement United States history, among other history courses. Despite taking academically rigorous courses which were meant to prepare me for my college workload, I only gained a broad understanding of the topics I studied. Both AP European history and AP United States history covered centuries in only two semesters, with AP European history discussing the historic trends of an entire continent from the Middle Ages to the present. There was no time to fully analyze all the events we were studying because there was simply too much to cover.
The same was true for my Modern and Contemporary Europe class last semester, where we covered roughly the same amount of, if not less, material than we were able to cover in my AP European history course because we only had two class sessions a week. Instead, we focused on certain topics with greater depth. In this course and others, professors are in control of selecting which topics receive the most attention. These choices can push students away from their own areas of interest to match those of the professors.
For example, to learn explicitly about British history, I would need to take a course from Professor Desmond Fitz-Gibbon, who specializes in British land and property politics and market culture. If I was fascinated with another specific facet of British history, I would have to search for a Five College class that fits within my interest area.
History is extremely difficult to study in this way because in order to fully understand the intricacies of historical events, one must also pay attention to details surrounding social movements, power dynamics and all compounding factors.
Despite taking AP United States history, my learning was cut off by the onset of the pandemic. This meant that throughout K-12, I never formally learned about U.S. history after World War II other than the Civil Rights Movement. Even then, I never learned about anything beyond major events and figures.
This semester, I am taking United States history Since WWII. I chose to take the course because I find topics like Watergate, the Vietnam War and Ronald Reagan’s presidency to be particularly appealing. We tend to spend only one or two class sessions on each of these topics because of the course material’s wide time span, despite each of those areas being complex enough to take up a semester-long course entirely on their own.
Mount Holyoke College seems to value being a platform for future changemakers. Yet, we cannot create tangible change if we are not equipped with the tools to understand historical patterns that teach us to recognize the signs of modern day oppression.
Having a full understanding of the historical development of intellectual systems is vital in all areas of study. For example, a nuanced understanding of historical patterns is essential to STEM fields such as climate activism. Even though climate change could be studied exclusively through a scientific lens, the social sciences lend important context to the issue. For example, environmental activists are disserviced in their advocacy if they fail to recognize the disproportionate effect that climate change has had on Indigenous, Black and Brown communities.
While the Princeton Review’s 2016 edition of “Colleges That Pay You Back,” ranks Mount Holyoke 18 in a list of the top 25 schools in the country for making an impact, Mount Holyoke continues to make departmental cuts which limit students from gaining liberal arts skills.
The priority of scholarship cannot merely include avenues considered most profitable. Best Colleges writer Anne Dennon noted the detrimental effects of eliminating liberal arts degrees, especially as a cost-cutting measure in the wake of COVID-19.
“Colleges, reeling financially from closed campuses and reduced enrollment, must offer programs that attract students,” she said. “But many fail to realize that the liberal arts hones crucial soft skills, such as critical thinking, that are often vital to professional success.”
The American Historical Society staff published an open letter emphasizing the importance of teaching history at the college level, especially at liberal arts institutions.
“Wise decision-making by leaders in higher education … must be informed by historical perspective,” the AHS wrote. “The negative consequences of closing a history department would not take long to observe but would take years to reverse.”
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, a distinguished professor of English at Linfield University, argued that in the business of higher education, there are winners and losers.
“The biggest losers are a generation of students who are being robbed of critically engaging with disciplines and materials within the arts,” she said. “These disciplines have proven to contribute deeply to enhancing one’s malleable intelligence, a sense of civic duty and social responsibility, and engagement in critical citizenship.”
It is even more important to protect the history department from potential budget cuts because the field is already limited by its nature of specialization. History cannot afford to be pared down more than it already is.
As someone whose strengths lie in the social sciences, I don’t have the same mobility between disciplines as other students might. I am scared of the impact that defunding may have on my studies, but I feel as though I have no choice but to continue. I came to Mount Holyoke because it was sold to me as a school that championed critical thinking, analysis and liberal arts — all of which I am very passionate about. Without the funding needed to effectively educate students in all areas of history, it is impossible to live up to the message of well-rounded learning that was marketed to me and students like me. If Mount Holyoke is going to continue to defund areas of studies within the humanities, then the College needs to re-examine its own marketing. Mount Holyoke is not a liberal arts school if students are not being given an actual liberal arts education.