Declaring that āfailure is part of the process of discovering nature and the world around us,ā Nobel Laureate Martin Chalfie delivered the inaugural Yu Panglin Lecture of ¶¶Ņõappās Education for Persistence and Innovation Center () in March.
Too many young people grow up with misapprehensions about scientists ā āthat theyāre geniuses, that their experiments work all the time, that their hypotheses are right the first time, and then they just collect lots of prizes and honors,ā said Chalfie, University Professor at Columbia University, who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for producing a biological marker for gene expression that has since sparked a revolution in biological, medical and pharmaceutical research. But instead, he said, science is a long process of trial and error. āAs Mark Twain said, āIt takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing ā and the last man gets the credit, and we forget the others.āā
EPIC, founded and directed by Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Professor of Cognitive Studies, is an interdisciplinary research and development center that studies failure across a wide variety of disciplines and tests theories about its use as a catalyst for innovation and success.
[In September, Lin-Siegler delivered a keynote address to the Population Councilās GIRL Center for Innovation, Research and Learning at the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 74). In December, she received the 2019 Asia Education Impact Award.]
Directly preceding the lecture, which was delivered in TCās Milbank Chapel, ¶¶Ņõapp President Thomas Bailey and Dennis Pang, Chairman of the Hong Kong, China-based Yu Panglin Charitable Trust, signed an agreement that expanded the scope of the Trustās partnership with EPIC to include the new lecture series. After the lecture, Chalfie engaged in one-on-one discussion with , host and creative director of the weekly health and science show The Pulse on WHYY, the National Public Radio affiliate in Philadelphia. Scott also asked questions posed by the audience.
Yu Panglin, who overcame poverty and Chinaās Cultural Revolution to become one of the worldās leading real estate developers, donated his entire $10 billion fortune to charity prior to his death in 2015. The Yu Panglin Charitable Trust has supported work in medicine, education and disaster relief, restoring vision for hundreds of thousands of cataract patients, funding the recoveries of towns and cities throughout China, and enabling thousands of Chinese students to realize educational opportunities. Through EPIC, ¶¶Ņõapp is the first institution or organization outside of China to receive funding from the Yu Panglin Charitable Trust, and TC is the believed to be the first American higher education institution to name a lecture series after a person from Asia.
āYu Panglin was an extraordinary man ā not only for the heroic manner in which he overcame terrible adversity and hardship but also for his generosity and love that knew no bounds,ā said Dennis Pang, grandson of Yu Panglin and Chairman of the Yu Panglin Charitable Trust. āAnd as a lifelong learner who cherished education and revered the profession of teacher, my grandfather would also be so proud to see his foundation make its first gift outside of China to the one institution in the world that is most synonymous with excellence in teaching and learning.ā
The agreement signed by Bailey and Pang completed a process begun in China in October 2018, when the Yu Panglin Charitable Trust announced a $3 million gift to support EPICās research and community outreach efforts.
āWe are so fortunate that a gift from the Yu Panglin Charitable Trust is supporting our research and outreach so that it can have a global impact on modern educational theory and practice,ā said Lin-Siegler in her opening remarks at the ceremony. āWe have created this Yu Panglin Lecture to bring to light the stories of people who have experienced and overcome failure.ā
³¢¾±²Ō-³§¾±±š²µ±ō±š°łās&²Ō²ś²õ±č;, published by the American Psychological Association and funded by a large research grant from the National Science Foundation, found that high school students may improve their science grades by learning about the personal struggles and failed experiments of great scientists such as Albert Einstein and Marie Curie.
The partnership between EPIC and the Yu Panglin Charitable Trust ādemonstrates what is possible when knowledgeable, caring and committed people come together to develop innovative, comprehensive solutions to the great challenges we face,ā said Bailey. āIn this instance, the challenge we face is the pervasive view that failure is a sign of weakness, inadequacy, ineptitude and incompetence. But as Yu Panglin knew from his own experience, failure is not destiny. He knew that struggling with failure and adversity is essential to success.ā
In a talk he titled āFailed and Useless,ā Chalfie elaborated on that same idea, beginning by sharing his undergraduate chemistry grades at Harvard, none of which were higher than a C. He spent a miserable summer working in a lab, afraid to ask questions, and contemplated quitting science entirely. He worked as a janitor, sold dresses for his parentsā business and arranged rock concerts for a nonprofit. Finally, he took a job in the lab of an ophthalmology researcher who studied frogs.
Chalfie concluded his remarks with a call to build a pipeline of young people who do basic research. Contrary to the stereotype, he said, all basic researchers think about how their work will benefit the world. But ultimately, he added, āSuccess is not getting a Nobel Prize or wining the Olympics. Success is how we treat other people in our lives. Our families are our successes.ā