耶鲁校长2019年开学演讲：勇敢走出舒适与安全区，一切伟大的发现，都是基于提出问题
当地时间8月24日，耶鲁大学新生在戊西礼堂(Woolsey Hall)参加了耶鲁大学开学典礼。校长苏必德（Peter Salovey）发表了讲话。他在演讲中不断强调耶鲁大学的“好奇文化”，认为“一切伟大的发现，都是基于提出问题。” 世界有太多的未知，我们必须敢于承认自己的困惑和迷茫，并且勇于提出问题，寻找答案。
耶鲁大学，是美国最古老的大学之一，处处散发着浓厚的人文历史气息，美国著名常青藤院校，其本科学院与哈佛大学、普林斯顿大学本科生院齐名，历年来共同角逐美国大学本科生院美国前三名的位置。
Good morning! To all Eli Whitney students, transfer students, visiting international students, and first-year Yale College students: Welcome to Yale! On behalf of my colleagues here on stage, I extend a warm greeting to the families here today and thank you for joining us. Please enjoy these first moments of your loved one’s college career.
Usually in an opening address, university presidents tell undergraduates that they are amazing individuals, selected from among the most talented high school students in the world today. That is, of course, true, but it is not the point I want to make. Instead, I want to encourage you to approach college unimpressed by how impressive you are; have more questions than answers; admit to being puzzled or confused; be willing to say, “I don’t know…but I want to find out.” And, most important, have the courage to say, “Perhaps I am wrong, and others are right.”
That is how you will learn the most from your teachers and classmates. And that is why we have all come to this place. We are here to ask questions—questions about one another and about the world around us. We are at Yale to nurture a culture of curiosity.
This summer I read a story about Isidor Isaac Rabi, one of this country’s most extraordinary scientists. He remembered an important question his mother asked him. Brought to this country as an infant, Rabi conducted research into particle beams that led to the development of the MRI and many other scientific advances. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944.
Rabi’s parents ran a small grocery store in Brooklyn. His mother had no formal education. The other moms, he remembered, asked their children every afternoon if they had learned anything in school. “Not my mother,” he recalled. “She always asked me a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question today?’” He believed her reminder to ask good questions helped set him on a path to becoming a distinguished scientist.
So, to all the families here today, when you call your Yale students—when you ask them about their classes and their roommates and the food—remember also to ask about their questions.
Imagine all the great discoveries that have come from asking a question—from Newton’s theory of gravity to the astonishing breakthroughs in quantum science—some of which are happening at Yale. When a musician experiments with a new melody, or a sociologist observes a social interaction, they ask “why” and “what would happen if…?” Their curiosity lights up our world and points us in new directions. Self-discoveries come from asking questions, too. What do you learn when you ask yourself, “Why do I believe that?” or “Why did I do that?”
I think of these lines from the poet Billy Collins: “the trouble with poetry is / that it encourages the writing of more poetry.”
I would say the same of asking questions. One leads to another, which opens doors to still another. Sometimes our questions lead us to a dead-end. We realize the question we asked wasn’t quite right, and a door closes. But along the way we have learned something. Perhaps in the future we will ask better questions.
In a well-known scene in the movie The Pink Panther, Inspector Clouseau checks into a hotel in Germany. He sees a dachshund in the lobby and asks the hotel owner, “Does your dog bite?” The owner replies, “No.” When Clouseau goes to pet the dog, it bites his hand—hard! Shocked, he tells the hotel owner, “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” The owner responds, “That is not my dog.” Clouseau simply hadn't asked the right question.
Years ago, I co-taught an undergraduate seminar. One of the questions on the application to the course was, “What is the most important thing you’ve changed your mind about?” We were surprised that quite a few students had not changed their minds about anything at all! We decided to accept to the class only students who had changed their minds about something important.
So, be willing to change your mind. Ask questions and embrace Yale’s culture of curiosity. Be open to different viewpoints and experiences, and see them as opportunities to learn—even if sometimes you get your hand bit.
I am a social psychologist. As a graduate student at Yale, my curiosity was sparked by the study of emotions, and by a question my undergraduate advisor first asked me: “Peter, why do you think humans even have emotions? What do they do for us?” One of my major areas of research almost ever since then has been emotional intelligence.
In our earliest work, we described emotional intelligence as a set of skills that one could learn that would help a person extract the information—the “data”—contained in emotions, either one’s own or those of another person. After a few years of research, it was obvious to me and my collaborators that we weren’t asking exactly the right questions. We needed to be able to show that emotional intelligence predicted outcomes in life—the ability to form friendships, succeed in school, work as part of a team, and the like.
Trouble was, how do you measure the skills of emotional intelligence? We asked ourselves a series of questions starting with, “How are personal characteristics typically measured by psychologists? The answer is by asking people to rate themselves—what are called “self-reports.” But this led to approaches that disappointed us: How would someone know if they were the kind of person who was especially good at identifying, understanding, managing, and using emotions? Perhaps thinking you had spectacular emotional intelligence was a sign of not having much of it at all!
That door closed, and so we asked ourselves another question: If we wanted to know if someone possessed the skills of a great baseball player—hitting, throwing, and catching a ball; running bases effectively—how confident would we be of self-report? Not very: All ball players think they are the next A-Rod! As a child, I thought I would be the next Carl Yastrzemski when playing in the backyard with my brother, but, in fact, I barely got out of Little League with my pride intact.
Why would emotional intelligence be any different than baseball? If we wanted to know whether someone had high E.I., we needed to assess these skills as abilities. And what would an ability measure of emotional intelligence look like? Asking ourselves these questions led to an answer that made sense, and our ability-based measure of emotional intelligence has now been used in hundreds of studies. Knowing we didn’t have all the answers and taking an inquisitive, curious attitude allowed us the opportunity to create something new.
So, what questions will you ask? What will spark your curiosity?
Not long ago, I received an email from a very proud Yale College parent. He told me about his son, who heard seventy-seven different speakers during his first year at Yale. Seventy-seven! He had learned from thinkers and leaders across the political spectrum and attended events organized by a wide range of campus organizations. What a way to spend your first year! Could you do this and not change your mind about something important?
And it turns out this student is also very good at asking questions: in the past year, he has interviewed dozens of people—scholars and activists, journalists and entrepreneurs from many different sectors. Like so many students, faculty, and staff, he is nurturing a culture of curiosity at Yale.
Indeed, the Yalies who have come before you have asked a dazzling array of questions. I think of the pioneers of coeducation. Fifty years ago, in 1969, 588 women came to study in Yale College. They entered what had long been an all-male institution, and they asked questions that hadn’t been asked before. We will commemorate this milestone—along with the 150th anniversary of women enrolling at Yale in the School of Art—throughout this year.
I think of Margaret Warner, Class of 1971. An award-winning journalist, she knows how to ask brilliant questions. She has reported from warzones for decades, witnessing history firsthand and trying to understand our world.
I think, too, of Alice Young, Class of 1971. She looked around this campus and asked why there weren’t more students from public schools, so she became an ambassador for Yale back in her home state of Hawaii. She was also one of the founders of the Asian American Students Alliance, which also celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
And we remember other important anniversaries and the curious students who were part of these changes. In 1969, thanks to student efforts, the Afro-American Cultural Center, known as “the House,” opened, and what is now the Department of African American Studies was created. And that same year, students established the Yale chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, also known as MEChA. I believe we owe a debt of gratitude to all the courageous pioneers, throughout our history, who have made Yale what it is today.
What questions will you ask? And how will your questions transform Yale and improve our world?
Your time at Yale is an unparalleled opportunity to engage with a wide range of people, ideas, and experiences. More than at any other point in your life, you will have the means and the opportunity to hear from—and converse with—world-renowned experts in many fields. You will have the chance to create knowledge through rigorous research, and attend arts, literary, and athletics events that challenge and inspire you. You will spend time with peers whose lives have been wildly different from your own.
What if you nurtured your own curiosity by pushing yourself beyond the familiar and the comfortable? What would that look like?
It might mean attending a talk on a topic you don’t know much about or by someone who doesn’t share your beliefs. Or conducting research in a Yale laboratory or collaborating on an exhibit at one of our amazing museums. Or perhaps your curiosity will be sparked having coffee with a classmate who comes from a different part of the world or a different place on the political spectrum.
And when you do these things, when you take advantage of the opportunities Yale makes possible, what questions will you ask?
There is so much we do not know. Let us embrace, together, our humility—our willingness to admit what we have yet to discover. After all, if you knew all the answers, you would not need Yale. And if humanity knew all the answers, the world would not need Yale.
So, what questions will you ask today? Tomorrow? The next day? And in the days, months, and years after I have shaken your hand at Commencement, let me know what questions you’ve asked that have changed your life.
Good luck, Class of 2023!
早上好！向所有Eli Whitney项目的学生，所有的交换生，国际访问学生以及我们新一届的耶鲁新生致敬，欢迎你们来到耶鲁！
在这里，我谨代表学校里的同事，对今天来参加活动的家庭致以诚挚的问候。请诸位尽情享受与家人共度大学第一段生涯的美好时光。
通常来说，在开学演讲中，校长都会告诉学生：你们是从世界上万千的精英高中生里选拔出来的，都是能独挡一面的个体。
当然，这是事实，不过这并非我今天想要表达的观点。
相比之下，我更鼓励你们：
不要因为自己的独特而怡然自得；
学生们应当多接触我们的校园；
相比答案，能更多地提出自己的问题；
能承认自己处于迷茫或困惑的状态；
愿意表达：“虽然我不太了解... ... 但我会去寻找答案。”
并且，最重要的是，我们的学生要勇于承认：“或许我错了，或许其他人的观点是正确的。”
这是新生们从老师与同学处最能学到的东西。并且，这也是我们聚集于此的原因。我们来耶鲁是为了提出问题，提出关于彼此；关于我们所处世界的问题。
在耶鲁，我们着重对好奇文化的培养。
在刚刚度过的夏天里，我阅读了一个有关于伊西多·艾萨克·拉比（Isidor Isaac Rabi）的故事。
作为一个婴儿，拉比于1898年诞生在美国。在这之后，他开始注重对粒子束的研究，他的相关研究让MRI（核磁共振）以及诸多学科获得了提升。1944年，拉比还因为自身的成就获得了诺贝尔物理学奖。
拉比的父母在布鲁克林经营着一家小杂货店。他的母亲没有受过正规教育。不过，拉比记得母亲曾问过他一个重要的问题，正是这个问题，成就了自己璀璨的人生。
拉比是美国最杰出的科学家之一，他也是核磁共振仪的发明者。
普通的家长，每天下午都会向孩子提问：“你今天在学校里学到了什么？”拉比表示，自己的母亲与其他家长不同。“她只会问我一件事：你今天有提出一个优质的问题么？”
拉比认为，正是母亲的这一举动，让他养成了不断提出优秀问题的习惯，为迈向杰出科学家的道路埋下了伏笔。
所以，我建议在场的所有家长，当你们给孩子打电话的时候，在关注他们的同学、室友与就餐情况之外，请记得问问孩子，看他们近期提出过怎样的问题。
从牛顿的万有引力到量力科学的重大突破，这些或来自耶鲁或来自其他顶尖高校的伟大发现，其实都是基于提问所产生的。
当音乐家开始采用一段新的旋律；当社会学家开始观察一段社交行为时，他们都会问“为什么？”，“如果这样/那样的话，会发生什么事情呢？”正是他们的好奇心，点燃了人们心中的火苗，并且引领世界往全新的方向前进。
对自我的发掘与提升，同样来自于提问。举例来说，当我们质疑一件事并表示“为什么我要相信它？”，“为什么我要这么做？”的时候，我们其实已经学会了反思，并获得了成长。
我想起了诗人比利·柯林斯（Billy Collins）的话语：“诗歌存在的问题，就是在鼓励更多诗歌的出现。”
我觉得这一言论同样适用于提问。诗歌和提问，都是通过一个点，去点亮另一个点；通过一扇门，去打开更多的门。
有些时候，我们问题会把我们引向一条死胡同。这个问题或许并不能带来正确的解答，一扇知识的大门也因此无法打开。
但请你们牢记，沿途中的那些收获，能帮助我们在将来提出更优秀的问题。
比利·柯林斯，美国著名诗人
电影“粉红豹”（The Pink Panther）中有这么一个著名的场景：“乌龙探长”克鲁索(Clouseau）在一家德国酒店检查，他在酒店大堂看到了一只腊肠犬，所以向酒店老板询问：
“你的狗咬人么？”
“我的狗不会咬人，先生。”
得到答复的克鲁索便放开戒备逗狗，没想到自己的手却被深深地咬了一口。他开始与老板对峙：
“我记得你告诉过我，你的小狗不咬人。”
“那只腊肠犬并不是我的狗，先生。”
很多年前，我曾参与组织了一场本科研讨会。这个课程讨论的其中一个问题是——你曾为哪一件重要的事情改变过自己的想法？
令我感到惊奇的是，有少部分学生从来没有为任何一件事而改变自身最初的想法！最终，我们决定，这门课只接收那些改变过想法的学生。
所以，我们的学生应当乐于转变自身的观念；勇于提问并且拥抱耶鲁的“好奇文化”；对不同的观点与经验持开放的态度，并将其视为一种学习的契机，即使有时会因此受到一些伤害（像克鲁索一样被腊肠犬咬）。
我是一名社会心理学家。作为从耶鲁毕业的一员，我的好奇心是在情绪相关的研究中迸发的。
当然，我的好奇心也受到了本科顾问的启发，他曾问过我“必德，你觉得人类为什么会有情感？情感对我们产生了怎样的作用？” 从那时起，我与团队的课题之一，就是情商研究。
在早期的工作中，我们将情商视为一种技能——通过系统性的学习，人们可以掌握情商这项能力，并借此解析人们情感中所包含的那些“数据”。
多年的相关研究后，我和同事们意识到：我们并没有找到那个正确的提问。我们需要确保情商能在日常生活中展现出来——能组建朋友圈、能在学校成功学习、能融入团队工作等，诸如此类的能力。
问题来了：我们如何进行情商能力的评级？
就此，团队进行了内部提问，“通常而言，心理学家如何进行个人特征的测量？”答案是他们经常让人们给自己打分，即一份称之为“自我评估”的报告。
然而，这一答案使得我们更为沮丧，人们怎么样才能知道自己是一个善于识别、理解、管理并且运用情绪的人呢？我们有没有想过，或许自己以为的高情感张力，对他人而言却是情商缺乏的表现呢？
我们（将情商视为可量化的技能这一）错误的提问，使得真理之门无法打开。
为此，团队提出了一个新的问题：如果我们想要了解一个人是否具备优秀的棒球运动员的能力（比如：击球、投掷、接球、高效地跑垒等），那么，此时的“自我评估”有多少的可信度呢？
显然，可信度不高，因为所有的球员都认为自己是下一位A-Rod。我小时候和哥哥在家中后院玩耍时，还自认为是下一位卡尔·雅泽姆斯基（Carl·Yastrzemski，美国职棒大联盟成员，是棒球名人堂成员之一 ）。
还好，我从未因为自己的这种骄傲而被排挤。
A-Rod，棒球运动员，纽约洋基队的先发三垒手。
为什么情商（技能）的评级与棒球不同呢？如果我们想要知道某人是否具备高情商，我们就需要将这些技能视为能力。那怎样的标准可以用来衡量情商能力呢？
自我反思上述这些问题，有助于我们更加接近正确的答案。（目前，耶鲁基于能力形成的情商测试，已经被应用于数百项科学研究之中。）
承认我们并未寻得所有的答案，并采取一个好学的、好奇的态度，这有助于我们去创造或发现全新的事物。
所以，身为学生的你们将会提出什么样的问题呢？你们将来的好奇心又会因何而启发呢？
不久前，我收到了封来自一位耶鲁家长的电子邮件。这位家长在邮件中十分骄傲的跟我分享：自己的儿子在耶鲁的第一年，就已经听完了77位不同演讲者的讲座。
77位！他从这些政治领域的思想家和领导者那里学到了很多，并且还参加了由各种社团举行的活动。这是怎样的一种度过第一学年的方法呀！在场的诸位，你们能坚持这样的举动一年，并且不改初心么？
事实证明，这位学生还十分擅于提问。他在过去的一年中采访了数十人，这其中，有来自不同领域的学者、活动家、记者以及企业家。
在耶鲁，这位同学就像许多学生与教职工一样，培养自身的一种好奇文化。
往届的耶鲁人已经提出了许多的问题。比如，那些提出男女同校的先驱们。
五十年前，在1969年，588名妇女来到耶鲁大学学习。她们进入了一个长期以来一直被男性占领领地，并且她们提出了从未被提及的问题（即男女同校）。
今年，在女性入读耶鲁艺术学院150周年之际，我们也将纪念这一具有里程碑意义的事件
我还想起1971届的玛格丽特·华纳（Margaret·Warner），她是一位屡获殊荣的记者，知道如何提出那些精彩的问题。她从事战区报道数十年，亲眼目睹了历史并试图借此了解我们世界的真实模样。
我也想起1971届的爱丽丝·杨（Alice·Young），她曾环顾整个校园，并疑惑为什么没有更多来自公立学校的学生入学。后来，她成为了耶鲁大使并回到家乡夏威夷州进行宣传。她还是亚裔美国学生联盟的创始人之一，今年，是该联盟成立的50周年。
耶鲁校长苏必德（右）、研究生院院长（左）与新生合影
我们还记得其他重要的纪念日，以及参与这些变化的，那些好奇的学生。
1969年，由于学生的努力，被称为“The House”的美国黑人文化中心开业，这一中心现在正在创建非裔美国人研究系。
同年，学生们建立了MEChA的耶鲁分会（Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán，是一个致力于促进高等教育、文化和历史交流的学生组织）。
我相信，我们应该感谢所有勇敢的开拓者。纵观整个耶鲁的历史，他们是今天耶鲁之所以能成为耶鲁的主要原因。
我再次回到刚才的提问：你将会提出什么样的问题呢？你的问题又会如何改变耶鲁与我们的世界呢？
你们在耶鲁度过的这些时光，是与众多人、众多思想以及众多经验进行互动的最佳时光。在这里，你能与诸多领域中世界知名的专家进行交谈。你们将有机会通过严谨的研究去创造出知识，并且参加那些能挑战自我、激发灵感的艺术、文学或体育活动类项目。在耶鲁大学，你们将会度过一段，与同龄人完全不同的生活！
勇敢走出舒适与安全区，并借此培养自己的好奇心。那样的你们该如何耀眼？我很难去想象。
走出安全区，意味着你们能在耶鲁大学实验室或某一展览中进行研究；意味着你能接触到来自世界不同地区，不同政治领域的同学。
当然，走出安全区，也意味着你们要去参加那些不太了解的主题讨论；意味着讨论中还会出现一些与你们意见相悖的人。
当你做这些事情时，当你利用这些耶鲁带来的机会时，你会提出怎样的问题呢？
耶鲁校长苏必德（中）与老师们
世界上存在着太多的未知，因此，我们需要为自身的谦逊而庆贺——我们愿意承认目前存在许多我们尚未能发现的事物。毕竟，如果你知道所有的答案，你就不需要耶鲁。如果人类知道所有的答案，世界就不需要耶鲁。
所以，今天我们的学生会提出什么样的问题呢？明天呢？后天呢？
耶鲁的新生们，（我希望）在毕业典礼我与你握手之后的几天、几个月、或者几年之内，你能告诉我，那些你所提出来的、切实地改变了你生活的问题。
2023届的耶鲁新生们，祝你们好运！
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