One of my colleagues shared this link with me which has the full transcript of Prof. Alexander Coward's email. Personally, it really encouraged me to share this with others who want to personally get more motivated as I was after reading through this email.
Dear All,
As some of you may have heard, there is some strike activity taking place on campus tomorrow.
I want to let you know that I will not be striking, which means that I
will be, so-to-speak, crossing a picket line. Moreover, I know that two
of your GSIs have decided to strike, but because I happen to be free in
the afternoon when they teach, and because I enjoy teaching smaller
classes from time to time and I haven’t had a chance to in a while, I’ll
be covering those sections. If you were planning to see me at office
hours tomorrow afternoon, then feel free to come to one of the sections
I’ll be covering. I will be in Stephens 230c from 2:10 to 4pm, Cory Hall
285 from 4:10pm to 5pm, and Evans Hall 6 from 5:10pm-6pm.
The reason for me taking this decision is extremely simple: We have 7
class days left until the end of the course. Despite the fact that we’ve
made good time and are likely to finish the syllabus with a few
lectures in hand for review, class hours are valuable and your education
is too important to just cancel a class if we don’t have to. Whatever
the alleged injustices are that are being protested about tomorrow, it
is clear that you are not responsible for those things, whatever they
are, and I do not think you should be denied an education because of
someone else’s fight that you are not responsible for. I say this with
no disrespect whatsoever to the two GSIs who have decided to strike.
Societies where people stand up for what they believe in are generally
better than societies where people do not, sometimes dramatically so.
Further, I cannot discount the possibility that I may be in the wrong on
this and they may be right. I have certainly been on the wrong side of
political judgements before and I’m sure I will be again. However from a
practical point of view I’ve made my decision and you should all turn
up to class and discussion tomorrow as normal.
Beyond practical matters, I think it’s also worth reflecting a little
on the broader relationship between politics and your education, and I
think I have some important things to share on this topic that may be
helpful to you.
I do this with some trepidation. Normally I try to avoid talking about
politics with my students and also my professional colleagues because
people have a wide variety of views, sometimes held with great
conviction and feeling. If I was to get into a political disagreement
with one of you or one of my colleagues, it might get in the way of or
distract us from the central mission we have of working together to give
you a great education.
However sometimes political events reach into our lives without our
invitation or control, and we have no choice but to engage with each
other about politics. Many times in history it has done so with far more
violence and disruption than a strike, and it is wise to be
psychologically prepared for this fact.
If I’ve learned one thing about politics since I was your age, it is
this: Politics, like most things in life worth thinking about, including
mathematics, is very big, very complicated, and very interconnected.
I’ve lived and worked in four countries on four continents, all with
societies set up differently both politically and socially. I’ve
discovered that there is no unique or obviously best way of setting up
society. For every decision and judgement you reach, there are people
who benefit and people who lose out. It’s the same with the way I teach
my classes. I know that for every decision I make about how to teach you
there are some of you who benefit and there are others who would do
better if I did things differently. There is no way of getting around
that. Every judgement you make in life is a question of balancing
different interests and ideals. Reasonable good people can disagree on
political questions like whether to strike or not, and they can disagree
about far more contentious topics also.
All this may sound like speaking in platitudes. However it is a point
worth making to all of you because you are so young. One of the nice
things about being young is that your thinking can be very clear and
your mind not so cluttered up with memories and experiences. This
clarity can give you a lot of conviction, but it can also lead you
astray because you might not yet appreciate just how complicated the
world is. As you get older you tend to accumulate life experiences to
learn from, and this is the source of wisdom, but the trouble is that
the lessons we glean from life do not all point in the same direction.
Sometimes it is hard to tease the correct learning from the experiences
life throws at us.
So what are we to do with the fact that when we are young we lack a
lot of the perspective we need to make definitive judgements about what
is right, but that as we get older our judgements tend to be informed by
our experiences, and these experiences guide us in contradictory ways,
both between different people and within the same person?
I don’t know.
However one thing I do know is that you are not going to be able to
avoid making these kinds of judgements, just as I cannot avoid making a
judgment about whether to strike or not. Like it or not, I have to make a
political choice, and I have to talk to you about it. For me, the
choice not to strike is quite easy, but for you the kinds of judgements
and choices you are going to face in your lives are going to be far from
easy; they are going to be of a complexity and importance that will
rival that faced by any previous generation. To an extent that you may
not yet appreciate, the world is changing incredibly quickly. In just a
decade, since I was your age, the internet and telecommunications has
truly transformed the way we live, not just in rich countries but around
the world. When I was an undergraduate, if I wanted to check my email I
went to a little room in the basement to use a computer, and if I
wanted to learn something I went to a library. The kinds of
breakthroughs we are seeing in biotechnology remind me of the way people
were talking about electricity in 1900. Of course I don’t know - nobody
knows - but my guess is that biotechnology in the 21st century could be
similarly transformative to the way the full power of electricity only
hit prime-time in the 20th century. The recent controversy about the NSA
has shown that the role of information technology on society can be, or
at least might become, double edged. There is climate change, another
controversial and difficult topic, the exact impact of which we do not
yet know. These are just a few of the challenges we can see, and we
should remember that history has a habit of throwing curve balls at each
generation that nobody saw coming. And among all this tumult, our
search for common human peace and happiness on some level becomes more
difficult, though no less important. A previous generation dodged the
bullet of nuclear armageddon when things looked bleak, but for your
generation the bullets are coming thicker and faster than ever before.
The potential all of you in your generation are going to have for both
good and harm is tremendous.
I suspect many of you have heard sentiments along these lines before.
However I also suspect that many of you will think something in response
along the lines of `I know all that, but these things are for someone
else to figure out, not me.’
That is a mistake.
One of the things you can lose track of when you attend a top tier
university like Berkeley is just how exceptional and amazing you really
are. I’m blown away every time I talk to you. The way you ask
penetrating questions, the way you improved so much between midterm 1
and 2, the way you challenge me to be a better teacher, it just knocks
my socks off. You really are amazing. I’ve taught students all over the
world, and I’ve never seen a group of students so talented. I’m not just
talking about some of you. I’m talking about all of you. It’s a
privilege to be your professor. Sadly, however, I know many of you don’t
feel that way. The difficulty you all face is that as you look around
at all your fellow students, it’s easy to have your eye drawn by people
doing better than you. Or rather, I should say people who look like
they’re doing better than you. In reality the true extent of how much
people are learning can be difficult to measure. Sometimes failures and
adversity are better preparations for long term success than
effortless progress.
Why am I telling you all this?
I’m telling you this because you all need to know that there is not
some great pool of amazing people in some other place who are going to
shape the way our species navigates the coming decades. The simple fact
is that, like it or not, technology is going to change the way we live
in the future, and you’re going to have to solve some very hard
problems, as well as figure out how best to use new technology for good,
while at the same time facing human dangers that have haunted humanity
throughout history.
Part of the work of your generation is going to be technological,
using scientific ideas to serve the interests of society, and part of
the work is going to be fundamentally human, tied inexorably with
qualities of the human condition - human emotion - that dominate the
whole of history. These things are not separate, but are inexorably
linked, and you are in a better place to understand that connection
than me.
I can’t tell you what your particular role should be in the new
realities of the 21st century. It’s up to you to decide if you want to
make the focus of your life technological, focused on new innovations to
drive society forward, or essentially human, focused on the age-old
struggles of trying to get along, work together, and find happiness, or
some combination of the two.
However I can tell you this:
Whatever you decide to do with your life, it’s going to be really, really complicated.
Science and technology is complicated. History and politics is
complicated. People are complicated. Figuring out how to be happy, and
do simple things like take care of our kids and maintain friendships and
relationships, is complicated.
In order for you to navigate the increasing complexity of the 21st
century you need a world-class education, and thankfully you have an
opportunity to get one. I don’t just mean the education you get in
class, but I mean the education you get in everything you do, every book
you read, every conversation you have, every thought you think.
You need to optimize your life for learning.
You need to live and breath your education.
You need to be *obsessed* with your education.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking that because you are surrounded
by so many dazzlingly smart fellow students that means you’re no good.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And do not fall into the trap of thinking that you focusing on your
education is a selfish thing. It’s not a selfish thing. It’s the most
noble thing you could do.
Society is investing in you so that you can help solve the many
challenges we are going to face in the coming decades, from profound
technological challenges to helping people with the age old search for
human happiness and meaning.
That is why I am not canceling class tomorrow. Your education is
really really important, not just to you, but in a far broader and wider
reaching way than I think any of you have yet to fully appreciate.
See you tomorrow,
Alexander
Taken from: http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2013-11-21/cal-lecturers-email-students-goes-viral-why-i-am-not
