Februari 11, 2017
[noise] >> good afternooni'm larry mantle of pasadena zone kpcc, 89.3 fm. [applause] thanks. thank you. and that's how ifeel about kpcc. and it's great to workfor a place that you feel such a connection tobecause it is a mission driven organization.
one where we really buy intothe idea of civil conversation, taking the most contagious,most difficult issues and trying to find for ways to--for people to respect-- respectfully talk their waythrough those challenges. i'm really looking forward toour program this afternoon. it's an honor to join with thesix leaders of higher education at premiere culturalinstitutions to talk about the toughest challenges weface and how we talk about those in ways that move us forwardand keep us from screaming
at each other and getting lockedinto our intractable positions. these giants of highereducation and culture in pasadena are localfigures but all of them are truly national andinternational figures as well and we are incredibly fortunatein this community to be able to bring them together fora conversation like this. and first i want to thankthem for the willingness with their schedules totake the time to do this. it's an honor to be part of it.
i'd like to think that-- [ applause ] i'd like to think that publicradio is generally a bastion of civility in anincreasingly angry media world. however, even we have todeal with the blind passion and the fear that fuels thetrend of public hostility that we'll be talkingabout today. it becomes so mucha part of life that to ignore theranker is to miss one
of the most importanttrends in our country. though most of ourlisteners are open-minded, curious about theworld, there are others who are deeply frightenedwith what are going-- what's going on and they clingto a kind of fundamentalism, a closed off world view. for them this time periodis extremely frightening. i think for some of ourlisteners they feel powerless, overwhelmed by the pace andcomplexity of current events.
so it's easier to see the worldis broken down into people that wear black hats andpeople that wear white hats. it explains things, it givesa context for what goes on the world, and that kindof a narrative, is clear cut, is as simple as in box as it is,is just so ripe for news media that they can't help butpick it up and run with it and give people exactlywhat they want. but if only life werethat simply, it isn't. we can't put everybody ina black hat, in a white hat
and say that this defineswho they are who is moral or good or virtuous people. so over the next couple of hourswe're going to be wrestling with this issue ofcivility and public life. how we talk honestlywith argument and with emotion while hearing and considering what those wasstrongly different opinions have to say. with that in mind, i'm lookingto challenge our panelist
to vehemently disagree witheach other while modeling that civility. they're good at thiscivility part i'm sure. you don't get a job as acollege president or the head of the huntington by being acontentious, difficult person. but i'm hoping that they willlet that passion out today and feel free to really modelthat strong disagreement in a respectful and open way. it's appropriate we beginour program this afternoon
with probably the most civil manthat i know in public service. his patience and carefulconsideration are remarkable as is his positive way of addressing verytough civic challenges. he was the first guesti ever interviewed just over 27 years ago on mydaily program air talk. he held the sameposition then as now, though the job haschanged quite a bit and the way a mayor is electedis different today than then.
he is a behavioralrole model for me. the mayor of pasadena,bill bogaard. >> i was prepared to say thankto larry for a nice introduction but he's introductiontoday goes beyond the pale. from that time thathe interviewed me on the opening sessionof his program and today, i did take 14 years off andserved as a private citizen, and then circumstances thatwere totally unexpected by me and perhaps by almostanyone else have resulted
in my being back in the officeof mayor of a great city, proud to do so and trulygrateful for the opportunity to work with all of you,with the people who are here and particularly thepanelist who have such a strong commitment tothe well-being of our city. as you know from the invitation,this event has a term, "honoring civilityfor a civil society." a forum organized by pasadena'shigher education community inspired by pasadenacity of learning.
that's a pretty heavy load and i thought i mightjust take a moment to offer some preliminarycomments. first, civility,that's a subject that is frequently talked aboutthese days but rarely analyzed. the opportunity that we havetoday is to see some analysis of the role of civilityin our society. where it's been, where it is, and where it mightbe in the future.
all of us are aware ofthe institutions that make up pasadena's highereducation community which had so much depth andprestige to our city. the president's of theseinstitutions are the participants in this forum and they will surelyprovide insightful and interesting comments. incidentally this might bethe first time that all six of these institutionshave joined together
through their presidents to analyze a topicof great importance. so this is a landmark iwant to express once again, gratitude to the presidents whoare here and who are willing to participate in this way. [ pause ] as to pasadena city of learning, the awareness among the generalpublic i would say is much less extensive and a briefdescription
of pcol might be an order. pcol is a series ofmeetings, not an organization. that began more than10 years ago. these meetings bringtogether representatives of the institutionswith us today and many other organizations inthis city that are all committed to educating, to informing, andto promoting lifelong learning. the purpose of the meetingis to share information, to communicate aboutcurrent projects, programs,
and activities, and topromote coordination and collaborationamong the participants. this forum is an example, perhaps one of thebest examples, of the kind of collaborationthat has been achieved. there might be another timeto talk in greater detail about pcol and i would lookforward to that opportunity. the forum today can be described as considering twobasic questions.
are we at risk of losing basiccivility in modern society? and can we risk losing ourcivility without falling into total chaos as a society? based on current events,public discourse and the media, the answer to the firstquestion seems to be yes. the slightest hintof disagreement with another can be-- can todaybe met with serious threats. candidates for office,super imposed riffle targets over the basis ofopponents and send them
out to mass audienceson the internet. reality shows promote andencourage crass behavior, lack of manners and argumentfor the sake of argument. indeed, propriety may well beconsidered a virtue that is out of date and asign of weakness. rudeness now seemsto be the new normal. part of the problem lies withthe lost art of civil discourse. many of our politicalleaders simply cannot engage in productive discussion.
efforts to reach across the isle and find common groundare infrequent. this in turn, spills overinto our own daily discourse. lively discussionsabout current events and issues too often devolvedinto angry sarcasm, name calling and personal attacks onanyone who dares to disagree. so the next questionis, what is the impact of losing our civility? do not the values of free speechthe right to agree to disagree?
and the protection of human-- of individual freedoms stillsrepresents the ideals upon which our nation is based. why is it then that weseem so quickly unkind to disregard thoseimportant core values? our speakers today are preparedto address these questions and i expect thatthey will send us away with provocative new insightsand renewed commitment to the core valuesof a civil society.
it is my privilege tointroduce the key note speaker, author and president offuller theological seminary, richard j. mouw. he has served as fullerpresident since 1993, he earned a masters degree inphilosophy at the university of alberta and hisphd in philosophy is from the university of chicago. richard has an impressiverecord of publication. he is the author of 17books including "the god
who commands," "the smellof sawdust," "he shines in all that's fair: cultureand common grace," "calvinism in the las vegas airport," iintended to ask him about that, and in expanded and revisededition of "uncommon decency: christian civilityin an uncivil world." his most recent book is"abraham kuyper a short and personal introduction." our speaker has alsoparticipated in many councils and boards and hecurrently serves as president
of the association oftheological schools. he is a leader for interfaiththeological conversation particularly withmormons and jewish groups. in 2007, princeton theologicalseminary awarded dr. mouw the abraham kuyper prizefor excellence in reformed theologyin public life. it is indeed a pleasure forme to invite dr. richard mouw, president of one of the world'slargest christian seminaries to step forward tooffer his views
on honoring civilityfor a civil society. dr. mouw. >> thank you mr. mayor. i'm just greatly honored andpersonally delighted to be here with my presidential colleagues to explore togetherthese important issues. i wrote my book on civilityback in, right around 19-- early 1990s and in the lastcouple of years people have said to me, you know, youwrote back too early.
we need it more todaythan we needed it then. and then i came verymuch aware of that when i was visiting acongressional office-- office of the conservativerepublican with whom i had establisheda friendship and a kind of a debating friendly debatingteam and walk into his office as prearranged and i had somethings i wanted to talk to him about but he said, "today iwant to talk about congress." he said "you know, you liveout there in the west coast,
how do you view us herein congress these days?" and i said "well, i'm goingto be perfectly honest with you, folks look awful." and he said "it's evenworst than you think." he said, "i've been incongress for a couple of decades and we used to be ableto talk to each other." he said, "we would debate, wehave very passionate debate, we would disagree about thingsbut we used to be able afterward to play around a golfor meeting the cloakroom
or have lunch togetherand talked things over and he referred back tothe days when tip o'neill and ronald reagan would gettogether before each compromises after having publiclydisagreed about things. and i thought, you know, maybei ought to revise that book, and then my publishercalled and said, you know we've been thinkingwe need a new edition of that and so i went back and readwhat i've written some almost, you know, 2 decades earlier, andwhen i first started thinking
about civility i wasvery much motivated by, or inspired by wonderful linefrom the university of chicago, historian and theologiandr. martin marty here, and one of his books saidthis he said "people today who are civil often don'ta really strong convictions and people who have strongconvictions often are very civil and what we need isconvicted civility." it is the willingness todeeply believe in things and yet at the same time engage infriendly discussion with people
with whom we strongly disagreeand as a person of faith, back in the early 1990s ithought immediately of the ways in which religion is oftena part of the problem, religious convictions in thosedays catholics and protestants in northern ireland,christians and muslims in bosnia or herzegovina, and otherparts of eastern europe, jews and muslims in the middleeast, those are the things i had in mind, i wrote my book. and within two weeks
of publishing my book i got twoseparate calls for interviews, one for the boston globe, theother from the new york times. they obviously had read mybook with they were looking for somebody who had writtensomething about civility and in each case they wantedto talk about freeways in california, they wantedto talk about parking lots, they wanted to talk aboutisles and supermarkets. and we're getting down tothe kind of incivilities that larry was talkingabout earlier.
it is the incivilities of alot of reality shows and lot of cable news, and most of uswho write for online websites, very often the remarks,the comments, that come in are very abusive. a fundamental incivilityin our society today and i do think we are ina crisis and i'm so please that we can talktogether here because, as the mayor rightly notedwe do have a wonderful group of influential institutions ofhigher education in pasadena,
it's a great education city. and i hope that we can findways to contribute together to promoting civility not onlywithin the academy, we got a lot of that to do before we starttelling other people how to get along that kindsof faiths that we have within the academy on ourcampuses about science and faith, sexuality,curriculum, the use of new technologiesin spreading the word about our programs, budgetingpriorities and all the rest,
we have our own problems. but also to think togetherabout how we as a community of educators can moreeffectively address the questions of civil society whichdesperately need educator along with others leadersin civil society if you're addressingthese issues. let me say somethingabout civility. the word civility comes from theword civitas which means city. to be civil is to know howto get along in the city.
we get this idea, this themefrom ancient greek philosopher, aristotle, who said, youknow, the earliest stage where we learn how to bond withother people where we learn how to feel good about other people,that early stage is kinship, it's the child and the parent,the brother and the sister, grandparents, extendedfamily, but it's in kinship that we really learn howto bond with other people. and then the next day he saidwas the stage of friendship where we take those samefeelings of intimacy,
that same feelings of bonding and we go beyond bloodrelationship through the people who are like us and whom we like and we form those kindsof bonds with them. but aristotle says, we don'ttruly develop the proper adult virtues until we learn how toget along in the public square and we have to imaginethe public square in the ancient greek citystate where there were people from other tribes,other nations,
people who spokedifferent languages, people who have differentethnicity's and races, and he says, in encounteringthe other, in encountering the strangerthat being able in some sense to take what we learned inkinship and what we learned in friendship and applythat to other people simply because they're human, simply because we sharea common human nature. when we learn how to dothat, we've learned how
to be virtuous adult humanbeings and so the city, and, so the city thepublic square the pluralism and diversity of our-- of ourlive together in civil society-- political society isan important arena for exhibiting those virtues that are associatedwith civility. and i think we educatorsneed to address that, what is it that we can do because in many ways educationbasically picks up at the point
where people havelearned the lessons from kinship andfrom friendship. but, we can be a veryimportant vehicle and provide a veryimportant arena for developing those virtuoustraits that make for civility in the larger society. and you know when we think aboutthat, aristotelian sequence of family, kinship, friendshipand then the public square, i think we can identify some ofthe problems that we have today
because we're really seeing muchof the failure in the family to cultivate, that politeness. i think a lot about the--the family meal you know, the family meal is the firstplace where we learn to stay at the table for 45minutes with people that we're reallyirritated about you know. [laughter] and, i can'tstress the importance of-- of meals and civilityon that regard. when i first became--
when i became the provost at fuller theologicalseminary i was-- i went to a conference on foodservices in higher education. there were people there fromthe marriott chain who had in those days were doing quitea bit of campus food services and one of the men gave a talk that was very illuminatingfor me. he said, you know, wehave reorganized the way in which people gettogether to eat on campuses,
moving from dining to grazing. you know many of uswhen we were in college, in our younger days weactually sat at a table with other people, we're serveda meal and we did not always sit with the same people andwe learned the stories, we learned how tointeract with-- with different people fromdifferent backgrounds, studying in differentareas preparing for-- for different professions.
but, the marriott people saidyou know these days the design of a typical eatingarea on a university or a college campus is that ofa series of grazing stations. i was on a college campusrecently and they took me into the-- what theycall the dining hall. well, you walk in andyou go to the salad bar, you get your salad yougo back and maybe sit with a few people whileyou're eating your salad. then you get up and you goto either the sandwich place
or the hot meal place, andyou may go back for seconds and you may actually sit at2 or 3 or 4 different tables. and, then dessert is typicallygrabbing the yogurt cone on the way out atthe yogurt machine and you're actuallywalking out of the-- the cafeteria whileyou're eating your dessert. and, there's verylittle interaction there. and, in many ways and themarriott people said this too. this grazing pattern istypical of family today.
and, it's not necessarilyan intentional defect but we're grandparents and wehear about this, felis and i, soccer games, concerts,music lessons, church activities arevery much on the run. and, i think our son and daughter in-lawdo a pretty good job of maintaining the family mealbut it's so easy for the home to become a series of grazingstations and moments of grazing. and, i think one of the thingsthat we can do as educators is
to think about ways in whichwe can get people to sit and talk to each other. sometimes we may haveto offer free meals or something elsein order to do it. but, we need to find ways. and, in each of ourinstitutions including, the huntington library, people come from very differentbackgrounds in our case and a number of other casesvery different nations,
different tribal and racial and ethnic backgroundscertain different religious perspectives, and, weneed to see ourselves as among other things,workshops and civility, training for being city folks,learning how to interact with each other inthe public square. and i think it's an importantchallenge for us even it's just to think together, how canwe educate for civility? and what are the conditions inour culture that we can address
for us educators as politicalleaders in the city as people from a variety of religiousand other social agencies and other areas of service,businesses, and the like? how can we in thecity, promote civility? frankly, i want to say,i think the tournament of roses is a very civil event. i think that the spirit of that, there are times i wish we couldpackage that and find ways, what people from very differentbackgrounds are joining together
and enjoying someof the same things. and i think pasadenadoes a pretty good of that in a number of ways. but i think we couldbe more intentional about the civility dimension ofour participation and the way in which we design andstructure public space and the events inour public space. and last i want to say to youthat the more i've thought about this, the more i seethis is a genuine challenge
in moral in, i want tosay spiritual formation. there's a need to cultivatethe kind of humility. it's one thing to have strongconvictions, it's another thing to simply refuse tolisten to other people to ask them what they believe,i'd happened to be invited to this, so years ago now tospeak in the mormon tabernacle through a large group ofthe [inaudible] of mormons and some other peoplerepresenting other faiths. and i said, "you know, asan evangelical christian,
i want to apologize tothe mormon community. we've often told youwhat you believe rather than ask you what you believe." i got hate mail yesterday aboutthat, i'm still getting that, you know, and it just seems likesuch a simple point to make. and if you really care aboutthe truth, if you really care about defending thetruth, ask people rather than learning the risk ofdistorting what they believe, we just had earlier today awonderful jewish christian
dialogue event where welearn so much from each other and that pasture oflearning and the humility of the one little sermonpiece here, i mean psalm 1:39, one of my verse, favoritesongs, the psalm says at one point says,"lord, i hate your enemies with a perfect hatred." you know, that soundsvery arrogant, look, you and i are in the same side. and then it says if hestops when he says, "oops,"
and then the next verse says,"search me and know my thoughts and see if there beany wicked way in me." and whether we're religious ornot, i think we need to think about what's going on in me? what do i need to learn inthat pasture of humility? i'll close with apersonal example, the time that i feltpretty good about myself on the civility thing, i was going in througha bond's parking lot
and i saw a parking space,pretty crowded lot, and i saw it and i pulled in and ahorn started blowing and it was clear somebodywas really upset and i turn and she was upsetwith me, the driver and she gave me the middlefinger and shook her fist and, obviously, yelling some thingsat me that i couldn't hear, she was clearly, and i realizedthat i had taken the space that she have been waiting for. and she drove away fastbut i got out of the car
and i noticed she parked onthe other side of the lot, a more distance spot, so iwent over and she was getting out of the car and i said,"ma'am, i just i want to tell you i'm the guywho you got so upset with and i don't blame you. i didn't know you were waitingfor that slot and i took it without thinking and i justwant to tell you, i'm sorry." and she said, "i don't have timefor this," she started to cry. she said, "if you just knewthe kind of day that i've had,"
and she turned aroundand stamped away and then she stopped,she just turned around with tears streaming downher face, she said, "thank you." and i've felt reallygood about myself. [laughter] two weeks later, i returned to the ahern'srental car at an airport and i just made it in twominutes before the deadline where i would have topay that high extra fee. and the attendant who waschecking the other car
and just still talkingto the guy and i went over the 2 minutes. and he came and he-- i wasa minute over, and he said, "you're going to haveto pay the extra hour." and i said, "no, no, i washere, you saw me, you know." he said, "i'm sorry, sir, i got to go withwhat's written there." and i said, "well, i'm goingto complain about this, i'm not going to pay it."
and i got really angry with him. and a supervisor came over,obviously, aware of some kind of turmoil in thelot, middle aged, african-american woman walkedover and she said to us, "what's going on here?" and she said, "this guy didn'twant to pay the extra hour and i checked him in late." and i said, "yeah, but he wastalking at a guy upfront." and so she just started "holdit," she said to her employee,
"go away, i'll takecare of this." he handed her the-- shewalked away and she looked at and she said, "you don'thave to pay, it's okay." and i said, "well, ofcourse, i don't have to pay." [laughter] and she said,"honey, you need a hug." [laughter] and she hugged me. [laughter] and theni'm like the woman in the other parkinglot, i said, "thank you." and i think we need more hugs
in parking lots,thank you very much. >> thank you dr. mouw [laughs]. a lot to consider and i'm suremuch that we can follow up with in the course ofour conversation with our panelistthis afternoon. let me get to the introductionsof our panels who will be up here on the dais today. but first, when he arrived aspresident of art center college of design, our first panelistwalked onto an uncertain campus,
the previous year that collegehave faced particularly tough times with many studentsand faculty members turning on the previous presidentto offer his plans for a frank gehrydesign campus expansion. as the new president arrivedin october of 2009, i'm sure, all his words and actions werebeing very closely scrutinized to determine what his prioritieswould be, facilities expansion, improving the current buildings,slowing down rising tuition. that doesn't eventake in to account,
the run of the millcampus politics, all of our panelistsknow all too well. i'm sure that he'll have alot to say about civility, the president ofart center college of design, lorne buchman. he is only the 8th presidentin his school's history, it's the intellectual,scientific, and engineering powerhouseknown around the world, perhaps, even in space, thanksto jpl's missions,
the california instituteof technology. our next panelistarrived at caltech in 2006 to lead an institutionthat's still proudly intimate for students but with a massivefootprint in academe, science, and the space program. perhaps, one of caltech'sbiggest challenge isn't in providing a superbeducation for the gifted student but in balancing thewhole person at caltech, given its intense academicdemands in cutting edge science.
joining us, the president ofcaltech, jean-lou chameau. it's an institution that, as faras i know, is completely unique, a combination, artmuseum, botanical gardens, and historical researchcenter and archives. we know it casuallyas the huntington, a place that not onlyenjoys the loyalty of the thousands each yearwho visit but of a staff that seems particularly proudand appreciative of working in such a beautiful setting.
like so many otherinstitutions, likely, everyone that's representedhere today, the huntington recently facedits own financial challenges in operating its huge facility,paying its whole staff. from what i've read, the huntington's presidentis being given a high marks for his handlingof that challenge which is a very tough thing, trying to serve a vast outsidepublic and the people that work
so hard, so diligently for themission of your institution, the president of the huntingtonlibrary, art collections and botanical gardens,steven koblik. our next panelist is the newestto his position, taking the helm of pacific oaks collegejust this year. he presides over an institutionthat's undergone big change in the past couple of years. pacific oaks is nowpart of the network of tcs educational system,
a nonprofit thatincludes organizations across the country. however, it is still locallybased devoted the quaker values of peace and tolerance andeducating students for work in education and related fields. the student populationis over 90 percent female and the average age of thestudent at pacific oaks is 39, distinctly different makeupthan other schools in our area, so previously, theprovost of nicholas college
in massachusetts, ceo of thefirm education advisory group, now the president of pacificoaks college, ezat parnia. finally, the president ofour largest local institution and one that is very,very close to my heart, pasadena city college. i worked at pcc fornearly 20 years and even though we hadbeautiful studios at kpcc on the south raymond, istill miss the college. there is no place, as faras i'm concerned, like it.
i assume, even with all ofthe challenges financially that it faces, it'sstill a remarkable place. community colleges, as you allknow, facing huge budget cuts and demand for studentenrollment is through the roof as you typically seewithin economic downturn, huge challenge running acommunity college today. everything you and your boardtry to do to balance the budget in limit cuts is goingto be criticized, you just know that going in.
you'll constantly beaccused of destaining input. but at the same time, it's sohard to get practical solutions of the challenges that youface from the great people who are telling you what aterrible job you're doing and trying to solve the problem. i've heard politics on thatcampus can be also a little bit interesting justsomeone's told about that. he arrived at pcc from west losangeles college in mid 2010, the president of pasadenacity college, mark rocha.
gentlemen, i'm counting on you to really sink yourteeth into this. i know that you workin an environment where anything you sayduring a recorded event like this could be usedagainst you, taking out context to show how insensitiveyou are, how misguided, your priorities are all wrong,so we know that going in. but it would my intent to pushyou nonetheless to say things that really express how youfeel about this and to take
on the challenges you'refacing on your campus. the audience is laughing but i trust you'rereally going to do this. let me begin, first of all,by getting a quick response to what we heard in ourkeynote address, your response to the comments froma man who comes from his own personalphase as well as his study of human nature. let me begin with you,dr. buchman, your response
to what we just heard. >> i think his right, actually. [laughter] fundamentally,it's interesting to me that the whole issue ofdifference and our capacity as a culture and as a society to congregate difference is themost pressing problem we have. we arguably have gonefrom a 20th century that was preoccupied withissues of ideology to a kind of politics of identity today.
and it's interesting to methat the fear of the stranger that the issue of kind of facingwhat we don't know, the other and the threat of theother contains toward us as human beings seems to be atrigger for us to come forward and lose a kind ofbasic willingness to engage in a civil way. that incivility issomehow a part of fear, it's a part of threat, it'sa part of struggling with, somehow, acknowledging
or certain superiorityover another. and ultimately, i actuallythink that it's wonderful that education institutionsare coming together here because i don't know of abetter path to human dignity, i don't know of a betterway to resolute the issue of identity than for education. and i would say, particularly,that education and the world of higher education is a placewhere identity can be wrestled with where we can understandthe problems and the situations
that plagued us in ourfear of the stranger and that particularlyit won't surprise you, art and design education that fundamentally honorsthe imagination that is about collaboration, thatis about saying something and looking at it in a waythat's never been seen before which, arguably, is the greatest and most sacred passof the artist with. i would say, withinthat environment
that we could really beginto wrestle with that issue. >> i'd even say, you know, at your institution 'causei've seen your student body incredibly diverse. you have students fromaround the world and part of what you're encouragingthem to do of course, is to take risk, to putthemselves out there to potentially endureridicule, harsh critique, and so they're trying to buildtheir resiliency to be able
to hear that, to be able to dothat and to not be so devastated or to lash out againstthat, but to be able to work collaborativelyis a huge thing. i want to talk more aboutthat as we continue. >> okay, okay. all right. >> do you want justto add some, yeah. >> well, i was just going tosay that the balance is that, you know, i like to thinkwe teach people courage,
that's what we're doing, we'reteaching them the courage of their conviction and to bethrough the artistic process and through the design processto have the courage to be at people to say what they needto say, to solve the problems that they need to solve. but there are also a disruptiveforce in our culture too. artist need to tell us things that were not comfortablehearing, and so, it's an interesting balance ofgiving them the courage to do it
but understanding thatthere's a way of communicating and creating a balance,that's very important. >> and encouragingartist to listen as well. just 'cause you're anartist, it doesn't mean that you have some platformwhere you're not immune to having to engagewith critiques. >> i think compassionateand empathy and listening iscrucial to them. so therefore, i think[inaudible]
>> doctor chameau, your responsethe doctor mouw's key note? >> first being, i'msorry [inaudible] i like the part about dining. [laughter] and i do agreewith you that on the level of this family unit,it is a lost act, and i think this is somethingwe should pay attention too. maybe, it does [inaudible]the quality of the food too, but it's not. [laughter] so i thinkit is, you know, it was.
i know you are tryingto be a bit [inaudible] but i think it wasan important point. being civil startslearning when you're at home, within your family. one point i will somewhatdisagree with you, so we are allowed to disagree? >> good, yes, yes,you're encouraged. >> is that you, unlessi misunderstood you, you tried to imply a beliefthat part of the issue has to do
with the level of education andmaybe people are maybe there is, you know, a recurring themethat we believe in here. you can show the level isdeclining in a down swing. and i'm not sure if it isreally education per se. to a large level our politicalfigures are educated or supposed to be educated, but maybemore relative to less interest in learning and yousee, that specially in political configures,they're saying they're educated but they don't wantto learn new thing,
they are afraid of new thing. and so there is-- theremay be a slight to know. i'm not saying idisagree with you or with a slight defaultview of the question. couple of point i would liketo add to what you say, in one, since we go from art toengineering and science and technology here, onewhich we left with technology. i think i do believethat we maybe most civil than we give ourself credit for.
we have an issue i thinkwhich is to be overconnected. we live in a world where thereason of hyper connection. whatever is being said at agiven time goes over the world in a matter of seconds. and because of that, whatis more exciting is not to have two people who agree,but two people who disagree and sometimes we arefighting over an issue. so the life of civilityof that you received of course among political figureand so on is being amplified
to an extreme level that's theonly thing people pay attention to because it goes very quickly. the point i would like tomake i think, it is critical for the belief force tobe more civil as a nation because if we are not more civilas a nation, how do we expect to get along and work with allthe other nations in a world. and i think it's apoint that you try to make but i would like to-- >> what do you mean by themmore civil as a nation?
>> more civil as a nation meansto have which was described, a level of discuss, ofdiscussion, to be able to argue with each other, butdo it in a way that is, that it is constructive,that allow people to agree, to disagree and to be consensusin some way which we seem to have been losingespecially at the level above the nationand level of the-- >> say american people,yeah, all right, very good. let's see, doctorkoblik, your take on this.
>> i really wanted to put on ahat as a historian for a second and look at richard's comments,you know, in that context and i want to contrast thestory he told about meeting his, this congressman friend and thefriend saying the things are worst than you think,and then to talk briefly about there's a fundamentalinstability in our sub-society which is worth, whichwere also reflected on. unfortunately, historianshave this nasty way of actually looking at things.
and so when you talk, itmaybe worst than we think at the national level buti want to remind everyone that this country was conceivedin extraordinary violence in which among otherthings, at least two of the founding fathershad duel with each other about something silly. and that-- >> are you suggesting wereturn to that to resolve. [laughter]
>> that well, i just wanted topoint out that conjugal periods when congress hasbeen much rougher, fist fights, knifings,et cetera. we're not unusualin the 19th century. we had somethingcalled the civil war that killed an extraordinarilyhigh percentage of the people living inthis country to free some of our fellow citizens. and certainly, thecivility in the 20th century
in the house has notalways been the case. so i started outwith that observation which i know you know. the other thing is and to someextend, i think it goes along with what john lewisis talking about. i'm not convinced thatthere's a fundamental in civility in this country. i do think as larry saidin the introduction. there's an enormous amountof fear in the country,
it's a very, verydifficult time, we've come through a periodand i'm not really thinking about the second worldwar, civil rights movement, and then really frankly,the decline of the family which is you, i thinkcorrectly pointed out has been such a central part ofhow people learn how to interact with each other. but we know the numbers, thestatistics related to that. what always strikes meand i'm not a foreigner
but i live a lot abroad andi miss being in california in particular when i'm abroadbecause we are so different and it's the difference whichmakes california so exciting. and i think all of us knowthat we walk down the street, we're going to interactwith people who are not the same as us. at least for me, thatgives my life meaning and i always rush backhere as soon as i can. so, and i think a lotof people feel that way.
we're having as a difficultywith public discourse and i think the publicdiscourse, the difficulties there area product of a whole bunch of things that some of which,i thought larry was getting at and we can return to. >> all right, doctorkoblik, thank you. doctor parnia? >> well, i'd like to agreewith richard about that we are in a crisis and i also agreewith steve that in fact,
we had-- had more pastviolent among our politician in washington dc, butit wasn't the time that if somebody saidsomething, it was transmitted around the world and most ofthat remained in washington. when representative, joelwilson screamed that you lied to president obama in 2009, ithink that was transmitted all over the world and of course,the children of this country and i feel that the politicians in washington dc are setting avery bad example for the rest
of us in terms of what we needto do, in terms of civility. and i really feel that there'smore can be done among the politicians but right now, therating in terms of congress, it's a 7 percent interms of approval rating and almost 98 percent of thecongress get elected every year. so we have a work to do, youknow, in terms of citizens and for them to be informedso they can do a better job and of course, educationplays a very important role in that direction.
so we have a lot of work todo and of course, you know, we we're talking earlierin terms of k through 12 and how much educationhappens there that in fact, it has gone backwardin many ways. so and that's where the civilitystarts by the way, you know, among the children and of coursein the home and all of that, and i have some stats that i'llshow with you in terms of tv and the amount ofinformation now a day that the kids are exposed to.
and you know, it's all aboutincivility rather than civility. >> all right, and doctor marty, you mentioned a 7 percentapproval rating for congress. remember there isa margin of error. i'm highly skepticaljust high as 7, that could be aslow as 4 percent. so just-- [laughter] not to slip hairs. dr. rocha, your responseto dr. mouw,
expose your otherpanelist to this point. >> yeah. thank you larry,first of all i'm very grateful to dr. mouw's book whichi did read and, you know, i though i have the-- i'mfrom the public side here and among my colleagues andi know i have the distinction of being the only one of uswho appeared on the front page of the star news in frontof a student protest on the administration stepsand so i had an opportunity to practice some civility therebecause they have a whole bunch
of students that i can't getmy classes and they're yelling at you and callingyour names and so on and so it was a real test. and a couple of things cameto mine, one the, you know, the phrase from the bible, asoft answer turneth away wrath. and i tried to focus on thatas a mantra as i was listening and then as i was, you know,kind of moving through that, you know, i think the otherthing that kind of tied into that that i read inthe book, richard was--
it's wonderful idea thatof-- our god is a slow god, you know god is slow and so, youknow, i've been really struck by the ideas here about howimportant a civility rests in terms of really the almostnot raising your voice, the softness of one'svoice, patience and those kinds ofethical values. i would say as a sidebar of that event on campus i learned a greatdeal, and that the one way, we actually found a way.
i found a way to speak civillyto my faculty union president because both of usappeared on larry's show. [laughter] it's the most civilconversation that we've had and it shows that there'rea number of pathways. this time i want to sayjust from the public side of the street, you know, andi'll call this 'the parable of the 10 blankets," i doagree with steve that i think that certainly there's-- i'm an english teacher bytrade certainly the coarseness
of our discourse at the levelof screaming and hollering. i mean we just have to berole models for changing that but at the same time i haveto say that the community that i'm in is quite civil. i see public service all around, i see some of mycolleagues here, and it is for thegreat part i'm amazed at how civil it isbecause, you know, my parable with the 10 blanketsis things are getting really
rough right now because,you know, few years ago or 10 years ago or wheneverthe money was good, you know, we were all-- there were 10 ofus, you know, let's just say in a room and all of us, youknow, had beds and each one of us had a blanket, okay? and we slept comfortablyat night, all right, every day we goodnight sleep and so on. and then the stateshowed up and said, "okay, we only have 8 blanketsnow," okay?
and so those of us who arecharged, we should stand and starts, you know, to getin the discussion and say, "who doesn't get the blankets?" you know, who-- so and ithink a lot of the discussion that is really strenuous andstrange and so it comes from, you know, the real issueswhich are contentious, i mean we're talking about, youknow, having to make priorities that we'd never had made before. and i'll leave it there andperhaps come back there.
there's a wonderful passage indr. mouw's book about leadership and i think one of the thing isabout how we really has to work on transformational leadershipand something that we-- i certainly i have fallshort to the mark up but we need to fix on as a goal. >> i want to take your pointdr. rocha and kind of weave it in with some of theother things there said. i think you're absolutely rightthat today public debates take on this very highstakes nature to it.
some of which isabsolutely authentic that you're talkingabout fuel resources. people feeling like inthe case of pcc students, it's going to take manyyears to get through. i can't get classes, i can'tafford to keep doing it, you know, that kind ofpressure that they feel. but i think there'seven more than that. i think there was a feelingbecause of this high fear level of anxiety that we'vebeen talking
about where everything takes onultimate stakes, they kind of, you know, low level fires,every thing's an inferno and everything has to befought with all guns blazing. so how do we get someperspective on some of this? understanding there are someof the serious life and death or serious economic challenges,other things that are about people feelingdisrespected that had more to do with ego than actually, youknow, real life differences and people's ownfears to insecurity.
how do we address andget some perspective on things first of all? >> well, all i can say in that and certainly there'smore wisdom here that i think the function ofour leadership has to be to try and create a safeenvironment o-- i mean the people on my campus,the students are being injured and so i think it'sincumbent upon us to try and create an environment wherethat discussion can happen.
that also say just quicklythat part of civility and part of the answer to yourquestion, it has something to do with what i would call, youknow, generational generosity, that there's a sense that andcertainly our students feel, there's a sense of, "well,hey you guys got through and you guys got, youknow, public education and everything that'sgood and so on and now you're turningaround, the money's tight and we're getting hit.
that's a legiti-- i think >> part of this is legitimatebut let me push back on that because part of the other side of that id we have manymore people going to college than we ever had going tocollege and the percent of people going to college hasgrown more than the percentage of the total populationthat pay taxes. so part of it, i understandyou feeling as soon as they got there,that's what i mean,
the other is there'ssomething real that has changed significantlyin the intervening years. part of this i think islooking at the totality of it doesn't invalidatethe student's concerns or what it means tothem individually, but it's a more complicatedpicture than just they got theirswhy can i get my part. >> right. >> well, i think is, you know,for us it's certainly a debate
like one of the great debatesin our culture politically, public education, k-12,community colleges and so on is what is the natureof the public role? are we going to, youknow, are we going to-- does the pubic have a role--and so i certainly i think one of the keys to civility is torecall historically the notion of frank-linian's self interest. we're so polarized nowbetween the, you know, cut your taxes kind ofsocialism scales of the debate.
now when you really need to goback to our own history and look at benjamin franklin'sautobiography and his enlighten to self-interest isthat i have a book, ezat [phonetic] has got abook, we each have one book but if we put it into the middle and make a library wenow have two books. >> all right. >> and so. >> let's get some other folkshere into the mix on this.
anyway, i find itinteresting more people go into college than ever before. we have more college graduates. colleges are supposed to be theplace where we're challenged to think outsideof our own biases, move away from just what ourparents told us was reality, to analyze, to think,to process stuff and yet it seems despite all thesecollege graduates coming out, fundamentalist thinkingis often prevailing.
people falling into safeplaces thinking down the line, you meet someone after5 minutes, you know, exactly where they're goingto line up on all the issues and the individualthinking seems to have fallen by the way side. how have we gotten this pointwhen higher education is exposed to more people than ever before? >> if i can comment andthen i'd like to join mark. i think one of the reasonswe see every thing's kind
of getting out of hand isbecause of the resources. there's a limited resources andwe have to do more with less. now that brings us to the notionof taxation, are we willing to pay and educate ourcitizens and the workforce or are we rather justbasically say "no taxes" at the same time go andgo do it on your own. i think that's going to emergein the months to come and years to come in terms of what'sour willingness to invest in the future of the country.
>> and that certain-- i meanthis fits what you're talking about in your campusesand higher education, but this trend toward incivilitypredates the economic downturn. it predates these huge cuts thatyou had at your institutions. so clearly it's morethan just the fact of economic crisisand fewer resources. >> i think it's coincidentwith the internet, with increase travelwith the fact that as dr. chameau saidthings travel in an instant
and we are exposed todifference immediately now and again our ownidentity becomes threatened in that process and itunleashes a kind of a violence. and i believe very strongly thatconversation is the antidote. >> well, it's funny 'cause weridicule, you know, our parents and grandparents' generationsfor being emotionally locked up and not really letting out,having a feel about things. and so, all kinds ofthings that they do, the motivation is unclear
because we didn'treally know that. so now we live in thisera where we say we want to know how peoplefeel about things, not just what they think. but now it seems wedon't know how to deal with those emotions'cause they make us mad or they are condemnatory orthe emotion shut off debate. so it's part of thislearning how to be more open and deal with our feelings?
>> if we keep saying thosethings, it becomes more and more depressing, okay? [laughter] [inaudibleremark] i tend to be relativelystill optimistic and i have faithin young people-- >> and good food. >> and part of my-- thattoo, you know, and wine too. and i am and my colleaguesare in an environment where we do impact young people.
so given all those issue, ithink we should try as leaders to focus on what wecan do, you know. i don't wake up everymorning trying to solve the problemsin washington. i have limited influenceon that. and i'll give you an exampleof what i view is important, at least we try to do at caltechis to make young people realize that collaboration can be moreimportant than competition. it's important to competewith yourself to be the best
but to collaborate,i think that's where the success will be. try to help them to learnhow to live and interact in a social environment. coming back to the issues thatwe have at the family level, we have young people whocome out of great families but they have not learned howto live in a social environment. and we do things, we tryto help them do that. all those things we can doin not only the president
but people who arein leadership, in universities includingthe faculty. we have to show in ourbehavior that we are civil and we are setting an example. i always tell people,most important part of my job is to remain calm. only, you know, peopledon't come to my office with nice stories. when they come to myoffice, there is a problem.
[laughter] so, remainingcalm, listening to people, communicating in times oftrouble are the kinds of thing that we can do and i believeat each level and actually, all of the president orwhatever position you have in your community to tryto achieve those goals. over time you're havingfun, so i still believe in the [simultaneous talking]. >> well, and i think thatmakes absolute sense. the more people areable to work together
and see each otheras human, the better. i'm just going to say though,i think one of the problems is and i think so many of us inour workplace to see this, people i work with aregreat but most of them live in similar parts of town. their friends holdsimilar views. they vacation inthe same places. they read the same books. they read the sameonline publications,
they read the same blogs. it's its own cocoon andthey drive the same cars. and so-- [laughter] so, how doyou give, i mean if we are wired as humans beings to havein group and out group, that's just part ofour survival mechanism. and our in group is this tinylittle in group, then how, how do we feel safeenough to go outside of our cloistered environmentand to make a much bigger in group and people thatare outside bring them in.
>> i want-- i'll come tothat but i want to start out by taking mark's sideversus your hard questioning. and you were pushing him about so many peoplegraduating from college. it's a kind of anuninteresting statistic. of course, more people aregraduating from college. we live in an information-basedsociety and the jobs that the society producesneeds a level of education that didn't need tooccur 50 years ago.
what you missed saying, whichi think is much more germane that 40 years ago, theunited states had the highest percentage of adultswho are educated at colleges and universities. today, we're at thebottom of the second 10. as a matter of fact, we'rebeing outcompeted by nations around the world who areinvesting money in education. >> that's the highestpercentage of people, college graduateswe've ever had now.
>> that's right. >> that's not true. >> yes, it is true but it'salso very low internationally. what's happened isthat around the world, there has been an understanding that you need advancededucation in order to compete. so the fact that people aregoing more to colleges is because they can't get jobsto sustain their families and their lives as adultswithout that education.
>> but my point is ifyou're exposed to college, isn't college the placewhere you learn to take in outside things, not shutdown the [simultaneous talking]. >> not necessarily,don't-- don't. i would disagree with lornein terms of the wonderful, most formal educationalinstitution. >> college i went to, isure was exposed to that but you don't thinkthat's the case. >> i'm not going to askwhat you were exposed
to because i don'twant to embarrass you. [laughter] but i do want topoint out that as rich did, that colleges are not thisremarkable place of learning. the cultural wars whichhave been involved in all of these are very much aproduct of the universities in a positive sense,if you will. unlike jean-lou ihave been trained to see the optimisticview of everything, otherwise we wouldn't havethe jobs that we have.
but i do want topoint out that we need to have more college graduates or at least better,better learning folk. and i like jean-lou'snotion about learning rather than education because the jobsof tomorrow will demand that. and we don't have a learningculture in this society. as one of my colleaguesaid, i think it was lorne as we were talking about this,we have an entertainment culture and that's not alearning culture.
and so we are not-- we'refrankly getting outcompeted because we're not producingwhat we need to produce in our educational systemsto compete internationally. so that's and at the top, likemost of the institutions here, we're doing very well. but it's the mass base. so the fact that we havemore college graduates from my perspective is goodand we shouldn't close it off. so that leads to[simultaneous talking].
>> yeah, i'm sorry, i wasn'targuing fewer people should go to school. my point is if they are goingto school, civility is something that should come in the process and you're just sayingthat's just, that's not real. >> i would take learningover civility frankly, but that's my own, my own view. >> you can't have both? wait, wait.
there is-- yeah. >> we have both. >> it would be nice to haveboth but i really want to get at this issue of priorities. because if, to takemark's question, the society which i thoughtwas the right question. if the society has aresponsibility to ensure that most of our 18 to 30year olds have the opportunity for post-secondaryeducation, and i think they do,
i would argue that for thenature of a civil society, we need an educated public, thenwe need to educate the students and the studentsbecome the priority. >> but you're just saying that education doesn'tcorrelate with civility. >> i didn't thinkit necessarily does. >> so-- >> i said that the societyneeds educated people and that doesn't guaranteethey're going to be civil.
>> okay. but you had, i thought,introduced this issue in a way that somehow that we haveall these people in college and they're not civil. well, going to college doesn'tnecessarily make you civil. >> should it? >> well, that's a veryinteresting question that lots of different collegestalk about but frankly, most of us don'tdo much about it. so that--
>> so you're all here though. i mean is this something thatyou should commit to as part of the mission ofhigher education? >> it depends on,from my perspective and i was a collegepresident as you know, it depends on what the otheraspect of your mission is. and if i have to give achoice, if i have to choose between developing peopleskills intellectually and developing their criticalskills, i will lave civility
to other institutions. >> see, i'd say you can'tbe intellectually developed without civility, i would argue. i don't think it's possible. go ahead. >> may i interject for a second. i mean, one assumption youare making that every college and university in theunited states attempts to educate studentsbecome culture based
and understand theculture and therefore, respect other culturesand other groups. that's not the reality of it butthe exception of some schools, for instance, communitycolleges and others. most of the institutionsare operating very much in terms of dominant culture. i come from northeast and havingbeen here for about four months, i'm just amazed about thediversity of los angeles and the culture ofdifferent cities and towns.
this is the futureof america, you know. when you go to northeastand i came from a school that was 95 percent white andthey have no understanding of what's going onaround the country and imagine they don't getany education whatsoever when it comes to interculturalunderstanding and values, and then we expect thesestudents to graduate and go to the workplace andunderstand other cultures. so this is a fundamentalproblem in the higher education
that we haven't really discussedand we don't want to address. and i think at some pointit's going to come to head because with the exception ofsome schools and of course, the pacific oaks college andchildren's school happens to be a very diverseenvironment. you know, 98 percentwomen in terms of gender but when it comes to diversity,almost 38 percent latino, 10 percent african american,and we have the social justice and culture based education,
anti-biased educationis the fundamentals of the mission ofthe institution. and i can tell you, you know forthe 4 months i've spent here, it's one of the most civilenvironments i've ever been. we have people from all walk oflife, backgrounds and culture and they come to a classroom,and the way they learn because of course they are inthe real environment, you know. sometimes they have the fearsbut it's the top leaders and our faculty that make clearfrom the day 1 that they have
to respect one another andthat basically carry back to the communities. >> let me, so let meask you a question. if a student comes topacific oaks and says and during the course of talkingabout education, the population of public schools saying, i think illegal immigrationis a terrible thing and it has decimatedpublic schools. we need to send people back tomexico who are here illegally,
takes a hard line,a very, you know, hard line on illegalimmigration. at your school, is thatperson going to be turned on and shouted down or is theregoing to be a civil conversation after that person expressedwhere people really engaged on whether that's irrationalconstructive argument. >> very good question. in fact, when i first came,i visited almost like 10 or 12 classes and in every one
of them faculty createda very safe environment. anybody with any kind of point of view they canexpress themselves but in the pacific oakscollege that person will be able to hear the view of aperson that's an immigrant and he has been here in thiscountry and kind of trying to make a living andtherefore, they have a contact with that personright there and then, rather than statingsomething and then hearing it
through the newsor someone else. so it's that kind of interactionthat really makes it civil. but the role of the facultyis very important in this because they are managingthe classroom, you know, and they have to balancethis kind of point of views. unfortunately, this doesn'thappen in every academic city. and because the facultyjust not trained and they don't have theskills, if you will, and they don't have a--
and of course it's a veryfearful thing, you know, bringing up this kind ofdifference in the classroom. and if you're nottrained, you're going to be very much ina disadvantage. so we are really facingsome tough questions in higher education that wehave to address and of course, prepare the population for acountry that's becoming more and more diverse andyou cannot rule it back, you know 50 million now in thiscountry are latino population,
right? and-- >> you know, i'd liketo add that and maybe to steve's very civildisagreement with me about the quality and thepower of college education. i just want to tellmy experience and what i see happening withinart center college of design in which, you know, our studentsare wrestling with issues that are fundamentallytransforming
who they are as human beings. we have a program throughan ngo studies we have with united nationscalled the design matters in which our students are going to troubled cornersof the world. they are going tosantiago, chile. they are going to peru. they are going to kenya. they are workingwith communities not
from a privileged perch inpasadena but directly engaging with communities thathave issues and problems of a very deep nature. and it's the creativeimagination engaging with these communities thatis producing solutions to and real workable solutionsto what it is they're doing. and you watch these students,they travel there, they engage, they are-- have thesecommunities that are absolutelyfalling in love with them
with huge gratitudeand appreciation. and they come backtransformed as human beings. in my college education i neverhad an experience like that. and i will say thisabout the millennials, at least those art center. they may be looking for work but they are fundamentallylooking for meaningful work. many of them deeply care aboutwho they are in the culture, how they are contributingto that culture,
the difference they aremaking and it is education, education at art center anyway, that is giving them theopportunity to do that. to interact, to collaborateon teams, you have a graphic designerand you have a photographer and you have a film maker,and you have an advertiser, all coming together to reallywork from their various points of view to make somethinghappen and to make change, that is transforming them.
that is the beginning ithink of the conversation, of the discourse, thatwill allow for a society that maybe can reach thenext level of civility. >> it's great, that'svery impressive. let's talk about someterms because i think a lot of the language that weuse plays in to a kind of polarization andlack of civility. maybe you have your own,i certainly have my terms and i see them on-- throughoutthe political spectrum.
i mean, the whole idea thatyou know pro-life has come in to the lexicon, meaningthat if you're in favor of abortion rights,you're against life. pro or you know, pro-abortion,for example, mean-spirited, a term that we often here. the left uses it frequentlyabout people on the right as though they hate poor people and that's the only reasonwhy they would propose their particular political solutions.
even the term socialjustice, i would argue, is a polarizing term that shutsoff debate because it implies that if you'd only hold to the same solutionssomehow you don't believe in justice for people. and so i'd like to hearyour thoughts on this. is part of the language thatwe use cutting off the chance to dialogue? >> yeah, you know,i'm glad you used the,
refer to the term socialjustice and i absolutely think that the language thatwe're using is cutting off-- cutting us off from dialogue. social justice itself is almosta topic we don't even consider anymore, okay. the idea that anyone seriouswould go into the public arena that you know, publicspaces as you term and actually make an argumentfor social justice today. the community collegewas invented
as an american inventionof social justice. we were founded in 1924. jackie robinson isour alum, okay. harbison [phonetic],president harbison who was a quaker was the firstcollege president in the country to invite back ajapanese student from the internment camp. and so, it seems to methat one of the things that is contributing to thiskind of heated argument is that,
again, from the publicperspective is like well, social justice, well, weuse to be able to afford that but now we can't. so let's not talkabout it, okay. look, for example, okay,take the, you know, the healthcare debate, okay,which was so heated, you know, 3 years ago whenpresident obama and so on and created the teaparty and so on. is healthcare a humanright or not?
and it's like it's unthinkableto, you know, you're just going to have this argument overwhether basic rights-- >> but see, that'sa legitimate ar-- i think that's a very legitimateargument to have and much of the healthcare debateis really about that issue that doesn't get directed. >> what the academyis about is being able to provide an environmentwhere that debate can go on. what kind of societydo we want to have?
and of course, we're goingto disagree about it. but education in thiscountry was founded as a private institution. when lorne talks about iti'm very much aware of it. the-- i've seen those students. we have students frompcc who go to art center, transferred to art center,and have that experience. but you're talkingabout a few students. and what we've always been ableto do in this country is fight
for the opportunity thatevery single one of us gets to have that experience. and that's what we'reletting go off and i think that what's leading tosome of the incivilities. so one of things,you know, just to-- instead of just rantingmyself, you know, one of the things i really thinkthat we could do as presidents and i'm so grateful forthis opportunity, i mean, remember my collegepresidents had a voice
and they actually talked. [laughter] and they weren'tadministrators and they were, you know, they actuallywere leaders and they had a moral voiceand they had a social voice and they actuallytalked about, so on. now you're so afraid tosay anything, you know, and our discoursehas devolved so much. so you know, i reallydo think that it's-- we need to embark on a project.
we know what works,forming community, engaging relationships,and so on. but really, it's thefunction of leadership to create an environmentwhere that kind of dialogue can happen, so. anyone want to followup on that? no. let's talk aboutlistening because i mean, so stating the obvious tosay that civility goes part and parcel with notlistening to other people
or giving them weightor considering that. what can we societally, highereducation and outside of that do to encourage peopleto really listen, to be able to hear each other and to give each otherenough respect to be willing to without stacking thedeck honestly respond? >> yeah, if i may comment. i like to go back towhat richard shared about family andthe dinner table.
i think, as you know, the fabrics of the familyhas changed drastically in this century and ofcourse late 20th century. now having two-incomefamilies is very common. and they expect, you know, themedia to be the baby sitter and i have some statisticsto share with you. estimated number oftv homes, 150 million, average time kids spend watchingtv each day, about 4 hours, children spend moretime watching television
than in any otheractivity except sleep, 54 percent of the kidshave a tv in their bedroom, 44 percent of the kids say thatthey watch something different when they are alonethan with their parents. and this goes on and on andit was by the university of kansas the study was done. so we have basicallynow relinquished our responsibilities as parentsand they have become-- turning that over tothe tv and of course,
the shows that we know. and now a few statisticson that, 65 percent say that the shows likesimpsons and married with children encourage kidsto respect their parents. >> disrespect you mean? >> yeah. [laughter] >> 77 percent said there is toomuch-- the 66, children aged 6-- 10 to 16 surveyed say thattheir peers are influenced by tv shows.
so we have really become a kindof a nation of entertainment and as it was mentioned earlier,and if we don't do something about it, and of courseit all starts at home, right, with the parents. but at the same time,we have tied up-- hands of the parentsbecause most of them working, two parents workingor single parents. and so we have to create somesocial safety nets that they can at least take advantage ofbeing home on a certain time,
let's have that dinneraround the table and be able to have those kindof conversations. so those are the issues that ithink is to be discussed and i-- personally i don't think thereis an immediate solution to it but at least being awareof it will give us a chance to discuss it and have adialogue and discourse about. >> you know, andwhat you're saying about parents beingabsent 'cause part of that may be symptomas much as cause.
when parents are gone, kidsdon't necessarily feel they need to answer to anyone, right? i mean that's, you're kind oflike a free agent for many hours of the day and when-- iwonder if when we use to live in small towns, steven koblik asthe historian, i'd be curious. my sense is people felt theyhad to answer to the community in certain extent, i mean youdid something that was cruel or thought i mean it'snot just you as an island. has that changed how we behave alack of connection in that way?
>> we become more organized. so let's just startwith the facts, so yes small communities-- small communities can betough places to live too. but i don't want toromanticize depending on which small communitiesyou're talking about under what circumstances. but certainly the smallcommunities had capacity to do things if they wanted to.
most of them probably didn't butif you wanted to do something, you could have asmall community. i really do think thatwhat we're looking at is a fundamental change inour society that's been ongoing, it's not new, but i dothink the family which has, you know we have avery unique country in the sense of our diversity. it is-- there's no othercountry like it in the world, california, 60 percent of thecurrent adult population had
at least one of their parentsborn outside the united states. so we are diverse society, wealso have the kinds of demands that ezat was talking aboutin terms of two working people in the partnership that exists. and obviously thatputs enormous pressure on both how a family worksbut then how a society works. and i think we are in fora very long haul as we try to create new communities. we're-- we don'treally have a choice.
we're not going backto the past. we are going to createnew communities and i think you actuallyasked me the question about us living each inour own self constructive-- >> yeah. >> -- cocoon. i didn't forget that. i just wanted to needleyou on the other topic. [laughter] but the fact
of the matter is wehave too many choices. i mean that's what'sreally happened. we have way too many choices,no society ever created has had as many choices as contemporarysocieties particularly in the western democracy. it's not-- >> in what regard? >> to almost anythingbecause what's happened is that the new revolutions
in technology have givenus unbelievable choices. well, just a regard of you sending your studentsoverseas, that's a choice. okay, we couldn'tdo that before. so the fact of the matter isthat we have enormous amount of choices and franklychoices stokes fear because we're not really capableof making all these choices. i heard a presentation 2weeks ago in philadelphia about where there's goingto be a new form of medicine
where doctors are nolonger treating us, they're consulting with us. and frankly that means i'mgoing to be my own doctor, i find that terrifying[laughter] and i don't want to be my own doctor, i wantsomeone to tell me what's wrong with me and tell mewhat i should do. and i think that is generatingan extraordinary amount of fear. and given the amount of choicewe have in terms of information, yes we tend to form communitiesalmost like families did before
where we share thesame basic information. because as we know, when we tryto have dialogue with people who aren't in our communities, we discover they have verydifferent meanings for the words and i think that you pointedout one when you start talking about social justice,of course we all think of ourselves as justhuman beings. so when those terminologiesare used, they're keywords and obviously the decisionyesterday by the president
to actually raise this issue ofmarriage to a national level, we are going to have alot of conversations now in the selection campaign aboutwhat marriage is and is not. >> yeah, and what rightsmean and how rate-- rights affect different groups. also, i want to ask you, i mean,my sense is, and the rest way over simplification, but earlierin america, speaking of choice, there were pretty clearlydefined roles that people had. and so you had the answerwhether you're an outsider,
misfit, you couldn't conformto that role or you did conform to it and you knew you wereon the inside and approved of. now there really isn't somethingto conform to in that way, so do you think that we as humanbeings, there's a disconnect to sort of how we want that,certainly want to be told what to do, we at certain level wanteverything to be prescribed and we live in this worldwhere that's impossible. is that how you see it? dr. koblik?
>> i don't. >> no, you don't? jean-lou chameau? >> i'd like to--i again focusing on young people inthe [inaudible]. i had experienced that incaltech with really small number of students but they arealso higher in my life. i worked at very largepublic universities and i think young people don'twant to fit at all, they want--
they are in fact--they are very-- they want to be theirown person, they want to be challenged,you know, we talk a lot about problems but you--again, i want to come back, we are in position and we cando something about those things. those young peoplewant to be challenged, they want to do the kind ofthings that you described. they want to work on the-- you know, in our case on theresearch programs that's got--
that excite them that theybelieve it could be [inaudible] for medicine or what. and if we do those things,and if you by the way, if you keep them busy, they intend to forget a bitthe activities and all that and sing to themselves and-- >> your students haveno time for that. >> and then okay, i think it--as-- i think it's typical. they're always talkingabout the past doesn't have,
the past is the past. the fact is now wehave young people who are learningin different ways. they are multiprocessing, theyare doing parallel processing. i'm not always sure that theyactually process everything they are trying to process,but that's the way it is. and we need to dealwith it and-- so i'm-- i don't agree with you. >> so you don't thinkthey have the anxiety
that older people do. you think they're adaptingto the new world very well? >> i think we should getunder the [inaudible] and i'm sure they have anxietiesand they do have anxieties. but they are there--they are handling. most of them are handlingthem and they want to handle them their way and likely it [inaudible]be your way or my ways. >> do you think they'llbe more civil
if in fact they're betteradapted for this world? >> okay, no and that's-- i haveagreed so far with 95 percent of what my good friend heresaid, with one exception. he said the one when-- whenthe stick [inaudible] was made about, you know, if i hadthe choice between learning and civility, i willchoose learning. i think it is anotherchoice, i think you know in a university [inaudible],you expect to have both, and i do expect thatthe young people coming
out of those institutions aregoing to be great learners but at the same time willhave learned the skills which will enable themto be civil not only in their local environment but wherever theywill be in the future. >> all right, let me tormenteach of you at this point by asking each of you just ina minute, i mean really keep it to a minute, if you weremaster of the universe and you could somehow-- not justmaster of your institutions.
if you could change the way wecommunicate with each other, what would you doinstitutionally modeling other ways to make a morecivil country? i'll begin with you, dr. rocha. >> thanks larry. well, you know, thatfirsthand is have them listen to your show more often. [laughter] you know i had this,and i have to confess that, you know, in a guiltypleasure, you know,
the buttons on my radioand i have a car so old that i still have buttons on it. so, you know, i'vegot kpcc, of course. but then sometimes you'rekind of like too civil and then i go right overto talk radio [laughter] if you'd want tohear some arguing. well, you know, what can i do? first thing that i would do is-- i agree with dr. mouwthat to make progress
on civility requiresa great deal of humility especially those whoare privileged to be leaders. and so we really do have tolower ourselves and be quiet and listening, you know. and so those are justkind of personal ethics. the larger thing is thati do think i'd asked and our faculty areworking on it. i asked our faculty to work on building what we calllearning communities
and what is it that they thinkour students should know. we're concerned, for example-- i mean, it really is hard if yougo through a college education, you learn somethingabout art and literature. so those are couple of things. >> all right, very good. dr. parnia. >> yes. i would requireeverybody to attend pacific oakscollege and children's school.
>> and your enrollmentis growing, right? so you could take one. >> and, you know, iwill enroll everyone and i will invite dr. chameau tojoin us in one of our pot lots because we don't have amarriott serving our students. our students bring their ownfood at around 5:30 quarter to 6 and they have a nice mealand then they go to class. but kidding aside, i thinkwe'll start with washington, dc. i really think that leaders playvery important role in terms
of set the agenda for the restus in terms of how we behave and as long as thiskind of situation is in washington developing,you know, that everyday we seethey're fighting one another and disrespect that theyextend to one another and it's just giving abad impression, you know, to the rest of us andespecially to the kids because i think really we serveas role models, as parents, as leaders, and of course, theyalways look up to politicians
from the presidentto congressmen and senators and all that. so in fact i have a8-year-old daughter and she came to home one day and shetold me about learning about the presidents and sheknow about george washington and she knows aboutlincoln and president obama. and i'm sure when somebodyinsult president obama, for a 8-year-old that really hasa complete different connotation than anything else.
so-- and it's not just presidentobama, i'm talking about any because when youinsult the president, you're insulting the presidencyand that carries a lot a of weight in this country. so this is not aboutindividuals and we have to understand that, you know. when you insult the office, you are basically sending avery wrong message to the rest of us and that's not right.
>> all right, dr.koblik. >> you know, i triedto explain to my staff that they shouldn't insultthe president but that-- [laughter] [inaudible]. but i'd rather answerthis on a personal level and that is i think we'vealready heard from rich and from actuallyeveryone on the panel. you-- as an individualyou can model yourself and you can be patientand you can be calm
and you can becomea good listener. i've always-- i'm a verypolitical animal all my life and it's become apparent thatwe need to have discourse and so i've taken a lot of timein the last few years to try to structure discourse whetherit's with someone i'm standing in line to buy something with orwhether i'm in the parking lot and i've, you know,gotten angry so forth. to just structurediscourse and to try to have conversationsparticularly with people
who are coming from differentplaces because i think in doing that, we have toreconstruct our community. you may have heard ormay have been announced, we have new director of the smithsonianamerican history institute. i'm not sure that theyannounced that yet. >> they have. in fact john was on myshow yesterday morning. >> there you go.
so john gray is the newhead and we had talked about this duringthis search process. and i say the problem iswe've lost an integrated story of the community. we don't have a historyof the united states. so we're going tohave to recreate it. i think that's a good project. and i know a lot of voiceswill be involved in it. >> all right, verygood dr. koblik.
dr chameau? >> since i knew that myplan would seem profound, i have somethingreally practical. [laughter] i would-- andyou said there is no limit. i am in charge. >> you are in charge, right. >> i would have everygraduate of every university and the high school, highschools that they don't graduate from a university to spend ayear traveling in a country
and on other world one yearbefore they enter the workforce and learn about othercommunities and learn to be civil. that's one thing. the other thing i woulddo, it would be to-- going back to something that steve said earlier is we[inaudible], i would reinstate to the [inaudible] asbeing something legal. [laughter] becauseit would-- it does--
it did served a very goodpurpose when people like-- since steven, you werecritically disagreeing, we will not get along,you would solve it. you would go outside of,you know, the [inaudible]. you'll take of it, so. >> but he'd havea huge advantage with any historic weaponso i'd be out of luck. >> dr. buchman? >> well, master theuniverse and ensuring
that we address this issue. i would say we make sure that wehonor the creative imagination. let's make sure that we fightthis very distasteful way of banning art andcreativity from our schools. art and creativity gives away for people to express, to find ways of enteringinto dialogue, to developing compassion tobeing able to lead themselves in a way that is responsible and honors again theimagination in human expression.
you know, in thinkingabout today, for some reason i went back to agreat artistic event in history of western culture which wasa play written by aeschylus and was performed-- it'scalled the persians. and what was extraordinaryabout that play is that the collectivecame together, the whole culture cametogether and that play was about the persian war,the greco-persian war, but it was from the perspectiveof the persian community.
it was from the perspective ofthose that were destroyed in war by the greeks toa greek audience. that artist, that playwright,that aeschylus wrote in a way that allowed for compassion tosurface, for a community to stop for a moment with their ownparticular biased point of view and understand thatin every act, there is another humanbeing on the other side that we can hearit, that we listen. and that if freud is right
that fundamentally weare just pleasure seeking and ultimately violent and civilization is what keepsus going, then art becomes a way for us to develop compassion,to build it and to understand that we can structure thingsin a way that allows us to understand that an otherhas a different point of view and give difference a dignity. >> wow. >> we have just a littlebit more of the program.
but i want to encourage you tostay afterwards 'cause instead of doing formal questionsand answers, we're sticking around a little bit afterwardsif you want to talk with any of the panelists, sharesome of your ideas or ask them questions, pleasefeel free to do that afterwards. we conclude dr. mouw,coming back up to respond to what he's heard inresponse to his keynote. dr. mouw? >> thank you.
[applause] >> well, i-- i won't take long. but i want to say this. it's been a wonderful discussionand i've learned a lot from my presidentialcolleagues here today and mary and i were commenting on thepassionate body language here and i want to say i think thisis very encouraging for the kind of leadership thatwe need from people in higher education,so thank you.
steve, i stand correctedon a lot of the historicaldata that you read. but it was interestingthat he talked about ronald reaganand tip o'neill. he was looking-- therehave been this one. you know, i'm a calvinist. i'm not saying things aregetting better or worse, we've always beensinners and all the rest. but there had beenmoments in the past.
and i think of lincoln, forexample, and how after the war between the states when he couldhave boasted over great victory and instead callpeople to forgive, call people to cultivatea spirit of humility, that's the kind ofleadership in public life that promotes civility thati think we sadly miss today. and i think the-- you know,the big question, in what kind of society-- it was--mark raised this. what kind of societydo we want to promote?
what kind of peoplethat we want to be? and i still think that--and everyone of your-- most of your schools, if youthink pasadena city college. if that arrogant young manwho listens to rush limbaugh and just says "whydon't they just go back where they came from?" could meet the sophomoreat pasadena city college who was brought over the boarderat two months old by parents who did not have theproper credentials.
and basically never beenbacked and this is her culture and all she wants to dois to teach in the school, the kind of school thatwhere she had teachers who encouraged heralong the way. and to be able to lookher in the eye and say, "why don't you go backwhere you came from?" that's preciselylacking what lorne talked about those wonderful terms,compassion, empathy, you know, having that "in" feeling,being able to imagine what it's
like to be her and then whatit's like to have somebody say to you "go, backwhere you came from." and, the cruelty of that,the insensitivity of that so that the immigrationdebate really has to-- had to be real peopletalking to each other. and i think we do have anobligation as educators to promote that kind of, youknow, that kind of dialog, that kind of-- andso we really need to ask how we'regoing to do that.
i think one of the great oneand lorne really raised this, but one of the great obstaclesthese days is the highly specialized nature of academicresearch and academic study. and i'm not going to complain about that i think we'velearned a lot from that. but for many of us in ouryounger years we were inspired by people who had a bigvision, teachers who-- and these days withspecialization, we often don't havethat and i think
as presidents wehave an obligation to find ways to do that. it may not be in the classroom. it may be in othersorts of ways. but we're talking aboutcampus communities and not just classrooms. and i think we cando-- we can do a lot. and the humility reallylistening, the empathy. i was raised in new jersey andas a little kid i was a brook--
an avid brooklyn dodgers fan. i've never actually forgiventhem for moving out here. but-- and i was sucha brooklyn dodgers fan that when jackie robinson came on the scene i wantedhim to succeed. and i can remember as a kid in a basically racist subculturereally ex-- really want-- really feeling sorry for jackierobinson, really rejoicing when he stole home base in aworld series game, i mean--
and to me that was oneof my first lessons in racism, in countering racism. and it wasn't justlistening to speeches and it wasn't reading books, butit was the experience of trying to put myself insomebody else's shoes and it was a wonderfulopportunity to be able to do that in terms ofbeing a baseball fan. but, we can create opportunitieslike that where we-- where we really listento each other.
and, so i want tosay i think this is-- this is a wonderfulconversation. i'm encouraged some ofmy heroes as presidents, probably ted hesburgh and clarkkerr and people like that. i think we need to read theirstories and learn more from them and i'm very encouragedabout what i hear. and i'm going to say "let'shave a meal together sometime." thanks. >> before we conclude againjust feel free stay to talk
with members of the panelwhoever-- who able to stay. and let me say to allof you that i am-- i just am very honored. the things that you said,speaking from the heart, the passion you feel foreducation, for our society, for the culture whetherit's art, science, history, teaching education, whetherit's a full scope of curricula that you see at pcc youclearly love what you do, you love your studentsand you really want
to see them make a difference. what is better than that? i thank you and we are solucky in this community to have you all, yourreal local treasures. thank you so much. [ inaudible discussion ]
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