Situating Narratives of Decline: Surveying the Literature of Crisis from a Regional Humanities Student Perspective

[Extract] As first-in-family university graduates from regional northern and far-northern Queensland, both of us have found the work of this essay to be a challenging—and upsetting—exercise. We care deeply for the regional university which has provided us with educations in the humanities, but the feelings of anger, disappointment, and despondency we endure when considering the future of our disciplines at regional institutions such as the one we attended are difficult to translate into clear-headed academic prose. Our stories are different, but our lived experiences demonstrate what will be—and has already been—lost when regional Bachelor of Arts programs are repeatedly restructured, reoriented, refocused, refreshed, or cut entirely.

Jade was born in Cairns, in the far-north of Queensland, but was raised in the smaller, regional town of Innisfail. Her father had left high school after Year 10 to pursue employment and Jade’s mother had been unable to continue schooling at the age of fourteen. Despite the interruption, Jade’s mother had taken a less-conventional pathway to completing her high school education later in life and subsequently worked her way up into professional roles. Straight out of school, Jade moved south to Townsville to start a double degree in arts and science. She struggled to adjust to university studies and found herself failing subjects for the first time in her life. Away from home and dealing with difficult personal circumstances in addition to the challenges of university, Jade returned home to Innisfail. In 2021 she decided to follow her passion for literature and transitioned into a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English, remaining enrolled at the same regional university but now studying externally. Settling into her work, Jade gained momentum. Maintaining good grades and finally having an opportunity to network with like-minded people, she even had the chance to co-author a paper with a lecturer and fellow classmates as an undergraduate. Earlier this year at her graduation, she was recognised for achieving the highest aggregate result for first-year English literature.