To the Editor:
Philip N. Cohen paints a picture of classroom exchange that I think most of us recognize (and which flies in the face of some current characterizations of college classrooms as “indoctrination”) (“How Sociology Can Save Itself,” The Chronicle Review, February 7). But there is more to the Florida Board of Governor’s move to replace sociology as a “general education” option with a “factual history” course than Cohen’s argument recognizes.
As a former faculty member at New College of Florida, I want to sound the alarm about the way this effort to replace sociological study with a particular version of “history” seeks to pit academic fields against each other and mischaracterizes history along the way. The BOG language implies a form of history as mere “facts” that diminishes the methods and interpretive power of historical research and sets us up for a false equivalency through an appeal to the “factual” (the 1776 project anyone?). It also implies that sociology is somehow less academic and based in realities of human life and experience than history (mere advocacy).
It is critical that faculty and administrators reject this siren call to fall into camps and defend our own or worse, to see sociology’s loss as history’s gain. Those who promote this curricular change know exactly what they are doing. They are counting on our lack of central organization and our loyalty to our own disciplinary training to divide us against ourselves. In a time of ongoing threats to the humanities and social sciences, and yes, even STEM fields, we need more collaboration and more solidarity.
Miriam L. Wallace
Dean of College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
University of Illinois at Springfield
Former Professor of English & Gender Studies
New College of Florida
