{"id":1710,"date":"2019-07-17T16:53:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T16:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/?p=1710"},"modified":"2025-02-07T11:56:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T16:56:22","slug":"oh-the-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/2019\/07\/17\/oh-the-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, The Humanities!"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col{padding-right:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-bottom:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-left:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);}.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 991px){.kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column1710_22aef9-16 dynamic-main-col\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\"><style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1710_b35665-23\"]{font-size:1.5rem;line-height:30px;font-weight:500;font-style:italic;font-family:proxima-nova;color:#808080;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1710_b35665-23\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1710_b35665-23\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<p class=\"kt-adv-heading1710_b35665-23 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1710_b35665-23\">Dr. Kate Cottle says you need soft skills for hard jobs<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft is-resized wp-image-6998 size-medium\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.test.wilmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/09_feature_ohthehumanities_body-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6998\" style=\"width:350px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Dr. Kate Cottle<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>They\u2019re called \u201csoft skills,\u201d and they go by various names, including writing, critical thinking, communication, empathy, self-awareness, emotional intelligence and more, depending on who\u2019s listing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whatever they\u2019re called, the key word is \u201csoft,\u201d and everything that adjective suggests. Activate the thesaurus on your word document and up pop synonyms that ascend the insult scale: lenient, easy, lax, indulgent, weak. <em>Spineless.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The implication is clear: In the workplace, and often in life, \u201chard\u201d (\u201csolid, tough, unbreakable\u201d) is better. So hard skills \u2014 job-specific skills \u2014 are what you need to get ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least that\u2019s been the generally held opinion, if not in academia, certainly in the world at large, resulting in the clich\u00e9 of the barista, waitress or bartender with a Liberal Arts degree. As writer Anna Cherry put it in Urbo, an online magazine: \u201cLiberal Arts degrees get a lot of shade. You could say that \u2018liberal arts\u2019 has even become a kind of epithet, shorthand for privileged, idealistic out-of-touchness or mopey fecklessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Dr. Katherine \u201cKate\u201d Cottle, chair of Literature and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), begs to differ. Well, she doesn\u2019t exactly beg. She asserts \u2014 with authority and statistics to back up her assertions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Cottle lays out her case convincingly in her TedX talk, \u201cOh, The Humanities,\u201d* which has more than 28,500 views on YouTube. The talk, which she delivered in 2015 in the Pratt Student Center to University faculty, staff and students, makes the case for the importance of the humanities and a Liberal Arts education in career-driven education and in success beyond the classroom. Humanities graduates, Dr. Cottle says, are \u201cwell-rounded, better thinkers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Near the beginning of the presentation, she admits that many college students, while sitting in a humanities class, ask themselves, \u201cWhat am I doing here? This person has been dead for 2,000 years; all the people he wrote about are dead. How is this possibly relevant to my life?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her answer: \u201cYou study the humanities to become a better human.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which, in a cosmic sense, is great. But on a more practical level, research shows \u2014 and Dr. Cottle makes this point in her talk \u2014 that humanities graduates are better, more valued employees. What\u2019s more, an increasing number of employers have come to appreciate a Liberal Arts\/humanities education. At Google, for instance, an important criterion during the hiring process is \u201clearning ability\u201d \u2014 definitely a soft skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Research also shows that leaders often have a humanities degree. According to Amanda Ruggeri, writing in the online publication Capital, \u201cOne recent study of 1,700 people from 30 countries . . . found that the majority of those in leadership positions had either a social sciences or humanities degree. That was especially true of leaders under 45 years of age; leaders over 45 were more likely to have studied STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The article also points out that experts have found \u201cthe benefit of a humanities degree is the emphasis it puts on teaching students to think, critique and persuade \u2014 often in the gray areas where there isn\u2019t much data available or you need to work out what to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, says Dr. Cottle, \u201cLiberal Arts people are actually unemployed at a lower rate than other majors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.test.wilmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/09_feature_ohthehumanities_body-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6999\" style=\"width:350px\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the primary benefits of a humanities education \u2014 the ability to communicate \u2014 is highly valued in virtually any job. \u201cFor a lot of people,\u201d she says, \u201ctheir communicative skills don\u2019t match their communicative goals, but if you have a Liberal Arts degree, chances are high that you have really strong communications skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reading novels and long-form articles, then summarizing that reading, leads to another skill that is valued in the real world: summarization. \u201cBeing a good reader is about professional development for the rest of students\u2019 lives,\u201d says Dr. Cottle. \u201cEverybody with a college degree is going to do work that involves writing and being able to sift through tons and tons of information, then come up with a cohesive idea, and then express that idea clearly. If they\u2019re not able to do that, they\u2019re going to struggle with that part of their career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Motivating students who grew up with Instagram, texting and Twitter to read long-form literature is often challenging, as almost any teacher can attest. And traditional high school reading assignments \u2014 \u201cSilas Marner\u201d and \u201cThe Scarlet Letter\u201d spring to mind \u2014 are mind-numbingly dull, especially to today\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne reason people are turned off by reading,\u201d says Dr. Cottle, \u201cis that we require them to read \u2018The Scarlet Letter,\u2019 and nobody\u2019s ever going to understand \u2018The Scarlet Letter\u2019 until they\u2019ve been disappointed by life. Even Chaucer is better, because Chaucer is lively.\u201d So she encourages her students to read \u201cwhatever they want, as long as it\u2019s long form \u2014 even if that means \u2018Twilight.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She\u2019s a reader herself, of course, and she can quote from myriad classical novels and plays. \u201cClassical literature,\u201d she says, \u201cteaches you empathy by allowing you to see inside the minds of the characters and learning how they think and what they feel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her ability to explain the practical benefits of a Liberal Arts education to students has helped her succeed as a teacher. Connecting the humanities to the real world is particularly important when the audience is WilmU students, she says, \u201cbecause they are pragmatic, boots-on-the-ground, how-is-this-going-to-benefit-me people. With adults, you have to tell them why they want to know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those in other academic disciplines are coming to recognize the value of humanities, and vice versa. \u201cIn CAS,\u201d says Dr. Cottle, \u201cwe\u2019re right at the beginning of thinking about STEM, so lots of people in the college are trying things, including Diane Bansbach, the Math chair.&nbsp; She has students writing and speaking about the projects they do in math and statistics class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Cottle also has worked with Scott Shaw, chair of Game Design &amp; Development and Video &amp; Motion Graphics in the College of Technology, and Matthew Whelihan, English Department chair, to design the LIT 313 class. \u201cIt\u2019s graphic novels to teach game design people how to move a plot along,\u201d she explains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She says that other members of CAS are also involved in collaborative class design or using the tools of&nbsp;multiple disciplines. \u201cCurrently, Danny Walker (chair, Philosophy and Arts), Susan Gregg (chair, Media Design Programs) and Tim Day (Video Editing chair) are working together to make animation classes and we are about to launch a Biology degree where computer imagery is a part of science instruction, piloted by Milton Muldrow (chair, Science &amp; Environmental Science and Policy).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI anticipate that we\u2019ll see more partnerships across departments as we think about general education for a new generation of students, and I\u2019m really excited to see where things go,\u201d she says. \u201cAll of the disciplines are necessary \u2014 there is nothing that is not worth learning \u2014 but on an individual basis, curiosity is the thing that keeps people engaged in their own learning whether they\u2019re managing people, processes or knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">All Disciplines Matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of her excitement stems from the value she recognizes in tech-nology and science. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have disciplines, we wouldn\u2019t have specialists, and specialists in technology and science are who have given us discoveries that advanced culture and knowledge,\u201d she says. \u201cAnything from the first people who dedicated themselves to cultivating wheat to the person who created Kevlar. The humanist\u2019s job is to keep the knowledge that the specialists discover contextualized within history\/previous human behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While her educational background is in English Education and American Literature, Dr. Cottle, a native of Newark, Delaware, has worked variously as an IT helpdesk analyst, a technical writer, an educational coordinator, an editor\/proofreader and an instructor on the high school level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She has been at Wilmington University since 2002, teaching courses in English, literature, and technology. She currently coordinates English and literature courses and also is one of the curators for the Wilmington University Writing Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cKate feels strongly that academic silos are a thing of the past and that cross-curricular learning is the key to future employment and performing tasks that Artificial Intelligences cannot,\u201d says Dr. Mary Ann Westerfield, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. \u201cFor example, her own varied background in both computer science and literature enables her to merge technology into literacy education as well as literature into technology education. It provides a unique view. Future <em>human<\/em> jobs will need that type of critical thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI love working here,\u201d Dr. Cottle says. \u201cAnybody who\u2019s in academia will tell you they\u2019re lucky to be here, because you get to live a life of ideas. Of course, there are pragmatic things we have to think about too, but in general, our work is about ideas and communication of ideas. That\u2019s a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnd the other thing I feel very strongly about is the mission here, that everybody deserves an opportunity. Equity is offering people what they need, not necessarily what I think they should have educationally. And that lesson gets brought home to me every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>\u00ad\u2014Bob Yearick<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Kate Cottle says you need soft skills for hard jobs They\u2019re called \u201csoft skills,\u201d and they go by various names, including writing, critical thinking,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,135],"tags":[645],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","category-magazine","tag-magazine-summer-2019"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"ACADEMIC NEWS"},{"value":135,"label":"MAGAZINE"}],"post_tag":[{"value":645,"label":"Magazine Summer 2019"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/09_feature_ohthehumanities_body-01-340x480.jpg",340,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Eric Mumford","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/author\/eric\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"ACADEMIC NEWS","slug":"academic-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":460,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":460,"category_description":"","cat_name":"ACADEMIC NEWS","category_nicename":"academic-news","category_parent":0},{"term_id":135,"name":"MAGAZINE","slug":"magazine","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":692,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":431,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":135,"category_count":431,"category_description":"","cat_name":"MAGAZINE","category_nicename":"magazine","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":645,"name":"Magazine Summer 2019","slug":"magazine-summer-2019","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1202,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":24,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15112,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions\/15112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}