Art History Community Displeased With Recent Obama Comment
Last week, we shared a video of Obama speaking to a crowd in Wisconsin. In the course of his talk, the president took a little jab at art history majors.
The art history crowd isn’t happy about it.
Beckie Supiano of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
No Laughing Matter: President’s Quip About Art History Pricks Some Ears
Art history caught some unwelcome attention from President Obama in a speech on Thursday emphasizing the need for job training. To reinforce his point that manufacturing jobs pay off, Mr. Obama said that young people who train for them could outearn art-history majors.
The remark drew laughter from the president’s audience in Wisconsin. But some in higher education felt slighted, even though Mr. Obama quickly added in his speech that there is “nothing wrong with an art-history degree” (trying to ward off “a bunch of emails”).
Linda A. Downs, executive director and chief executive of the College Art Association, a professional group that includes art historians and artists who teach at colleges, shared her reaction with The Chronicle. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Q. What was your initial reaction to the president’s comments?
A. I was very disappointed. I watched the entire State of the Union, and I’m continually disappointed at his lack of attention to higher-education issues. I know that he has to put people back into jobs, and he is very concerned about elementary education, and now he is talking about getting more middle-class kids into college, but he shouldn’t be doing it to the denigration of the humanities.
Q. Was the president’s point correct that people who do a training program in manufacturing could end up making more money than someone with an art-history degree?
A. I was just rereading the article in The Chronicle about liberal-arts majors and how they fare in the workplace, and it was quite positive. Of course what’s needed is to have a graduate degree, and the president was talking today about skills that you get on an undergraduate level. But even undergraduate art historians can use a lot of their skills in the workplace.
No Laughing Matter: President’s Quip About Art History Pricks Some Ears (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Comments
Mr. o has demonstrated the poorest kind of comparison. And it’s so telling of the core type of logic which sits in his brain – which is – to give something (or someone) a boost you have to put something (or someone) down. It’s a type of shoot from the hip logic. The kind that’s typical of a fast talker. One who can spin words. But when you spot to really think about what was said and apply pure common sense and true logic it makes no sense. Art historians require thinking skills that are analytical and also created.
Mr.o’s skill is that of a smooth talkin’ big grinnin’ tapdancer.