OK, that isn't exactly what Governor McRory said to a national audience yesterday, but it isn't far off. Gender Studies (one might say that is a subdivision of history with an admixture of other disciplines) is also, apparently bunk.
What is education for, anyhow? Governor McRory has a simple answer. It is about getting a job. So if a graduate doesn't find a job, education has failed, right? So we must revamp our system of higher education to make it into an elaborate vocational school.
Balderdash!
The purpose of education in all places and all times has been to transmit our best understanding of the universe and how it works to the next generation. It is how society perpetuates itself. And how we expand our understanding of the cosmos, bit by bit and generation by generation.
Not everything we learn must lead to a job. Some knowledge is not primarily utilitarian. For example, all of our great universities began as places to study theology. Not directly utilitarian except for those seeking positions as clerics.
Take philosophy, which apparently arouses the governor's contempt. I took a look at UNC's description of the graduate curriculum in philosophy. It turns out that there are a number of sub disciplines. But all students must take courses in symbolic logic.
What is that good for?
Pretty much everything. Symbolic logic occupies the boundary between mathematics, science and computer technology.
How many jobs are there in the field? No one knows.
But great universities are research centers exploring and expanding the boundaries of knowledge.
Another way to think about universities is to think of them as agglomerations of knowledge and agglomerations of people who can expand our frontiers of knowledge.
North Carolina once was led by visionaries who saw the benefits of such an agglomeration as the Research Triangle.
That's a better foundation for economic growth and the future of our citizens than building a new factory.
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