Episode 65: Robert Townsend on the Professional Value of the Humanities

Episode 69: Lee Bebout is back with more about faculty/admin dynamics!

Three time returning guest Lee Bebout [https://search.asu.edu/profile/1761453] is back on the show to discuss Come to the Dark Side: The Dangers of Pathologizing Administration in Higher Ed [https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/career-advice/advancing-administrator/2026/01/20/dangers-pathologizing-administration], an essay he and Jeff recently co-authored, published in Inside Higher Ed. It is written as the second part of a larger series, with the first essay titled What We Mean by 'Shared" Governance' [https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/career-advice/2025/09/24/what-we-mean-when-we-say-shared-governance-opinion], which was featured on episode 59 [https://open.spotify.com/episode/45b4HwQvPj0FMgENWYRabB?si=kUAVUliMTlGy0nFvjGTQbA] of this show. Both essays look at the relationship between faculty and administration at universities and colleges and how it can be approached differently, working towards improvement. Abigail, the producer of this show, joins as well to ask the questions and share her thoughts.  Lee was first on the podcast way back in episode 13. You can listen to that here [https://open.spotify.com/episode/0gELaeAAzS2h7rEB0e0TPK?si=jzSp8JtSRcqreUCtZa-VEA]. Please share, rate and review, wherever you get your podcasts!  Works Cited:  Come to the Dark Side: The Dangers of Pathologizing Administration in Higher Ed [https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/career-advice/advancing-administrator/2026/01/20/dangers-pathologizing-administration] What We Mean by 'Shared Governance'  [https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/career-advice/2025/09/24/what-we-mean-when-we-say-shared-governance-opinion]⁠ [https://www.silvermansound.com/] Yeah, I Got an F#%*ing Job with a Liberal Arts Degree is produced by Abigail Smithson. You can email the us with any questions @ podcasts@humboldt.edu This show is created and supported by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt and is recorded on campus in beautiful Arcata, California.

Episode 68: President Greg Weiner on Hope for and Belief in the Liberal Arts

Our guest this month is President Greg Weiner of Assumption University [https://www.assumption.edu/people-and-departments/organization-listing/office-president/about-the-president]. He joined the Assumption community in 2011 as an Assistant Professor of political science and since then has also held the position of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. His area of expertise is in the political thought of the American Founding and he has written four books on topics in this area and is in the process of writing the fifth. Weiner was a political aide, consultant and writer in Washington, D.C. for nearly two decades before entering academia. This conversation, among many things, gets at the role that leaders of academic institutions can play in helping to form the next chapter of higher education. Please share, rate and review, wherever you get your podcasts!  Works Cited:  Achieving Our Country [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674003125] by Richard Rorty [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Silverman Sound Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.silvermansound.com/] Yeah, I Got an F#%*ing Job with a Liberal Arts Degree is produced by Abigail Smithson. You can email the us with any questions @ podcasts@humboldt.edu This show is created and supported by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt and is recorded on campus in beautiful Arcata, California.

Episode 67: Drew Lopenzina on Harm to Humanities and Students at Texas Tech

Jeff sits down with Dr. Drew Lopenzina [https://www.odu.edu/directory/drew-lopenzina], who is Professor of English at Old Dominion University and teaches in the intersections of Early American and Native American literatures. He was first featured on Episode 7 of the podcast, so go back and have a listen to that for more information on his research.  He is on the show today to discuss recent harmful decisions by Brandon Creighton, the Chancellor of the Texas Tech University system, as discussed in The Man Behind Texas Tech's Controversial Curriculum Crackdown [https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-man-behind-texas-techs-controversial-curriculum-crackdown] and, more recently, Texas Tech Restricted Teaching on Gender Identity Now Students are Holding a Funeral in Protest [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-tech-restricted-teaching-on-gender-identity-now-students-are-holding-a-funeral-in-protest/ar-AA22sS77?cvid=3ccb41c7ce6f45fde373c879116a3621&apiversion=v2&domshim=1&noservercache=1&noservertelemetry=1&batchservertelemetry=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1]. Also, read about graduate student funding in the system being cut here [https://www.texastribune.org/2026/05/06/texas-tech-university-graduate-research-limit-warnings/].  Drew also discusses the Go Fund Me for a scholarship he set up in the name of Renee Good [https://www.npr.org/2026/04/10/nx-s1-5775847/alex-pretti-renee-good-ice-shootings-federal-investigations], a writer and activist who was executed earlier this year during pro immigration protests in Minneapolis. She was a graduate of Old Dominion University, where Drew teaches. Donate to the Go Fund Me for the scholarship by sending a check directly to The Hampton Roads Community Foundation with "Renee Good Award" written in the memo section. Their address is below: Hampton Roads Community Foundation101 W. Main Street, Suite #4500, Norfolk VA 23510 And here is a message [https://www.historians.org/news/aha-opposes-restrictions-on-teaching-and-learning-at-texas-tech-university/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRffFlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFkSG85RDlrV0J4dzRQenZ0c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHhHDSRm1jwkGCnFDfJYgNerKTO6HExQNBqz6LEXSDf-5UJ9tBwioRfpoTTMJ_aem_uX9_yGxbDRke4tnCCbWQ6w] from the American Historical Association, opposing the cuts and changes at Texas Tech.  Please share, rate and review, wherever you get your podcasts!  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Silverman Sound Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.silvermansound.com/] Yeah, I Got an F#%*ing Job with a Liberal Arts Degree is produced by Abigail Smithson. You can email the us with any questions @ podcasts@humboldt.edu This show is created and supported by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt and is recorded on campus in beautiful Arcata, California.

Episode 66: April Masten Explores History Through Song and Dance

Welcome back to Yeah, I Got a F#%*ing Job With a Liberal Arts Degree, a show that takes a deep look at the humanities and higher education more generally. Join professor of history and humanities Dean Jeff Crane as he interviews a range of guests about the value of the liberal arts and education as a personal and public good.  Our guest for this episode is Dr. April Masten [https://www.stonybrook.edu/history/people/april-masten.html] who is a Professor of American History at Stony Brook University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on the Early Republic, antebellum, and Civil War eras, early industrialization, art as labor, women, and popular culture. Her first book, Art Work: Women Artists and Democracy in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York [https://www.pennpress.org/9780812240719/art-work/]explores the surprisingly egalitarian cultural landscape of 1850 through 1880 in which thousands of young women, aided by the Ruskinian “Unity of Art” ideal and radical artisan reformers and philanthropists, managed to study the visual arts at New York’s Cooper Union and become professional artists, albeit in an emerging industrial society that extolled masculine genius and exploited women’s labor in all realms.  And she has a new book that just came out in late 2025 called Diamond and Juba: The Raucous World of 19th-Century Challenge Dancing [https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=c046797]. This work recovers the careers of two celebrated jig dancers, Irish American John Diamond and African American William Henry Lane (known as Juba), as they competed for high stakes and championship belts in the taverns, circuses, and theaters of antebellum America. Their extraordinary stage rivalry unfolded amid a rising tide of nativism and negrophobia [https://www.nyrb.com/products/negrophobia#:~:text=Darius%20James's%20scabrous%2C%20unapologetically%20raunchy%2C,mutating%20insanity%20of%20American%20racism.] that drove them closer even as it divided the nation. Out of this cauldron came a “purely American” dance and sport – challenge dancing, which continues to flourish, inspire, and unite young people around the world. Please subscribe to the show, share , rate and review! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://twitter.com/beelzebebout?lang=en] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Silverman Sound Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.silvermansound.com/] Yeah, I Got an F#%*ing Job with a Liberal Arts Degree is produced by Abigail Smithson. You can email the us with any questions @ podcasts@humboldt.edu This show is created and supported by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt and is recorded on campus in beautiful Arcata, California. Works Cited: Not So Much to Want by April Masten (LP) [https://www.seance-centre.com/shop/april-masten-not-so-much-to-want] Professor Herbert Gutman [https://archives.nypl.org/mss/1268]

Episode 65: Robert Townsend on the Professional Value of the Humanities

Welcome back to Yeah, I Got a F#%*ing Job With a Liberal Arts Degree, a show that takes a deep look at the humanities and higher education more generally. Join professor of history and humanities Dean Jeff Crane as he interviews a range of guests about the value of the liberal arts and education as a personal and public good.  Robert Townsend is the Program Director for Humanities, Arts, and Culture at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prior to the Academy, he spent 24 years at the American Historical Association, in positions ranging from editorial assistant to deputy director. He is the author of History’s Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States, 1880-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 2013) and author or co-author of over 200 articles on various aspects of history, higher education, and public humanities. He received his PhD in history from George Mason University. The Academy conducts research and develops policy recommendations to advance the humanities in academic scholarship and in the public sector, to display the importance of the arts in society, and to enrich the nation’s cultural life. Academy programs in the Arts & Humanities put practitioners and scholars in conversation with individuals from other disciplines, ensuring that the arts and humanities are valued in all areas of civic life to enrich the health of communities and the daily lives of their citizens. Please subscribe to the show, share , rate and review! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://twitter.com/beelzebebout?lang=en] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Silverman Sound Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.silvermansound.com/] Yeah, I Got an F#%*ing Job with a Liberal Arts Degree is produced by Abigail Smithson. You can email the us with any questions @ podcasts@humboldt.edu This show is created and supported by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt and is recorded on campus in beautiful Arcata, California. Works Cited: History's Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States, 1880-1940  [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo14312740.html]by Robert Townsend Not for Profit [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691264394/not-for-profit?srsltid=AfmBOorSNWrSOW97C4z3dQKm7Q3SPuedczeTAW8nI7iG7nTZPfJp-wK8]by Martha Nussbaum Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/battle-cry-of-freedom-9780195038637?cc=us&lang=en&] by James M. McPherson