Metrics

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – William Bruce Cameron (often attributed to Albert Einstein)

Long ago, I served on a university strategic planning committee. One of our tasks was to assess the “quality” of the faculty. The problem was how to quantify quality. We decided to count doctoral degrees. Yet, while this is an easy number to gather, my experience has been that most students don’t necessarily judge quality by the letters after a professor’s name.

I learned early in my career that speaking from the heart and addressing student questions (no matter where they might lead) were perhaps more important to students than a “well-planned” lesson “delivered” by a person with a fancy degree. There were times when I suspected that a doctorate didn’t help me become a better teacher for undergraduate students. I felt I could have done as well or better with a master’s degree. I tried to convey these thoughts to the committee; however, I was outvoted by the readily available information. We knew who had doctorates and who did not. And this was only one of our measures of quality.

Fast forward to 30 years later, when the jobs of many faculty in the arts and humanities were terminated. We were not judged by our quality or our contributions to the university. The decision had a lot to do with numbers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Demand for graduates with degrees in the arts and humanities was declining along with their ability to earn a high enough salary to warrant spending money on these degrees.

I don’t blame prospective students or their parents. The cost of college has gotten out-of-hand. Colleges have been advertising the utility of their degrees for decades. They have claimed that their graduates have much greater lifetime earnings than non-graduates. But this kind of marketing has led to certain expectations. Gone are the days when young people might go to college to broaden their understanding of the world. College is too expensive for that. Now, a major must “lead” to a job with a satisfactory salary. College must be “worth it,” because families are under unprecedented economic pressure. No wonder the birth rate is declining.

Nevertheless, my experience as an artist and educator has taught me that the arts are not a dead end. And while a “major” in the arts or humanities may not be wise for most who are considering one, college courses in the arts can provide valuable perspectives for STEM and other professional programs. Simply put, students can learn things that they might not learn elsewhere. I learned about personal responsibility and discipline, teamwork, aesthetic awareness, communication skills, problem-solving, and critical thinking in the practice room and rehearsal hall. Many fine scientists, engineers, and mathematicians also have a background in the arts. Einstein played violin. One of my children was an art major in college and now works in corporate communications for a major pharmaceutical company. The “utility” of the art major turned out to involve learning to solve complex problems and to become a connector as well as a communicator.

One of the first professors to be told he would no longer be needed was our philosophy teacher. This was despite having educated many future lawyers, judges, bankers, doctors, and business leaders in the art of critical thinking. It is important that people learn to examine their own thinking, to question premises, reasoning, and conclusions, and in general adopt a certain degree of skepticism about the claims they encounter. However, people with a philosophical education can be dangerous to religious dogmatists and political authoritarians who would rather not be questioned or critiqued.

The arts and humanities can provide a buffer against extremism and intolerance. The arts and humanities teach us that our thoughts matter, that in the end, the fate of the world will be determined not by technology, but by how we decide to use it. AI, crypto currency, mass surveillance, specialized weaponry and the rest must be questioned and more importantly judged by the right metrics.

When I and others were told our positions would be ending, I asked what metrics were used. The answer I received was a reference to BLS and enrollment numbers. While numbers are important and I understood the financial pressures the university faced, numbers are only one kind of metric.

In the end, we must decide what is important to us. People almost always have money for what’s important to them. For example, if they value going to concerts or sporting events, they will find the money to do so, even if other parts of their lives remain underfunded or they end up in debt. If a country values its military, it might cut other programs or run a deficit to pay for it. We all tend to look for metrics that show us what we want to see. I’m reminded of the verse, “…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [Matthew 6:21] In the end, if we follow the money, we will learn what we truly value.