• The HDS estimates that, in fall 2017, enrollment in humanities departments’ undergraduate courses was at least six million (see Table 10 in the Appendix; all enrollment findings include duplicated headcounts—i.e., students who enrolled in more than one course in a discipline were counted in each course in which they enrolled).1
• On a per department basis, history and English had the highest average enrollment (an estimated 1,174 and 1,157 respectively; Figure 3A). Apart from American studies and women/gender studies, each of the disciplines had an average per department enrollment of at least 400 in its undergraduate courses.
• In every discipline except religion, the estimated average enrollment in undergraduate courses was substantially higher than the median, indicating that a few departments with particularly high enrollment skewed the average upward. Only English and history had a median enrollment of over 500, while in departments of classical studies and American studies, the median was less than a third of the average.
• The HDS is the only survey to track and report the number of students completing minors in the humanities, and the study estimates that a handful of disciplines granted substantially more minors, on average, than the others (Figure 3B). Communication, history of science, and LLE departments granted an estimated average of 30–35 minors each in the academic year of 2016–17. In most of the other humanities disciplines, the average number of students completing minors was between 10 and 20 per department. In none of the repeat disciplines was there a statistically significant change from 2011–12.
• The survey found a statistically significant decline in the estimated average number of degrees granted in departments of art history, English, history, and philosophy from 2011–2012 to 2016–2017 (Figure 3C), as well as a statistically significant decline in the average number of juniors and seniors with declared majors in the disciplines of history, philosophy, and religion.
• The estimated median number of declared majors and bachelor’s degree recipients was substantially lower than the average in almost every discipline (Figure 3D). In most of the disciplines, the median number of bachelor’s degrees granted was less than ten. The median number of degrees was 20 or higher in only three disciplines: communication, English, and history.
• One of the questions added in this round of the HDS asked about benchmarking requirements for undergraduate majors (Figure 3E). When all disciplines are considered together, an estimated 29% of departments had no benchmarking requirement. Forty-three percent assessed their majors through a paper or thesis requirement, another 10% used a test, and 29% used some other form of assessment. Departments in universities focused primarily on research were the least likely to do benchmarking, with 39% lacking some form of student assessment. Departments in primarily undergraduate colleges were substantially more likely than departments at other types of institutions to use a paper or thesis as the method of benchmarking (56%).
• History departments were the most likely to have conducted some form of benchmarking (87% had a requirement), while linguistics departments were the least likely (38%; Figure 3F). History departments were also the most likely to have required a paper or thesis for their majors (74%; see Table 12 in the Appendix), followed closely by American studies (68%). In each of the other disciplines, less than 53% of the departments had a paper or thesis requirement.

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Endnotes

• 1For disciplines that were included in earlier rounds of the survey, this study does not capture all departments granting degrees in 2017–18, only those still granting degrees in 2017–18. The enrollment total does not reflect those departments that began granting degrees since the year a discipline was first included in the study.