E. Michele Ramsey, associate professor of communication arts and sciences and women’s studies at Penn State Berks, will deliver the keynote address at a conference celebrating the arts, humanities, and social sciences for students and faculty across the 14 universities of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). The conference titled “Boundless: Arts and Intellects” will be held Oct. 11 and 12, at Millersville University.
The keynote will be based on Ramsey’s co-authored book with Laurie Grobman, also a professor at Penn State Berks, "Major Decisions: College, Career, and the Case for the Humanities," forthcoming in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania Press. The book argues that humanities students are indispensable across the fast-paced, complex, and global employment landscape. As the authors demonstrate, humanities students are equipped with the core skills and knowledge employers, even in high tech fields, demand; further, our economy and democracy suffer when the humanities are disregarded.
According to Millersville’s website: Boundless: Arts and Intellects will provide an opportunity for faculty and students join together to share, recognize and honor the myriad ways that the singular sensibilities and abilities fashioned and sustained by an education in the arts, humanities, and social sciences are so crucially important to the future of our life-worlds. More than a shadow partner to STEM, students and faculty in the humanities, arts, and social sciences actively shape the political, social, and economic landscape of our times, stretching at the boundaries of what seems possible / impossible, raising the most pertinent ethical concerns, providing the spark for technical innovations that transform the relations between humans, their tools, and their environment.
The conference is hosted by Millersville University at the Ware Center in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania.