Even the campus of Brown University is not immune to market forces.

In the current job market, those students with science or technical degrees are finding better employment opportunities.  In this context, student reporter Joseph Zappa reviews the fall in the number of humanity majors in and how the departments are responding.

The number of students earning English degrees declined from 66 to 43 from the class of 2012 to the class of 2013, and the number receiving history degrees dropped from 141 in the class of 2004 to 62 last year, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

This decline in humanities concentrators is mirrored across departments — only four of the University’s 27 humanities departments have seen numbers of concentrators increase significantly more than 10 percent over the last decade. But while the number of humanities concentrators appears to be dropping off, eight of the 19 physical science departments and four of eight life and medical sciences departments have seen substantial gains, according to OIR data.

Though Brown classifies history as a social science, its long-term decline in concentrators — the largest drop of any department over the past 10 years — may stem from similar issues to those that have led to a decrease in humanities concentrators.

There is a “perception that history isn’t practical,” said Cynthia Brokaw, professor and chair of the Department of History, because “there is no obvious job that a person with a concentration in history does.”

Desire for a degree with an obvious financial reward may have pushed the relative growth of the sciences over the last 10 years. The numbers of students receiving degrees in applied mathematics, engineering, physics, biological sciences and economics have increased by over 50 percent over the last 10 years.

But “there is no pressure (at Brown) to model the humanities on the sciences,” said Jim Egan, professor of English. Such pressure exists at other universities, but Egan said he feels the Department of English is “fully supported” by the administration as part of the humanities.

Brokaw said the University recognizes the importance of history and that funding for the concentration has not been threatened by the decline in concentrators.