Humanities Recruitment Surveys

Since 2019, we have been surveying higher ed institutions to learn about humanities recruitment efforts and respond to a desire among the humanities community to learn from successful recruitment strategies at other campuses. We published two reports based on our findings from the 2019 Humanities Recruitment Survey and are currently gathering more strategies via the second iteration of the survey. Take the current survey and read the published reports below.

2021-2022 Humanities Recruitment Survey

The 2021-2022 Humanities Recruitment Survey gathered trends in undergraduate humanities enrollment, recruitment, and relevant initiatives aimed at boosting enrollments. It focused particular attention on learning more about how institutions are recruiting and retaining students from historically underrepresented groups.

We plan to share our findings with the humanities community via a major report. Stay tuned!

2019 Humanities Recruitment Survey Reports

In 2019, we launched the Humanities Recruitment Survey (HRS) to a wide distribution list, garnering more than 400 responses from over 300 institutions to date. We asked respondents to share the challenges they faced in attracting students to the humanities, the audiences they were engaging to address those challenges, and the strategies they had found to be effective. 

In February 2020, we published the first HRS report, Humanities Recruitment Survey: Challenges & Audiences, which presents quantitative data concerning the recruitment challenges faculty and administrators at a wide variety of institutions face and the audiences they are engaging to address those challenges.

In 2021 we published Strategies for Recruiting Students to the Humanities: A Comprehensive Resource, which aims to document and disseminate effective recruitment strategies to the humanities community. This 80-page resource highlights over 100 exemplary initiatives and elevates the voices of project directors and participating students.

Finally, in 2022 we published Strategies for Recruiting Students to the Humanities: Leveraging Scholarly Society Resources, a companion piece to 2021’s Strategies for Recruiting Students to the Humanities. It highlights strategies and resources developed by scholarly societies that faculty and administrators can draw on in their efforts to attract more undergraduates to the humanities. 

You can access the reports by clicking on the images below.