I think it was bad for the humanities when we all implicitly conceded that the cultural archives to which we had devoted our lives were just a disposable scratch-pad to teach students discrete "skills."

I do think we teach students skills, but I don't think that it's particularly illuminating to assess those outcomes at the level of an assignment or even a whole course. Nor do I think that skills are separable from content in the way typically envisioned.

The failure of college faculty to agree on WHICH content is most important for students to learn, even provisionally, has led to a situation where we proceed on the assumption that NO content is particularly valuable.

An evolving, inclusive, global "canon" is not as difficult to generate as people seem to think. No, it wouldn't be final or definitive, but it would provide some baseline of cultural literacy, of the kind people formerly expected from college (and college graduates).

Should students be able to graduate without reading Homer or Shakespeare? Maybe. We can talk about that. Depends on the trade off. But should they be able to graduate without engaging with ANY enduringly influential creative works at all? I say no, but they can currently.