Eric Adler (@ProfEricAdler) / X

Eric Adler

3,202 posts

Eric Adler

@ProfEricAdler

Professor of Classics @UofMaryland; interested in humanism, classics, higher education, and jazz. RTs ≠ endorsements. New book: tinyurl.com/4zyc3kxb

Kensington, MD

Joined December 2017

Pinned
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Apr 20
📢Coming soon(ish): Folke Leander's philosophical analysis of the ideas of Paul Elmer More, edited and introduced by Claes G. Ryn and yours truly. Leander's book amounts to the fullest explication of the philosophy of the New Humanism ever written.
945
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Jul 23, 2025
U of Chicago is going to merge humanities departments and downscale its language offerings in part because...the institution spent too much money on construction projects. Its endowment: over $10 billion. Are there any leaders in higher ed who *want* to save the humanities?
The Chicago Maroon
@ChicagoMaroon
Jul 22, 2025
The Division of the Arts & Humanities is considering consolidating its 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes, citing new federal policies and shifts in the “underlying financial models” for higher education.
113K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Aug 13, 2025
My new piece in @chronicle focuses on the ways in which university administrators knowingly undercut the humanities. Take a look!
They’re Killing the Humanities On Purpose
From chronicle.com
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Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
May 18, 2023
Some of my colleagues in the humanities seem eager both to "decolonize the curriculum" and also to remove our college's language requirement. They want a "decolonized" course of study that's entirely in English. They do not appear to notice the contradictions in their position.
26K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Aug 29, 2025
As a mid-career classicist, I increasingly feel as if my hope is to make it to retirement before the wheels fall off. I’ve been fighting to try to make things better for classics and the humanities, but obviously it’s not going our way right now.
Zena Hitz
@zenahitz
Aug 29, 2025
My image is that we employed academics are each sitting on various icebergs, trying to guess which will melt the fastest.
8.6K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Oct 20, 2024
Here's more proof that we must fight against the elective curriculum, which was established in the 19th c. on the basis of laissez-faire economics and social Darwinism. We need a curriculum that fights against the free-market notion that popularity is the only measure of value!
25K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Jul 2, 2025
The elective curriculum—set up in the late 19th century—is the root of the problem. Based on laissez-faire economics and social Darwinism, it is a terrible way of educating students and a miserable influence on students’ souls.
Steve McGuire
@sfmcguire79
Jul 1, 2025
NEW: Public universities in Indiana are cutting hundreds of degree programs to comply with a new law that requires every program to meet a threshold number of graduates per year. Here are the 116 programs being cut at Indiana University Bloomington: A.A. in General Studies A.S.
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Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Aug 10, 2023
Look what's arrived in the mail, dear reader. It's my author's copies of *Humanistic Letters: The Irving Babbitt - Paul Elmer More Correspondence*, which will be officially released on Sept. 15!
11K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
May 30, 2023
My piece in favor of language study has just seen the light of day in @ChronicleReview. Those supportive of inculcating a genuine cosmopolitanism in students may want to take a look. Opinion | The Hypocrisy of English-Only 'Decolonization'
Opinion | The Hypocrisy of English-Only ‘Decolonization’
From chronicle.com
20K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Apr 1, 2022
An institution that couldn't afford a small classics department now finds $785 million for construction projects... forbes.com/sites/michaelt…
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Jun 11, 2023
"The humanities have not humanized the physical sciences so much as the sciences have mechanized the humanities, and made them appear obsolete." --Peter J. Stanlis, "The Humanities in Secondary Education" (1988)
4.4K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Feb 13, 2024
"They've made Greek elective, and Latin elective, and mathematics elective, and now they've gone and made God elective." --Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) on the end of compulsory chapel at Harvard in the 1880s.
4.4K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Aug 3, 2024
If all the humanities offer is the opportunity to increase students' "critical thinking" skills, then colleges can get away with a handful of humanities professors, all of whom teach the same single course--a class called Critical Thinking.
4.5K
Eric Adler
@ProfEricAdler
Jun 30, 2025
One tries to be as sunny as one can be about the state of higher ed these days, but this turn of events is deeply depressing.
Jennifer A. Frey
@jennfrey
Jun 30, 2025
Two years ago, I moved to Tulsa to become the inaugural dean of a new honors college. Then President @bradrcarson convinced me to leave my endowed position at Carolina to build the university’s sixth college. I am so proud of all we accomplished over the last two years 🧵(1/21)
2.6K