Humanities offers student creativity, speaker says
The humanities add an element of creativity to a world of technology and allow students to get a broader education than they would in vocational training, Christine Hult said in a lecture at the Taggart Student Center Sunburst Lounge April 12.
Hult, professor of English, associate dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and winner of the 2004 D. Wynne Thorne Research Award, Utah State University’s highest research honor, spoke as part of the first Research Week. Hult delivered her lecture, “The Place of Humanities in an Age of Technology” to an audience of about 40 people, including the winners of the outstanding undergraduate researcher awards and research mentors.
“Creativity matters as much as knowledge matters,” Hult said.
Hult said machines can often outperform humans in left-brain activities and that researchers may now be seeing the “revenge of the right brain.” Technology is still necessary, Hult said, but not sufficient. She said the distinctions between humanities and sciences are blurring.
The old binaries of technology versus the humanities and right brain versus left brain are breaking down, Hult said. The connections between them might be closer than students tend to think, she said.
Hult said the College of HASS asks students what makes them happy, and that more income does not necessarily equate to more happiness.
Happiness has more to do with family and personal life, Hult said, which are areas that the humanities can improve a person in. Happiness is “doing what you love with those you love,” she said.
Hult read a script from a National Public Radio program, the Prairie Home Companion, dramatizing a scene with an English major in an online chat room.
She said that even if the English major isn’t attractive in person, he is beautiful on paper because he knows how to punctuate correctly.
“The man of my dreams,” Hult said, quoting from the program and eliciting laughter from the audience, “knows how to use an ellipses.”
Hult said HASS can do more for a person than teach them how to use ellipses and small talk.
She said HASS gives students practice in taking ideas seriously and discussing them.
Hult honored Allison Thorne, wife of D. Wynne Thorne, who the research award is named after.
Hult reviewed Allison Thorne’s contributions to USU, including being one of the founders of the Women’s Center.
Hult said she hopes to continue Allison Thorne’s activism for women by furthering the positions of women in the sciences and engineering.
After the lecture, Joyce Kinkead, vice provost for undergraduate studies and research, announced the undergraduate researchers and research mentors from each of the seven colleges.
-ecottam@cc.usu.edu