[NOTE: This article is a product and reflection of Dagny Haim, Abigail Cuttle and the entire executive board of the Philosophy Student Association at KSU.]
The administration at Kennesaw State University has enacted a plan to get rid of several programs in the humanities, including philosophy and interdisciplinary studies.
Many philosophy majors and those active in the Philosophy Student Association (PSA) are devastated at the threat of KSU dissolving their major and others like it.
The leaders of the PSA worry for those who will not have the opportunity to graduate with the philosophy major at KSU like they have, as they do not wish to become alumni of a dead program. In understanding the immense value of participating in this program, they believe that all of KSU’s students ought to have the same opportunity.
Regardless, the philosophy program is one of the most academically engaging subjects offered at KSU. Its classes and extracurricular events bring in students from all kinds of different departments and programs; its guest lectures and collaborative art events held every semester have always seen between 50-100 attendees.
To cut this program now would be to remove an academic and social space that facilitates a broad array of intellectual discussions where all students are welcome.
This April, the PSA sent over 20 KSU students to a philosophy symposium at Appalachian State University, where they were able to further these discussions with a greater community. While this was the second annual symposium with Appalachian State, the PSA hopes for this event to continue for years after current students graduate.
Even though the program may not have thousands of students enrolled, members of the Philosophy program are extremely diligent individuals who already have and will go on to have successful futures and have positive impacts upon the world; in truth, its faculty and students are some of the most passionate and hard-working individuals at this school.
Humanities programs like philosophy add immense value to any university, and it is both inaccurate and careless to consider their quality to be low due to a lower quantity of students in comparison to the more popular degrees at KSU.
KSU’s major in philosophy is an extremely rigorous undergraduate degree program. Despite this level of academic difficulty, the PSA has managed to keep students engaged in both mandatory and voluntary events on campus. The upper administration’s decision to evaluate the supposed merit of the philosophy program and the other humanities programs that they hope to dissolve exhibits their profound misunderstanding of what is at the heart of education.
Overall, leaders of the PSA encourage the upper administration at KSU to reconsider their decision to cut its robust program. Many are left questioning their reasoning for doing this, as the philosophy program has clearly provided a welcoming community for KSU’s plethora of students for several years.
The leaders of the PSA believe that philosophy is too important and too vital to be dismissed by those who have no knowledge of its impact on students’ lives. The administration’s decision is an inconsiderate and unfounded arrangement for KSU students.
The PSA implores the upper administration to not only reconsider their decision, but to become engaged with the philosophy department, to learn what it is that they do and to witness the community which has been cultivated by those who seek a meaningful yet intellectually rigorous academic environment.
KSU can still be a place where academic creativity and intellectual rigor matter more than profit.
The PSA is hopeful that the administration can look beyond the soulless metrics, beyond the impersonal calculations of something as unquantifiable as education and see philosophy and other humanities for what they truly are: a pathway to education that’s just as well-rounded and viable as other academic programs, if not more.
