Lately, few other academic disciplines have been such a stranger to praise as the humanities. Branded as impractical and even disposable, the humanities have been criticized for seemingly failing to provide financial benefits compared to certain programs in business and the sciences.

Driven by short-term economic interests, such devaluation of the humanities questions the university’s role as a public institution to educate individuals in a well-rounded and socially conscious manner. At its worst, it even mocks the commitment to training critical minds, the foundation of any participatory democracy.

Perhaps the following story of triumph would be instructive of the value of a humanities education. On Feb. 7, the University of Victoria bestowed one of its highest honours on Victoria City Councillor Charlayne Thornton-Joe, a third-generation Chinese Canadian. First elected to city council in 2002, Thornton-Joe has been chair of the steering committee for the Mayor's Task Force on Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness, and is currently a member of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness. In 2004, with Constable Rick Anthony, she started the first Emergency Cold Weather Shelter (now known as the Extreme Weather Protocol).

Councillor Thornton-Joe’s long-term commitment to civic issues has garnered her much praise, now adorned by a firm acknowledgement from her alma mater. In her acceptance speech, she recounted movingly how her experience as a Pacific and Asian Studies major empowered her in a difficult struggle to come to terms with her Chinese heritage as a Canadian. Under the department’s Chinese language exchange program, she became the first member of her family to visit China, where she studied Mandarin in Shanghai. Gradually, her education helped her to develop confidence in herself and passion in serving the community. She is an inspiration to all Canadians.

Having honored one of its most remarkable alumni, the university should ensure that the space that nurtured her will be there for future generations. As the world becomes ever more globalized, multicultural and electronic, the humanities provide an increasingly rare academic environment where necessary conversations about shared ideals and disparate experiences can be built, challenged, improved and preserved.

A liberal arts education teaches reading, writing and thinking—the fundamental skills of a functioning mind valued at any workplace. It prepares students not just for jobs, but also for the many possibilities and challenges that life most certainly brings. It does so by expanding our horizons, taking us far beyond our imagination that is often limited by the immediate cultural, social and economic environments in which we live.

It helps us engage other societies and our own, past and present, with insight, creativity and empathy.

Now more than ever, in times of great mobility and uncertainty, we risk living as advocates of our own narrow gains and perspectives but without understanding of complex realities and collective vision.

Our society deserves to have cohorts of interesting humanists who are praiseworthy not only for their contributions to the economy, but also for their imagination to engage others in unfamiliar ways. This is a fundamental obligation that our university should always strive to fulfill.

Dr. Shelly Chan teaches the history of modern and contemporary China in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies.

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Editor's note: Views expressed in this Viewpoint are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of The Ring or the University of Victoria.