How 3 Humanities Programs Are Secretly Beating the Odds

And What You Can Learn

Image by Vitaly Gariev

Let’s be honest. You’ve probably heard the same old story about the humanities lately. Declining enrollments. Budget cuts. Questions about ‘relevance.’ But what if I told you that’s only half the picture? Right now, a quiet revolution is happening on campuses across the country, and it’s led by professors and departments who have decided to take the wheel.

Take the University of Alabama’s Religious Studies Department, for example. They recently gathered a group of sharp minds for a strategy session that wasn’t about survival, but about momentum. The star of the show? Dr Cara Burnidge, who’s been turning heads with a surprisingly simple idea: the key to getting unstuck isn’t waiting for permission, it’s starting with a brutally honest look in the mirror.

Here’s the thing. Many humanities programs aren’t failing. Far from it. They have dedicated faculty, passionate students, and a history of solid work. But sometimes, they just feel… stuck.

Why does that happen?

Often, it’s because everyone involved, from deans to donors to the professors themselves, has a slightly different vision for what success should look like. Without a clear, shared map, you’re not going anywhere fast.

Dr. Burnidge argues the fix starts with asking the right questions. What are we genuinely great at? What do we all care about most? What kind of academic home do we want to build? Answering these together creates a unified direction that’s powerful enough to pull a program out of any rut.

Need proof? Look at the University of Northern Iowa. They had strong programs in religious studies and history, but they wanted more. So, they listened to their university’s call for fresh ideas and did something smart: they built bridges between those disciplines.

This wasn’t just shuffling chairs. It was a deliberate, creative reorganization that made their curriculum more compelling. The result? Not only did student interest grow, but they also landed a stunning $2.4 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. That’s not a lifeline; that’s a rocket booster.

This story points to a bigger trend. The programs thriving today are the ones mastering adaptability. They’re fostering real collaboration among faculty, reading their institutional landscape, and strategically planning for the future.

As Burnidge puts it:

“We are in the driver’s seat of our programs.”

That shift in mindset, from passive to proactive, changes everything.

The conversation is just getting started. The same strategy group is planning a follow-up session with Dr Simmons, who edits the field’s longest-running scholarly journal. She’ll talk about how scholars are now sharing their own empowerment playbooks, building a shared knowledge base for resilience.

So, what’s the takeaway? The narrative is changing. In a world where higher education is constantly shifting, the ability to mobilise, assess, and evolve isn’t just a nice skill. It’s the new essential. And for the humanities, that journey of reinvention is already well underway.

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Edited for Restless Quills by Wandering Mind