There needs to be a light shun on the fact that in this university and this department, you're not allowed to deviate from department norms. Berkeley Math Lecture, Dr. Alexander Coward, stood up controversy on campus when he released a letter to the public voicing opposition to the Math Department's termination of his contract. I was the first person to be hired as a lecturer in an international search and I was very excited to try and bring some of the ideas that we know about education to bear at Berkeley. Unfortunately, unfortunately, that there are a lot of problems. Coward believes that the Math Department's focus should be as much about educating students as it is about conducting research. There's a very strong argument to get people who've got a very strong background in teaching, who know what they're doing, who are going and if you're a lecturer, you're going to teach a lot more students for a lot less money. And people find that very threatening because they're worried that the people who are who's focused on teaching are going to take over. And there's going to be this very rapid increase in the number of people who are focused on teaching and then the number of people who are who are focused on research, research, faculty is going to shrink. Education is the thing upon which our success or failure as a planet relies. Now, we've got all of these problems. Where are the solutions to these problems going to come from? And they're going to come from your generation, which is the Melanians. But if you don't get an education, that potential is not going to be enough. Not just for the reason that it's essential for our future as a society, it's a planet that you get an education. There's also basically on the moral case that if your tuition fees are going up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up, what the Catholic Council's tuition coming from the student fees. Then the quality of your education should go up and up and up and up. Now, it's impossible for the quality of your education to increase if you're not allowed to deviate from department norms. His post highlighted problems he saw in the department's approach to undergraduate education. The post was met with widespread student support on social media, even spurring a student organized protest. Professor Howard really does care about every single one of his students. He gave out his personal phone number to all 800 of the kids in his lecture right now with the invitation that if any of them have any problems with like math problems or just like having struggles with life, that we can reach out to them and call them and he'll help us out. I have personally utilized his phone number and called and asked for help with math problems. When I really felt like I was struggling or couldn't learn the material and not only did he help me out with the math problems that I was struggling on, he actually went on then to encourage me to not be upset by the fact that I wasn't really understanding it or felt that I wasn't really keeping up with the class. It really shocked me that he would care about his students that much because I wasn't expecting that at a school this large. He's really such a great man. No other professor that I ever had has ever just called me to check up and say, hey, how are you doing? That's something that's very special and inspiring about this man. He even offered to help me personally, one-on-one to get caught up with all the stuff I missed throughout the last week. So I just wanted to say thank you to him for that and just to test the type of person he is. You know, like any person, I'm not a perfect teacher and I'm not a perfect human being and I think things of things that I've done in my teaching certainly that are not optimal. And things that I'm working on and that's not the point. It's not the point that the question of how good of a teacher is now he's under care and should he stay or should he not stay? Is it distracting question? The main issue is that there needs to be a very bright light shone into what the Mathematics Department is doing and has done in regards of teaching, particularly these very large classes with prepared people for other majors. People say that sunlight is the best disinfectant and I think that's true.