In last month's State of the University address, President David Skorton announced a national “campaign” for the humanities, a welcome and much-needed call to action in support of humanistic academic study. The intentions of this campaign are laudable, but it will take more than words to reverse a long national trend of treating study of the humanities as a lesser priority.

Recently, a number of people — most notably President David Skorton — have questioned the notion that so-called impractical majors do not prepare students for successful careers.

Last week’s Sun news article “Libe Café Employees Protest Uniform Policy” explored the widespread opposition of Libe’s employees to Cornell Dining’s policy of wearing hats while serving. Their dissent was understandable. However, what struck me about the article were the statements made by a number of “regular customers.” They noted that the hats looked “silly” and made Libe “look like a dining hall”; to that end, one employee was told she “looked like a lunch lady.” Some workers therefore felt that the policy “hurts relationships with their customers.”

The old adage “knowledge is power” expresses an axiomatic truth. But knowledge is much more than power — it is health, security, wealth, amusement and many more things. Learning, the process by which we obtain knowledge, has its own intrinsic value that we often overlook because we favor the more concrete benefits associated with knowledge.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a report grading schools on their ability to satisfy core curriculum requirements. Liberal arts programs in 100 top colleges and universities were all scrutinized to see how well rounded their course requirements seemed. Naturally, Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences did not perform so hot.

I visited this subject last semester, specifically targeting science and math education at Cornell, since outside of a few colleges, it’s horrendously lacking. But the argument easily extends to Cornell’s entire breadth curriculum. But how does it stack up to other peer institutions? This leads to a comparison of Cornell to our downstate cousin, Columbia, the other “CU.”

I’d like to talk about the poor emphasis higher education has placed on math and science. Before you write this off as another economics column a la mode Thomas Friedman, hear this: I’m leaving the economy out of this one, and instead I’m going to try and convince you merely that your classic liberal arts education has failed you intellectually. Sound good? No comparing paychecks, no “useful” versus “non-useful” or “hard” versus “easy.” We’re keeping this above the belt and speaking solely of intellectual merit. Alright let’s get started.