Inclusion provides the rich diversity of intellectual life and creative learning that are at the heart of this great university. Inclusiveness is a specific strategic advantage that allows us to attract and retain talented people who could easily choose to move to other parts of the country. For example, in Massachusetts, home to Harvard and MIT, who are among our greatest competitors for faculty, same-sex marriage has been legal for some years. It is recognized in states such as New York, home to Columbia and Cornell, who are also major rivals for top faculty. The constitutional right to marry in the State of California enhances UC Berkeley's ability to attract and retain the very best students, staff and faculty, with the promise of equal treatment under the laws of our state. Social theorist Richard Florida has shown that the economic success of American cities is based on their ability to attract a "creative class" of "talented people who seek an environment open to differences." Proposition 8 will harm the social conditions in our state that promote creativity, justice, and prosperity.
A phalanx of SiliconValley bigshots makes the same point in an ad here.
Stop and think for a moment: when Google came to South Carolina, did they build a campus where the idea people will work?
Nope.
They built a big box where land and water are cheap, filled it will server racks, and hired a coupla hundred people to walk around and make sure the servers work.
Knowledge Economy, SC-style. No strange people.
touche!
ReplyDeleteYour observations about who will be working at Google's Berkeley County location are correct, and that holds true at a lot of locations.
ReplyDeleteTake the automotive industry. We have dozens of plants for automotive component manufacturers across the state, and we have BMW as well. Those plants focus on manufacturing, while key decision processes, such as product design and development, planning, marketing, etc. are done up north.
This is the case in most of the South, which is consistent with your observation.
However, you couldn't be more wrong about why this is so. It's not because of our less "progressive" culture regarding socio-political issues, but rather because the workforce in the South isn't of the same quality, especially in the rural areas.
It's not a question of what you would consider "strange" people, but rather inadequately-educated people, many of whom voluntarily chose not to pursue a technical or vocational education beyond high school.
Before you go dissing us good southern folk, you might do well to discuss this issue with anyone, like myself, who is involved in economic or workforce development issues. Bashing and spreading judgmental and prejudicial information isn't going to change a thing.