A lecturer at the University of Canterbury has stirred the academic pot by implying gaining an Arts degree is “easy”.

The lecturer presented a slide claiming: “If Engineering was easy, they’d call it Arts instead.”

It has caused an uproar on Twitter, after it was posted by Luke Goode, who said:

The associate professor in media and communication at the University of Auckland later acknowledged it may have been intended as “harmless banter” but “in the context of an ideological war on critical thinking coupled with the anti-intellectualism that infects this country, it infuriates me.”

“Want/need to stop harping on about this except to say we (society) desperately need (well-engineered) bridges between Arts/Hums and STEM, not walls,” he tweeted.

Twitter appears to be divided on the issue.

Some are on Goode’s side.

Others see it as joke.

Since tweeting the slide on Wednesday, Goode has said he didn’t anticipate that the tweet would generate so much controversy and has apologised if any person or institution felt singled out for criticism.

Business Insider has contacted the university for a comment.

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