Shakespeare not to be for US colleges
Print Edition
AS Shakespeare once wrote: “We have seen better days.”
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has found that less than 8 percent of the nation’s top universities require English majors to take a course focused on Shakespeare.
The study, “The Unkindest Cut: Shakespeare in Exile 2015,” found that only four of the nation’s 52 highest-ranked universities and colleges by US News & World Report have a Shakespeare requirement.
Michael Poliakoff, policy vice president for the Washington DC-based council and lead author of the study, called the findings “a terrible tragedy.”
“It is with sadness we view this phenomenon. It really does make us grieve for the loss to a whole generation of young people who would look to a college or university for guidance about what is great and what is of the highest priority,” he said.
The report was released on Thursday on the anniversary of what is believed to be Shakespeare’s birthday in 1564. It came a day after the musical “Something Rotten!” opened on Broadway that mocks The Bard as a rump-shaking word thief.
The schools that still require study of the Bard are Harvard, the University of California-Berkeley, Wellesley College and the US Naval Academy.
The report said English majors are often future English teachers and many will graduate without studying in depth the language’s greatest writer.
“The Bard, who is the birthright of the English speaking world, has no seat of honor,” the report said.
“A degree in English without serious study of Shakespeare is like a major in Greek literature without the serious study of Homer.”
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