Rebuilding the American dream machine
重建美国梦机器
FOR America's colleges, January is a month of reckoning. Most applications for the next academic year beginning in the autumn have to be made by the end of December, so a university's popularity is put to an objective standard: how many people want to attend. One of the more unlikely offices to have been flooded with mail is that of the City University of New York (CUNY), a public college that lacks, among other things, a famous sports team, bucolic campuses and raucous parties (it doesn't even have dorms), and, until recently, academic credibility.
对美国的大学而言，一月是一个清算的月份。大多数要进入将于秋季开学的下一学年学习的申请必须在12月底前完成，因此一所大学的声望就有了客观依据：申请人的多少。纽约城市大学，一所公立学院，与其他学校相比，它没有一支声名显赫的运动队，没有田园诗一般的校园，也没有喧嚣嘈杂的派对——甚至连宿舍都没有，而且，直到最近也没取得学术上的可信度，可就是这所大学的办公室塞满了学生们寄来的申请函，这简直有些令人难以置信。
A primary draw at CUNY is a programme for particularly clever students, launched in 2001. Some 1,100 of the 60,000 students at CUNY's five top schools receive a rare thing in the costly world of American colleges: free education. Those accepted by CUNY's honours programme pay no tuition fees; instead they receive a stipend of $7,500 (to help with general expenses) and a laptop computer. Applications for early admissions into next year's programme are up 70%.
城市大学主要吸引人的地方在于它为从2001年开始为聪明过人的学生所设立的培养计划。6万名城市大学的五所顶尖学院学生中，约有1100人能得到“免费教育”，这在花费巨大的美国大学界可是一件稀罕事。被纳入城市大学荣誉计划的学生无需支付学费，相反，他们还获得一份7500美元的定期生活津贴(用于补助日常开销)以及一本笔记本电脑。这所学校申请尽早被批准进入下一学年计划的学生达到了70%。
Admission has nothing to do with being an athlete, or a child of an alumnus, or having an influential sponsor, or being a member of a particularly aggrieved ethnic group—criteria that are increasingly important at America's elite colleges. Most of the students who apply to the honours programme come from relatively poor families, many of them immigrant ones. All that CUNY demands is that these students be diligent and clever.
批准与否跟学生是不是一名运动员，或者是不是校友子弟，或者有没有颇具影响力的后台，或者是不是某个爱打抱不平的民族社团成员，都毫无干系——而这些在美国的知名学府中已经日益成为重要标准。申请加入荣誉计划的学生大多数来自相对贫困的家庭，其中许多人都是移民。城市大学唯一需要的就是这些学生必须勤奋并且聪颖。
Last year, the average standardised test score of this group was in the top 7% in the country. Among the rest of CUNY's students averages are lower, but they are now just breaking into the top third (compared with the bottom third in 1997). CUNY does not appear alongside Harvard and Stanford on lists of America's top colleges, but its recent transformation offers a neat parable of meritocracy revisited.
去年，城市大学学生的标准化考试平均分位居全美最高分的7%之列。城市大学其他学生平均分较低，但是他们即将冲进前三名(相比1997年的倒数前三名)。城市大学无法与哈佛和斯坦福这样的美国顶尖学校比肩，然而他们新近的转变让我清楚地领略到实力主义的再现。(这一段请高手参详)
Until the 1960s, a good case could be made that the best deal in American tertiary education was to be found not in Cambridge or Palo Alto, but in Harlem, at a small public school called City College, the core of CUNY. America's first free municipal university, founded in 1847, offered its services to everyone bright enough to meet its gruelling standards.
20世纪60年代以前，有一个很好的例子可以拿来说一说，那就是美国高等教育管理最好的并不在剑桥大学或者是Palo Alto大学，而是在哈莱姆(黑人住宅区)，在一所名叫城市大学的公立学校里，也就是纽约城市大学的核心地。美国第一所市立免费大学创建于1847年，它为任何聪明才智足以应付其严格入学标准的人提供服务。
City's golden era came in the last century, when America's best known colleges restricted the number of Jewish students they would admit at exactly the time when New York was teeming with the bright children of poor Jewish immigrants. In 1933-54 City produced nine future Nobel laureates, including the 2005 winner for economics, Robert Aumann (who graduated in 1950); Hunter, its affiliated former women's college, produced two, and a sister branch in Brooklyn produced one. City educated Felix Frankfurter, a pivotal figure on the Supreme Court (class of 1902), Ira Gershwin (1918), Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine (1934) and Robert Kahn, an architect of the internet (1960). A left-wing place in the 1930s and 1940s, City spawned many of the neo-conservative intellectuals who would later swing to the right, such as Irving Kristol (class of 1940, extra-curricular activity: anti-war club), Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer.
城市大学的黄金时代开始于上个世纪，那时美国最知名的大学都限制犹太人学生入学，当时纽约到处都是贫苦的犹太移民的聪明孩子。1933年到1954年之间，城市大学培养出了9个后来获得诺贝尔奖的人，其中包括2005年经济学奖获得者罗伯特•奥曼(毕业于1950年)。城市大学前附属女子学院则培养出两名诺贝尔奖获得者，而其在布鲁克林的一所分校也培养出一名。城市大学还培养出了最高法院的关键人物费利克斯•法兰克福(1902届)、埃拉•格什温(1918届)、天花疫苗发明者乔纳斯•索尔克(1934届)以及互联网设计者罗伯特•卡恩(1960届)等人。20世纪三、四十年代，城市大学作为左翼分子活动区，城市大学孕育了许多新保守主义知识分子，他们后来都转向了右翼，比如欧文•克里斯托(1940届，校外活动积极分子，参加过反战俱乐部)、丹尼尔•贝尔和内森•格雷泽。
What went wrong? Put simply, City dropped its standards. It was partly to do with demography, partly to do with earnest muddleheadedness. In the 1960s, universities across the country faced intense pressure to admit more minority students. Although City was open to all races, only a small number of black and Hispanic students passed the strict tests (including a future secretary of state, Colin Powell). That, critics decided, could not be squared with City's mission to “serve all the citizens of New York”. At first the standards were tweaked, but this was not enough, and in 1969 massive student protests shut down City's campus for two weeks. Faced with upheaval, City scrapped its admissions standards altogether. By 1970, almost any student who graduated from New York's high schools could attend.
哪里出问题了呢?简单点说，就是城市大学降低了它的标准。这一部分与人口统计有关，一部分与憨头憨脑的热忱有关。20世纪60年代，全美的大学都面临着招收少数民族学生的强大压力。尽管城市大学对各色人种都敞开校门，但也只有少数黑人和拉丁美洲裔学生能通过严格的测试(其中包括后来成为国务卿的科林•鲍威尔)。持批评意见的人士断定，这不符合城市大学“服务于全纽约市民”的宗旨。起初，入学标准作了调整，但仍不够。1969年，学生大规模的抗议让城市大学停课两周。面对突如其来的变化，城市大学彻底废除了所有入学标准。到1970年，几乎所有纽约高等中学毕业的学生都可以进入城市大学学习。
The quality of education collapsed. At first, with no barrier to entry, enrolment climbed, but in 1976 the city of New York, which was then in effect bankrupt, forced CUNY to impose tuition fees. An era of free education was over, and a university which had once served such a distinct purpose joined the muddle of America's lower-end education.
可是，教育质量却因此骤然下降。一开始，由于没有入学限制，报名上学的人数不断攀升，但到了1976年，实际上已经陷入破产困境的纽约市，逼迫城市大学征收学费。免费教育的时代终结了，一所曾经有如此独特办学取向的大学从此成了美国低端教育的乌合之众。
By 1997, seven out of ten first-year students in the CUNY system were failing at least one remedial test in reading, writing or maths (meaning that they had not learnt it to high-school standard). A report commissioned by the city in 1999 concluded that “Central to CUNY's historic mission is a commitment to provide broad access, but its students' high drop-out rates and low graduation rates raise the question: ‘Access to what?’ ”
直到1997年，城市大学系统的新生十之有七未能通过阅读、写作和数学中至少一门加试(亦即他们还未达到高中标准)。1999年纽约市府发布的一项报告总结认为，“纽约城市大学历史性使命的核心是承担面对大众的教育义务，但是学生的高退学率和低毕业率引发了这样一个问题：‘提供什么教育?’”。
Using the report as ammunition, profound reforms were pushed through by New York's then mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, and another alumnus, Herman Badillo (1951), America's first Puerto Rican congressman. A new head of CUNY was appointed. Matthew Goldstein, a mathematician (1963), has shifted the focus back towards higher standards amid considerable controversy.
纽约市当时的市长鲁道夫•丘里安尼以及同样是城市大学校友(1951届)的美国第一名波多黎各裔议员赫尔曼•巴蒂洛，利用该报告为导火索，对城市大学进行了深入改革。一名新校长上任，他叫马修•高德斯坦，是一名数学家。他把争议的焦点重新引回到了更高的入学标准之上。
For instance, by 2001, all of CUNY's 11 “senior” colleges (ie, ones that offer full four-year courses) had stopped offering remedial education. This prompted howls from the teaching faculty, who said it would “create a ghetto-like separation between levels of colleges”, keeping black and Hispanic students out of the best schools. In fact, the racial composition of the senior schools, monitored obsessively by critics, has remained largely unchanged: one in four students at the senior colleges is black, one in five is Latino. A third have ties to Puerto Rico, Jamaica, China and the Dominican Republic.
例如，到2001年，所有城市大学的“高级学院”(亦即提供全部四年培养课程的学院)停止提供加试教育，随即引起了教师们的强烈不满，他们认为这将“造成学院不同水平学生之间如犹太人区一般的分裂”，并将黑人和拉丁美裔学生拒之门外。事实上，批评家们一直关注着，高级学院学生的种族构成大部分保持不变：高级学院学生中黑人占四分之一，拉丁美裔人占五分之一，还有三分之一是波多黎各、牙买加、中国和多米尼加人后裔。
Admissions standards have been raised. Students applying to CUNY's senior colleges now need respectable scores on either a national, state or CUNY test, and the admissions criteria for the honours programme are the toughest in the university's history. Contrary to what Mr Goldstein's critics predicted, higher standards have attracted more students, not fewer: this year, enrolment at CUNY is at a record high. There are also anecdotal signs that CUNY is once again picking up bright locals, especially in science. One advanced biology class at City now has twice as many students as it did in the late 1990s. Last year, two students, both born in the Soviet Union, won Rhodes scholarships, and a Bronx native who won the much sought-after Intel Science Prize is now in the honours programme.
入学标准提高了，申请进入城市大学高级学院学习的学生如今需要在全国、州或者城市大学考试中取得优异成绩，而荣誉计划的纳入标准则成为该大学有史以来最为严厉的一项标准。与高德斯坦先生预期的恰恰相反，更高的入学标准吸引了更多的学生，而非更少：今年，报名人数又创新高。也有小道消息称，城市大学正在再一次挑选聪明的当地居民，尤其是在科学方面。它的一门高级生物学目前上课人数是20世纪90年代末期的两倍。去年，两名均出生于前苏联的学生荣获罗兹奖学金(译者注：一个获得按塞西尔•罗兹的遗嘱设立的奖学金的学生，该奖允许他在牛津大学入学攻读两或三年的时期)，一名布朗克斯区(译者注：美国纽约市的行政区，位于曼哈顿北部大陆，纽约东南部。曾为荷兰西印度公司工作的一个丹麦人，琼纳斯•布朗克最早定居，该地区于1898年成为大纽约的一部分。)出生的学生则荣获许多人梦寐以求的因特尔科学奖，现已获准进入荣誉计划。
All this should not imply that CUNY is out of the woods. Much of it looks run down. CUNY's annual budget of $1.7 billion has stayed largely unchanged, even as student numbers have risen. With New York City's finances still precarious, city and state support for the university has fallen by more than one-third since 1991 in real terms. It has, however, begun to bring in private money.
如此种种，并不表示纽约城市大学已经走出泥潭。很多方面都在每况愈下。即便学生人数增加了，该大学每年17亿美元的预算仍未能得到较大改观。由于纽约市财政仍旧不稳定，市府和州府资助自1991年以来已经下降了超过三分之一。然而，学校已经开始从私人那里赚取资金。
A new journalism school will open in the autumn, helped by a $4m grant from the Sulzberger family, who control the New York Times, and led by Business Week's former editor, Steve Shepard (class of 1961). Efforts to raise a $1.2 billion endowment have passed the half-way mark, helped by (formerly estranged) alumni. Intel's former chairman, Andrew Grove, who graduated from City in 1960 as a penniless Hungarian immigrant, donated $26m (about 30% of City's operating budget) to the engineering school, calling his alma mater “a veritable American dream machine”.
由于得到《纽约时报》老板苏尔兹伯格家族400万美元的赞助，在《商业周刊》前任编辑史蒂夫•谢巴德(1961届学生)的牵头下，一所新办的新闻学院将于秋季开学。在一些校友(此前与学校较为疏远)的帮助下，募集12亿美元捐赠的行动已经成功了一半。1960年毕业、曾经身无分文的匈牙利移民、因特尔公司前任主席安德鲁•格罗夫向工程学院捐赠了2600万美元(约相当于大学预算的30%)，并称赞他的母校是“一部真正的美国梦机器”。
There are broader lessons to draw from CUNY, especially to do with creating opportunities in higher education for the poor. Currently, only 3% of the students in America's top colleges come from families in the lowest income quartile and only 10% from the bottom half, according to a study by Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose for the Century Foundation. Most students are relatively well-off, and their numbers include plenty of racial minorities who receive preferential status independent of their economic circumstances.
纽约城市大学还有很多的经验值得我们学习，尤其是关于在高等教育中为穷人创造机遇方面。根据安东尼•卡内瓦和斯蒂芬•罗斯的一项“世纪基金”研究，目前美国顶尖大学的学生中仅有大约3%来自低收入家庭，而且仅有10%来自中等收入以下的家庭。大多数学生家境相对较好，其中包括许多不受经济条件约束、享受特权的许多少数民族学生。
For all its imperfections, CUNY's model of low tuition fees and high standards offers a different approach. And its recent history may help to dispel the myth that high academic standards deter students and donors. “Elitism”, Mr Goldstein contends, “is not a dirty word.”
对城市大学所有不完善的方面而言，它关于低学费和高标准的模式为我们展示了一个与众不同的教育方法，而且，该大学新近发展进程也许有助于打破这样一个谬论，那就是学校高标准会让学生以及捐助者们望而却步。高德斯坦先生坚持认为，“杰出人物统治论这个词并不难听。”
小编推荐：
更多全国翻译资格水平考试信息在这里>>>CATTI考试资讯
想考试拿高分? 考无忧助你考试无忧>>>CATTI二级笔译在线题库
