This is our first.

Yes yes

yes yes yes yes.

So thanks very much Dan and
thanks to all of you for

coming in this morning and in fact before
you start the three minute egg timer on

my talk I do want to say a word of thanks
and appreciation for this sort of event.

I guess is exactly the kind of thing we
need to be doing more in Georgia Tech and

I think in the area of needs improvement

at the institute as we look
at our strategic planning.

This ought to be on the West.

I'm very mindful that one of
them is other activities.

I think big program had
one room set aside with

my colleague Richard back to think about
talk about the staff's current events and

it was willfully under subscribed.

And it's not because of it back.

I think it's because there
was some now I know but

I think there was just it's
not enough part of the culture

at this university to talk about events
and to talk about them seriously and

a kind of informal semi-structured fashion
so I'm hoping that that this series.

Can be an important part of developing

that conversation with in Georgia Tech and
involve.

Students faculty people
on the staff people in

the ministration I think we can have
a more robust conversation as we move on.

Well as Dana mentioned the time at.

I taught this morning it was
I teach because you vote.

Now I realize that sounds a little bit
snarky maybe arrogant and I confess but

a sense of it felt very heartfelt
because when I was going to graduate.

I couldn't vote.

At least for
most of my undergraduate career.

You had to be twenty one of the time.

And I missed one of the more important
elections in American history in one nine

hundred sixty eight because I was
a year or so short at that point.

But when I began teaching in especially
teaching at this institution I realized

that my students could vote because the
reading age of been lowered to eighteen.

And I think that's very important and
that makes marriage.

As a as a profession especially as a
professor of history especially important.

It's especially important in
a place like Georgia Tech.

Where science and engineering are so
dominant in the curriculum and

again I think in the broader culture and
I one time ten one of my

classes said I teach because you vote and
I want to explain what I meant by that.

And when I still mean by it.

Today my job is not to tell anybody how
to vote much less whom to vote for.

I've EVER this morning
had a lot of trouble.

Some of the people I voted for and I hold
my nose in a couple places a couple times.

That's not the point.

I think that it's part of the measure of
the issue of becoming an informed citizen.

And I realize as a historian
the kinds of issues I do live with

are not the kind that have a standard for
me.

There's no proof.

There's no right or
wrong answer necessarily.

But a lot of ambiguity is a lot of
complexities and issues in the past and

of course in issues in the present.

I ask questions that I
provided we write a database

of an independence promise of liberty and.

Tain slavery for another generation.

How did they make up the balance
between states' rights and

the power of the central government.

And why did that go so terribly wrong and
eight hundred sixty one.

How did they have to do in dealing
with the Great Depression.

Why were we in Viet Nam.

Now there's a question Is it
bad have a single answer.

They have lots of answers.

And people have lots of
approaches to answering

those questions lots of opinions.

And I will be very clear I'm not
going to argue that answers and

opinions are equally valid.

Not that bad.

Same answers are better in fact.

They have to based upon evidence or
based upon research they're based

upon static they're based upon fads and
yet I think

there's of us who live in the present
tense and from that approach to the past.

We don't ask necessarily today

about slavery might we might ask her about
gay rights equal rights for gay people.

We don't necessarily ask about

states' rights we might ask how do we
understand the Tea Party movement.

We don't ask necessarily how
after that is dealing with

the depression we ask how
the current administration

is dealing with whatever we call
it this these days recession.

And finally we got past five years now and
back.

Why Afghanistan.

And I want to be very clear again about
one thing I don't suggest by any means

that the study the past and
give us answers about the present.

I've never believed that about learning
the lessons of history or that somehow

history can tell you but we should be
doing in the present much less a future.

But I do think and I think very strongly
and this is where it applies to my.

My teaching my right here in Georgia Tech.

Is that labor for students and labor for
each other a lot of these ambiguities

a lot of these complexities and we can
wait for the answers we might at work

today or says we disagree about and yet
we're still part of that conversation.

And I think especially for
students because specially for

students who are getting an education.

It's not just to get a job not
just to get develop a career.

I think the really important part of
your education and anybody's education.

Is to become what I call
a sophisticated citizen.

Part of an informed electorate.

Is that your life is not going to
spend simply on the job or in a job.

It's not to be devoted simply your
particular calling your profession.

You're going to be a person
in society at least so

we hope you're going to be playing
a matter to us when the one you do as

a profession is only one of my particular
where my particular profession.

Yes Is being a college professor and so
yes I teach because you vote I teach

because I want students to be able think
about the issues that are in front of us.

The issues were interesting or
led to the fishes to deal with.

And my point again is that
students think about those

issues they do the hard work
of doing the research and

embracing some of those complexities
some of those ambiguity.

And you come up with I hope an answer or
a set of answers.

Maybe not many answers maybe not with
your box answers but a set of answers.

I teach because you fail and yet
I teach because I realize all of

us faculty students administration
staff alike still have a lot to learn.

I think that notion of still having
a lot to learn is fundamentally what

I do believe.

So thank you very much.

And now.

That I think the magic question is how
we can do this better at Georgia Tech.

I'm sure they're doing a fine job
at Emory or maybe they are but

I don't teach there and I think that.

You know how we can begin to embed some of
these conversations into the culture here

because it's a matter of I have to have to
be honest there's a lot of academics a lot

of classes that really lend themselves
to these kinds of conversations.

You know I don't have strong
opinions about what's right and

wrong in Calculus two I never took it.

And I think that a lot of
what we do in science and

engineering is trying to get an answer.

You know an answer that works
a bridge that stands up.

And yet I think the the few and

proud of us who deal with
other kinds of questions here.

Really have to kind of be the ones
to promote that conversation and

yet it's not only in history and

political science classes in public policy
classes international affairs classes that

we address these issues I
think it really has to be.

There has to be some kind
of formal set of forms

on the campus where these
kinds of things get discussed.

I'd like to see a more just
robust conversation about stuff

issues at Georgia Tech.

And we're not there yet.

We're not there yet.

We need to get there because
that's what universities do.

So there's my question.