The University in Transformation, edited by Australian futurists Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley, presents some 20 highly

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问题     The University in Transformation, edited by Australian futurists Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley, presents some 20 highly varied outlooks on tomorrow’s universities by writers representing both Western and non-Western perspectives. Their essays raise a broad range of issues, questioning nearly every key assumption we have about higher education today.
    The most widely discussed alternative to the traditional campus is the Internet University—a voluntary community to scholars/teachers physically scattered throughout a country or around the world but all linked in cyberspace. A computerized university could have many advantages, such as easy scheduling, efficient delivery of lectures to thousands or even millions of students at once, and ready access for students everywhere to the resources of all the world’s great libraries.
    Yet the Internet University poses dangers, too. For example, a line of franchised courseware, produced by a few superstar teachers, marketed under the brand name of a famous institution, and heavily advertised, might eventually come to dominate the global education market, warns sociology professor Peter Manicas of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Besides enforcing a rigidly standardized curriculum, such a "college education in a box" could undersell the offerings of many traditional brick and mortar institutions, effectively driving them out of business and throwing thousands of career academics out of work, note Australian communications professors David Rooney and Greg Hearn.
    On the other hand, while global connectivity seems highly likely to play some significant role in future higher education, that does not mean greater uniformity in course content—or other dangers—will necessarily follow. Counter-movements are also at work.
    Many in academia, including scholars contributing to this volume, are questioning the fundamental mission of university education. What if, for instance, instead of receiving primarily technical training and building their individual careers, university students and professors could focus their learning and research efforts on existing problems in their local communities and the world? Feminist scholar Ivana Milojevic dares to dream what a university might become "if we believed that child-care workers and teachers in early childhood education should be one of the highest (rather than lowest) paid professionals?"
    Co-editor Jennifer Gidley shows how tomorrow’s university faculty, instead of giving lectures and conducting independent research, may take on three new roles. Some would act as brokers, assembling customized degree-credit programmes for individual students by mixing and matching the best course offerings available from institutions all around the world. A second group, mentors, would function much like today’s faculty advisers, but are likely to be working with many more students outside their own academic specialty. This would require them to constantly be learning from their students as well as instructing them. A third new role for faculty, and in Gidley’s view the most challenging and rewarding of all, would be as meaning-makers: charismatic sages and practitioners leading groups of students/colleagues in collaborative efforts to find spiritual as well as rational and technological solutions to specific real-world problems.
    Moreover, there seems little reason to suppose that any one form of university must necessarily drive out all other options. Students may be "enrolled" in courses offered at virtual campuses on the Internet, between—or even during—sessions at a real-world problem-focused institution.
According to the author, what is the fundamental mission of traditional university education?

选项 A、Knowledge learning and career building.
B、Learning how to solve existing social problems.
C、Researching into solutions to current world problems.
D、Combining research efforts of teachers and students in learning.

答案A

解析 本题关键词是fundamental mission和traditional university education,问题是:传统大学教育的根本使命是什么?可以定位到文章第五段。第五段第二句提到网络大学教育的根本使命,即大学生和教授不是将精力主要用在接受技术培训和构建个人职业生涯方面(instead of receiving primarily technical training and building their individual careers),可知此为传统大学教育的使命,选项A为相同含义,为正确选项。第二句后面提到,(大学生和教授)而是将学习和研究的重点放在当地社区和世界现存的问题上(focus their learning and research efforts on existing problems in their local communities and the world)。由此可知选项B、C、D为网络大学教育的使命,属于正反混淆。
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