"I realize that most students are not here because they want to take a science class, so I want them to see that what we're talking about in class is absolutely relevant to their everyday lives, whether or not they think of those things as science, per se. Whatever's on the news, we'll be talking about it in class. Somewhere, over 4 million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan. They're not getting food; they're not getting water supplies that are safe to drink. That starts a lot of political unrest, and that's all related to the environment. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico absolutely has relevance in terms of seafood supplies, economic impact to the United States, etc. Hopefully we can tie all of those in and see why they should care about those things."
"I think one of the big problems, especially in the media these days, is that they put scientists in an ivory tower, and you don't get much communication from them, even though what they're doing is incredibly important to society as a whole. But if they don't tell people about it, and there's no way of knowing what they're doing and why they're doing it, people can get the wrong impression. I want to break down some of these walls."
"Even though you're getting a music degree, having a college degree means that you've been exposed to a whole range of different things, not just an isolated, focused study. You're still a citizen of the world. I think that's where the Liberal Arts Department comes in here at Berklee."
