On Terminology

This toolkit draws on resources that discuss the impact of studying the humanities and the fields most often associated with the humanities, including history, philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, history of art, religious studies, the humanistic social sciences, and literature and languages. At times, it draws on studies that have evaluated the impact of studying the “liberal arts” or “arts and sciences” rather than the humanities. It does so with the assumption that courses of study in the liberal arts or the arts and sciences generally include a robust role for the humanities. 

Many parts of the toolkit focus on “majors” (individuals who major in a humanities subject) in large part because available quantitative data use majors as the category of analysis. This is not meant to suggest that students are best off with a singular focus on the humanities. A 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended that institutions work toward integrating the arts and humanities into other fields of study and outlined the benefits of such integration. We expect that many of the benefits of majoring in the humanities extend to other humanities experiences as well.