Rockford University Eliminates Philosophy Major
Rockford University in Illinois is eliminating four major programs, including philosophy.
According to local NBC affiliate WREX, the cuts are not owed to the COVID-19 pandemic, but are the result of a two-year process of re-orienting the school explicitly to job training. The process also resulted in the addition of an accounting major and criminal justice major.
Other major programs eliminated besides philosophy were Classics, French, and Latin. The school will retain a philosophy minor.
Ah, this is why I’m conditioned to flinch whenever my hometown’s name pops up in the news. Not having the wit to pin this on COVID is a “saying the quiet part out loud” moment that shows a charming backwardness with respect to cutting edge trends in higher ed. But Rockford did give the world Cheap Trick, so in the end it all balances out.
Rockford college was a conservative little college and that was part of its market niche back in the 70s, but one that took the veneer of a liberal education seriously. My mother got her degree there when in the 80s when she was in her 60s (lots of classes also at Rock Valley College and NIU in DeKalb that got transferred over). And I took a photography class there the year I dropped out of undergraduate school and worked in Rockford while I figured out what to do. I understand Dan’s flinching response above, having also grown up there.
“Re-orienting the school explicitly to job training” — I hope NFL and MLB scouts are frequenting those football and baseball fields, if that’s the case.
I find this so frustrating:
To repeat a line:
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and
necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
We need universities to help us learn what we stay alive for.
I’m pretty sure those without a liberal arts education have various reasons to stay alive, including some you mention. There’s value in the liberal arts, but it’s not in telling us what makes life worth living.