Instead of hating Gov. Rick Scott, anthropologists should quit being lame and prove him wrong. Beef up career resource centers! Frame anthro as a job skill!
Florida’s Governor, Rick Scott, recently proposed shifting tax dollars away from anthropology schools, and toward “degrees that have the best job prospects.” (Armario, 2011) Although I detest the notion, as a business anthropologist, I regretfully admit to understanding his position. Gov. Scott’s a professional VC, anthropologists often have misleading job titles, and anthropology schools really do need to step up their career resource centers.
Gov. Scott, of Richard L Scott Investments LLC, is a very specific type of businessman called a VC, short for venture capitalist. VCs professionally invest in growing businesses, usually in return for equity, hoping to earn an ROI if those businesses take off. In essence, VCs are very, very well educated gamblers. Therefore, VCs look for safe bets, rarely invest in startups outside of high-technology, and usually wait to invest in humanitarian businesses until after they’ve already achieved some scale. (Allen, 2009, p. 367) Put bluntly, it’s not the VC’s responsibility to be creative or innovative, nor is it the VC’s responsibility to generate new jobs. That’s all entrepreneurs’ work, not VCs’. Therefore, it makes sense that a conservative VC* like Gov. Scott would overlook the value of anthropology and other humanities.
Because anthropologists can fill many different job positions, we often have misleading job titles. For example, anthropology encompasses the entire field of archaeology, making all “archaeologists” anthropologists, both of which drive entire archeo-tourism economies. (Archaeological Institute of America, 2008) The Disney Company offered me, as a business anthropologist, work as a “consumer research specialist.” Other corporate anthropologists sport titles like “evaluator” and “design research specialist.” (Walsh, 2008) (IDEO) This list of titular misnomers goes on, and it gives the false impression that anthropology students don’t fill many job positions.
Putting aside my previous points, however, anthropology schools really do need to step up their career resources. Although I learned a great deal from my anthropology school, professionally speaking, I felt a tad forgotten upon graduation — and my career resource center has won awards. Hopefully, if Gov. Scott’s proposal somehow passes, I hope anthropology schools everywhere invest their energy, not in complaining, but in proving him wrong.
What are your thoughts on anthropology, business, and the job market? Of course, any other comments are welcome, too! Oh, and also, I PUT A LOT OF THOUGHT INTO THESE POSTS, AND I SURE DO LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE LEAVE COMMENTS. EVEN SHORT, STUPID ONES. SO BE AWESOME AND SAY SOMETHING. NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED, YAY FREE SPEECH!
END NOTES ————————————
*Although, VC or not, please note that flooding the market with competitors for preexisting jobs won’t necessarily fix a recession.
WORKS CITED ————————————
Allen, K. (2009). Launching New Ventures. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Archaeological Institute of America. (2008, August). A Guide to Best Practices for Archaeological Tourism. Retrieved 2011, from Archaeology: www.archaeology.org/online/features/guidelines/index.html
Armario, C. (2011, October). Scott: State doesn’t need more anthropologists. Retrieved October 2011, from Miami Herald: www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/11/2448886/scott-state-doesnt-need-more-anthropologists.html
IDEO. (n.d.). Sr. Design Specialist. Retrieved October 2011, from IDEO: www.ideo.com/careers/human-factors-specialist-india
Walsh, S. (2008). Corporate Anthropology: Dirt-Free Research. Retrieved October 2011, from CNN.com: www.anthro.utah.edu/~cashdan/tig/corporate_anthropology_CNN.pdf
This is the great thing about both Rick Scott and anthropology: both are misunderstood. For the former, he just doesn’t understand what anthro is, how it’s useful, or basically anything else. This is despite the fact that his own daughter has such a degree, I’m guessing he didn’t consult her on how it’s useful or helped her understand her world on a much deeper level. The latter, well, that’s tougher, as you wrote. Since anthropologists can wear so many hats that are related to their degrees, it’s hard — if not downright impossible — to say such a degree is useless is outside of academia. Sure, it’s not all clear-cut for us like it is with other degrees. Got a business degree? You’ll get a business title. Got a math degree? Same thing.
But on a deeper level, it shows he doesn’t understand the applicability of anthropology, despite having such people work for him and for the state. It’s a degree that doesn’t always produce numbers or pretty metrics, which he thrives on. Since he’s trying to run the state like a business (and he’s said as much himself), he doesn’t see the point in anything that doesn’t produce such information, as it has no way of being “measured”. You’d think he’d be busy asking the state anthropologists how their work with the Seminole have helped foster a decent working relationship over time rather than saying they’re useless.
Scott’s long and storied history in the health care business (and later, as a VC) has given him a single-track of being a technocrat, he regularly says things that go to prove he doesn’t really understand people or how they work. Just the numbers, please. He wants to push for STEM education because it has verifiable, trending, demonstrable returns and metrics. Plus, it’s a lot more money from the federal government, which is the ultimate impetus in switching funding.
Wow, thanks for such a well-though-out comment!
Only a couple points of contention:
“This is despite the fact that his own daughter has such a degree, I’m guessing he didn’t consult her on how it’s useful or helped her understand her world on a much deeper level. ”
Good point. Yet, if she’s like a lot of other anthro undergrads, she may’ve been sobbing over unemployment, in lieu of talking about her deeper worldview.
“Since he’s trying to run the state like a business (and he’s said as much himself), he doesn’t see the point in anything that doesn’t produce such information, as it has no way of being ‘measured’. ”
I dunno about that. We actually just went over that in my business case study class: the fact that business is largely socially driven, not numerically driven. I’d even venture to say that most successful businesspeople know that. Ultimately, the only number that really matters is “the bottom line.”
>>Good point. Yet, if she’s like a lot of other anthro undergrads, she may’ve been sobbing over unemployment, in lieu of talking about her deeper worldview.
This could be true, I’m not sure. When this popped up all over the state’s newspapers, I never found an actual interview with Scott or his daughter where this was ever elaborated. Everyone just made note that his daughter had an anthro degree and he didn’t see it as being terribly useful. I still have no idea if _she_ thinks it’s useful!
>>I dunno about that. We actually just went over that in my business case study class: the fact that business is largely socially driven, not numerically driven. I’d even venture to say that most successful businesspeople know that. Ultimately, the only number that really matters is “the bottom line.”
This is where I think Scott’s long history of business and investing comes in, he just sees running everything as a numbers game. Our state is bleeding money, just like the rest of the Union of course, so he’s looking to trim the fat. Those fancy liberal arts degrees not churning in enough money to the state? Let’s give them less funding! “Everyone” knows we need more engineers and scientists to make stuff, because stuff costs money! *makes it rain grant funding* A week doesn’t go by where I’m hearing a new newsreport where Scott is looking to cut something socially-focused, which makes me feel so awesome knowing that I’m going to a state University (that Tallahassee voted to give less money to and allowed them to increase tuition by 14% AWESOME!) getting an anthro degree. It’s just a terrible double whammy.
I understand Scott wants to move the bottom line from the red to the black, but no one I know agrees that cutting funding from education is where to start, but that’s his chosen sacrificial cow (at all levels).
[shrugs to self] I still wonder: why are we criticizing Scott for cutting funding to the least profitable degrees, in the midst of a recession? Why aren’t we focusing on, perhaps, becoming more profitable?
Well, part of the issue is it’s not just things like anthro degrees, it’s all manner of Humanities and Liberal Arts departments that are getting budgets slashed via state funding, as well as other departments that aren’t under the STEM umbrella. In turn, it ends up being less funding for a University overall. And this isn’t just a Florida thing, it’s a STEM push from the national government directly.
I feel the pain, all throughout the liberal arts.
I am a one-time theatre kid, after all.
Nonetheless, if you want money out of any venture capitalist, Rick Scott included, then you need to prove that you can MAKE THAT MONEY BACK. Plain and simple, I see no reason why we liberal arts types shouldn’t rise to that challenge.
Lastly, I concede that cutting funding to liberal arts technically means less funding to universities overall. But what difference does that really make to the university overall, when all that extra funding was wrapped up in specific programs?
Ahhh, where did the rest of my comment go! Anyway, I had some other stuff added that disappeared. Stupid browser.
In 2011 (I think), the FDoE published its analysis of employment figures which showed that anthro grads and engineering grads were employed at roughly the same rate: 49%. This was based 2009-2010 numbers. So based on that, returns were the same, although I fully admit that monetarily, they were probably worlds apart. With that in mind, I understand why the push for more funding for STEM and less for humanities, mostly because the federal government is the one actually doling out the monies for it to the states.
So it makes one think what can the humanities do to actually push forward and show that it’s worthwhile when so much of what it can produce isn’t usually something so simply numerically quantified. This of course is in no way limited to us in Florida, even anthropologists in other states are grappling with similar questions.
Sorry for the late response, Richard! Your comment got burried under a bunch of spam.
Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if anthro and liberal arts majors are “employed” at the same rate as engineers. The question is, are they employed AS ANTHROPOLOGISTS?
For example, my university called me shortly after graduation. I’d turned down my only serious job offer to help my mom with surgery, but picked up some part time work as a barista (i.e. slinging coffee) to make ends-meet. They surveyed me, and checked me off as “employed.”
Sooo… I don’t put much stock in unemployment stats.