![Brooke Pedersen [second from the right] and Luis Reyes [right] hold banners during the Wrap The Woods event.](https://thebluebanner.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ELIZABETH_PRITCHITT_IMG_3470-1200x804.jpg)
My freshman year of college, I was indifferent about humanities. To that, I am regretful.
I had a professor who filled the room with a sense of comfort, a safe space for all. I enjoyed the environment she created through her passion along with the lecture. She demonstrated the importance of sharing, giving and creating for others.
“UNC Asheville’s Humanities Program explores what it means to be human,” according to the University of North Carolina Asheville humanities website. “The humanities program encourages and equips students to engage in the complexity of the world we live in.”
It was not until I saw the stripping of the humanities department on campus that filled me with the awareness of how important humanities truly is.
“The very fact that it might not be a specific interest for an individual is all the more reason why it needs to be required, because they do not know what they do not know,” said Amy Lloyd, a student focusing on trauma-informed marketing and conscious business.
I have learned that the older you get, the more the humanities plays a role in your life. It gives you an understanding of a world outside of your own. I know the way I live my life, I know my own morals. The way an individual grows is through learning about others too.
“DEI has always been an issue, just really explosively now. I think that the humanities has always been needed, no matter what the person’s major or interests are,” Amy expresses. “While there is no simple, quick, easy solution, one powerful and empowering step is to turn inward. To reflect on who we are, individually and collectively. This means exploring our values, motivators, and needs.”
Natalie Mayfield, a student continuing the old curriculum, shares how important it is to her that other students should continue taking the humanities classes too.
“I think as a liberal arts school, it should be a requirement,” Natalie said. “My professor keeps telling us that this is not a history class. This is a history of ideas. The ideas that we have today, how far we come from then. You can still apply a lot of stuff in class now.”
I remember hearing about her first day of school. We are very close, and always share our inner thoughts and motivations. She came back from her class delighted that the students in her class shared the same mindset. How continuing these classes will bring more awareness to the subject.
Sociology class confirmed my opinion on why continuing the humanities route deepens my education as a student. It was a simple sentence, “I have come to see that silence is an act of complicity.” bell hooks wrote in “Theory as Liberatory Practice”.
“We talked about this in my humanities class because the root of liberal is liberty, which is basically freedom. What they are teaching us at a liberal arts school is how to think freely, how to think for ourselves,” said Natalie.
I am able to apply humanities to my passion in sociology. It furthers my education on interpreting societies relationships, expression, institutions and the list goes on forever. It has become clear to me that humanities is found everywhere outside of the classroom.
“Humanities exposure, like philosophy, ask us hard questions about any area that requires expertise. What you don’t want is to have biomedical folks who are experts at being the best biomedical engineer, but who do not have the ability to think about what the public needs” said Blu Buchanan, assistant professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at UNCA.
Aside from learning I can apply humanities into most likely all aspects of my life. I have found it brings empathy and understanding. It has deepened my connection to all the people I know and will meet in my life. I also found that having this education relatively available to me as a student here, is beyond valuable. It is something that should not be taken for granted.
“Public liberal arts schools are so few and far in between. So many of them are instead like Notre Dame that are expensive and private. It was really important to me to see an institution that was like ‘yeah having a liberal arts education, exposing folks to humanities ideas and doing so at a public institution,’” said Blu.
For the rest of my education here at UNCA, I have made it a personal goal to continue my humanities education, aside from the opportunity of taking other classes. I find humanities influential, impactful and powerful.
“For 50 years, the Humanities program has been the cornerstone of UNC Asheville’s liberal arts curriculum. The program has achieved nationwide recognition” according to UNCA’s humanities website.
Conversations of the humanities being prevalent, I believe is a reason why it needs to be talked about more. I often sense that humanities is seen as taboo, as if it provides less of an education compared to science or math.
“What I would ask students to think about is what is your unique power as students? Where is your leverage? If you want to see something change, what tools or resources do you have at your disposal? What connections do you need to make,” asks Blu.
