Photo Via the New York Times

Although Core-crunched Columbians may not realize it, collegiate study of the humanities has suffered through an acute downturn, with fewer and fewer undergrads opting for degrees in the liberal arts. In a recent Times article, Professor Andrew Delbanco, who has had a lot to say about education as of late, put in his two cents on the subject.

“Although people in humanities have always lamented the state of the field, they have never felt quite as much of a panic that their field is becoming irrelevant,”  he told the Times.

But fear not, Delbanco adds, for the humanites have a savior: Barack Obama.

“He [Obama] does something academic humanists have not been doing well in recent years…He makes people feel there is some kind of a common enterprise, that history, with its tragedies and travesties, belongs to all of us.”

Our newish President will have to add saving academia to his to-do list, right after staving off economic collapse.

–DJB