The number of humanities majors has been declining — this is a fact colleges nationwide have wrestled with for over a decade, and one that’s held true for Stony Brook University.

The Trump Administration’s latest move to gut The National Endowment for The Humanities strikes fear in faculty and students at Stony Brook, not just for their programs but also for the future of education overall.

The federal agency has provided billions of dollars to fund school programs, museums and cultural institutions since 1967 and has served as a touchstone for the liberal arts. Now, the administration’s decision terminated 65% of employees and slashed millions of dollars in grants. 

Researchers have said that the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education and federal funding cuts perpetuate the rising trend of anti-intellectualism in America. This trend is largely attributed to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). 

Andrew Newman, former chair and current professor in the Department of English, expressed his frustration with the recent cuts to research by the Trump administration. 

“I think this is [the] administration that serves [the] knowledge that serves their agenda. [Trump is] anti-science and anti-humanities,” he said.

Anti-intellectualism has steepened the uphill battle that academics in the liberal arts already find themselves fighting up. Steadily declining literacy rates among members of Generation Z and plunging enrollment rates in the humanities threatens the future of the liberal arts.

Newman and Jonna Perrillo, professor of English education at the University of Texas at El Paso, wrote about the historic significance of the NEH and how its loss threatens democracy in a Newsday guest essay.

“Democratic governments do not dictate which ideas of the past should be taught in schools and which art should be exhibited, screened and performed. Instead, they foster the production of knowledge and creativity by the people. That’s why, in September 1965, overwhelming majorities in Congress passed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, declaring that “the arts and humanities belong to all the people of the United States,’” they wrote.

They highlighted how funding for the NEH “amounts to roughly 0.0003% of the total annual federal budget.”

Newman said that the English major promoted “an endangered but important form of intellectual development.”

“If they’re not getting it from humanities education, then they’re not going to get it,” he added.

In an email interview with The Statesman, Joseph M. Pierce, an associate professor for the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and inaugural director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, discussed how the humanities has been undervalued.

“In fact, what good is science or STEM if there are no humans, or no humanity, or no understanding of what that science and technology means. I have seen a shift toward more technical fields, yes, but that is mostly because of the lack of institutional support for curiosity, art, and thought. We see those things as a luxury, rather than the thing that makes us human. And that is a major problem today,” Pierce wrote.

The Statesman also conducted an email interview with Grace Sargent, a graduate student working towards her master’s in English, about her concerns for the humanities.

“The indirect nature of a humanities degree is a difficult concept for some people to grasp,” she wrote.

In 2023, Sargent wrote the article: “The End…Of What?: Considering the English Major” for SBU Brooklogue, Stony Brook’s undergraduate journal for humanities and social sciences. The piece was published after the Department of English held a faculty panel reflecting on The New Yorker’s article titled, “The End of the English Major.”

In 2017, the humanities programs at Stony Brook faced massive cuts in funding as part of the administration’s effort to shrink the budget deficit of $1.5 million. Outraged students and faculty rallied and signed petitions in protest of the changes. 

One of the proposals made during that time was the consolidation of the departments of European Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature and Hispanic Languages & Literature.

While the department of European Languages and Literatures & Cultures was consolidated into the department of Languages and Cultural Studies, the undergraduate department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature was cut.

However, the department of Hispanic Languages & Literature was able to maintain its own department.

Pierce wrote about how the department’s faculty efforts helped them keep their own department.

“The department was not consolidated because we resisted — protested, collectively and individually, and made the case that our department has its own unique and important mission,” Pierce wrote.

Other departments, such as Theatre Arts and Filmmaking, allow undergraduate students to minor  — but not major — in the subjects. Faculty from the Department of Theatre Arts were absorbed into the Department of English.

The humanities programs endured the cuts, but since then, challenges have only heightened.

At a predominantly STEM school, the question of how the humanities will continue to survive hangs over the heads of students and educators at Stony Brook. 

“As nearly any English major would tell you, there are many people who do not believe in the sustainability of the humanities for professional careers,” Sargent wrote in an email to The Statesman. “The indirect nature of a humanities degree is a difficult concept for some people to grasp.”

Sargent discussed how a humanities degree equips students with more versatile abilities. 

“I think people who doubt the long term benefits of the humanities should familiarize themselves with the ability for someone to market themselves; it’s not just about what you majored in, it’s what you make of it and make it into,” she wrote.

As challenges for the liberal arts increase, cultural preservation becomes more at risk. Humanities majors contribute to artistic expression and diversity through analyzing important social and political points in history. The Trump administration’s efforts to alter the order of historical institutions allow for humanities majors to show the value of their field.