Most members of our association were drawn in large part to academia because of
teaching. We have watched with despair and heartache as teaching at many institutions
has become a distant priority. The specter of ‘‘publish and perish’’ that haunted
‘‘research one’’ institutions for the last few decades of the 20th century now has
liberal arts colleges firmly in its grasp. Likewise, in some of the institutions
where teaching was most sacrosanct, service and grant work now have measurable
weight. In an age of changing expectations where education has simply become a
cost–benefit analysis and spending for the humanities and social sciences is constantly
being reexamined by trustees, teaching in a way compatible with our
humanist beliefs is increasingly difficult to do.