单位文秘网 2021-07-09 08:15:52 点击: 次
It would seem that higher education is a market ripe for globalization and that U.S. universities—by right of their acknowledged achievements, outstanding reputations, and considerable advantages in size and wealth — are predestined to take on the world in the way that Boeing, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft have done within their respective industries. But as the president of a U.S. university that has operated one campus in China for two decades and another campus in Italy for more than half a century, I can say that consolidating1) U.S. dominance in international education will not be as easy or as likely as it seems.
Just as geographic boundaries have become less distinct in higher education, the walls between academic disciplines within universities are being torn down as well. The frontiers of research, whether in the sciences, engineering, or the humanities, are increasingly those places where teams of experts from multiple disciplines work together. For decades, the life and physical sciences were separated by impermeable barriers. Today, if barriers exist at all, they are highly porous2). Contemporary advances in medical science, for instance, often cannot proceed without significant contributions from robotics, information sciences, engineering, and the physical sciences. Even problems in biochemistry, a relatively narrow field, can no longer be dealt with by the biochemist alone: you also need a molecular biologist, a biophysicist, and a physiologist.
As a result of this IT-IT phenomenon (cheap international travel and ubiquitous information technology), expertise is now measured on a global rather than a local scale. It is no longer possible to depend solely on local experts for knowledge. Only if the local expert is also a globally recognized expert can you rely on your faculty colleague down the hall.
Universities, like houses of worship, are among the few institutions that have survived fundamentally unchanged for centuries. Empires will rise and fall, and countless other social arrangements have, over the years, given way to political, geographic, and environmental forces. By their design, however, universities are slow, if not sometimes unable, to change. This inertia3) has been their intrinsic advantage. Yet today they are subject to the same forces and stresses created by globalization that confronts all other aspects of society.
For nearly three-quarters of a century, scientific research was largely the province of the United States and Europe. Now, emerging countries — especially in Asia — increasingly are significant contributors to science and technology, and this trend is likely to continue for the next half century or more. Existing research universities are liable to lose their leading role unless they are able to form, or join, worldwide networks of researchers working at the frontiers of knowledge.
The United States?oft-cited head start in universalizing higher education is also dwindling.
Higher-education eollment has increased by more than 30 percent in the United Kingdom in the last two decades and in France by an astounding 72 percent. China quintupled4) its number of college graduates in the past seven years alone. And for the first time since the late 1800s, the United States no longer has the world’s highest rate of young students going on to postsecondary institutions. That honor now goes to Canada, with the United States and Japan close behind.
At first blush, it seems hard to imagine two less similar entities than a multinational oil company and a prestigious regional research university. Yet they are very similar in this one respect: both must ultimately respond to the fundamental need to go where the resources are. Almost 70 years ago, the Standard Oil Company of California discovered oil in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, after four years of unsuccessful drilling. A similar dynamic is increasingly under way in research and higher education today.
Propelled in no small part by open borders, jet transportation, instantaneous communications, and over one billion English speakers — the same factors that are fundamentally reshaping international commerce and the creation and distribution of wealth, universities must prospect for the best brains, skills, and talent.
In recent years, it has increasingly become evident that they will have to go far beyond their traditional borders to find those resources.
看起来,高等教育似乎也是为全球化而设的成熟市场。由于举世公认的成绩,蜚声海内外的名声,以及在规模及财力上的巨大优势,美国大学似乎也注定要征服世界,就如波音、IBM、英特尔以及微软在各自领域所做的那样。但是,作为一个美国大学校长,在中国办校20年,在意大利办学长达半个多世纪,我敢说,美国要想巩固自己在国际教育体系中的优势地位并不像看起来那样简单。
正如高等教育的地理界限上逐渐模糊一样,大学学科之间的围墙也同样在土崩瓦解。无论是自然科学、工程或者是人文科学,其研究领域前沿日益被各个学科的专家们合力攻关。数十年来,自然和生命科学之间一直有着严格的界限。而如今如果还存在壁垒,它的可渗透性也很强。比如,当代医学的迅猛发展往往离不开机器人技术、信息科学、工程学以及物理学等领域的突出贡献。即便像生物化学这样相对狭窄的领域也不可能单凭一己之力而完全解决:还需要分子生物学家,生物物理学家以及生理学专家的鼎力相助。
由于这种IT-IT现象(廉价的跨国旅行以及普及的信息技术),专业知识的衡量标准现已从地方转向全球。仅仅依靠地方的专家获取知识是不可能的。除非这个地方专家同时也享有世界声誉,你才可以依靠在同一个走廊的同事。
大学,同教堂一样,都是在经历了沧桑岁月的洗礼后为数不多能够保留下来,大体上未有改变的公共机构。经历了这么多年,帝国的兴衰起伏以及其他数不清社会制度都在政治、地理以及环境的作用下瓦解了。然而,由于自身特性,大学的转型很慢,有时甚至不能够有所改变。这种“惰性”内化为他们的固有优势。而今,大学终于也要像社会的其他方面一样面临全球化带来的种种压力了。
在近75年的时间里,科学研究在很大程度上都是美国和欧洲的领地。现在,逐渐崛起的国家——尤其是亚洲国家——在科学技术领域的贡献日益凸现,而且这个趋势在接下来的50年或更长的时间内仍会持续下去。现有的研究型大学如果不能够组成或者参与全球各个尖端领域的专家网络的话,他们将会逐渐丧失领头羊的位置。
美国在高等教育普及率方面为人频频称道的优势也在缩小。
过去的20年中,英国高校招生增长了30%以上,法国的增长多达72%。仅仅在过去的7年中,中国的大学毕业生就增长了4倍。19世纪初以来,美国一直是中学入大学比例最高的国家;而今,加拿大已取而代之,美国和日本紧随其后。
乍一看,跨国石油公司和声望高、侧重研究的地区性大学没什么可比性。然而,两者在某一方面却非常相似:资源在哪里,最终就要去哪里发展,这是不可回避的基本需求。近70年以前,加利福尼亚的美孚石油公司在经过了4年的惨淡开采后,终于在沙特阿拉伯的达曼发现了石油。今天的研究和高等教育领域也在出现类似的变化。
开放边界,飞机运输、即时通讯以及超过10亿会讲英语的人从根本上重新塑造着国际商务和财富的创造与分配过程。在同样一些因素的强力推动下大学必须寻找最聪明的头脑、最出色的技术和最优秀的人才。
近些年来,形势逐渐明朗:大学必须远远超越种种传统界限才能找到这些资源。
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