Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust writes in the New York Times about the importance of protecting the humanities:
"The endowment helps Americans explore and better understand how we came to be the nation, people and world we are. It challenges us to reflect on our identities as citizens and as human beings, to ask profound questions about origins, legacies and meaning, to contemplate where we are going as individuals and as a society and why. It links the past to the future and it connects all of us to the purposes that guide us. The work of the endowment nurtures our national soul. We must ensure that it continues."