首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Barack Obama invited a puzzling group of people into the White House: university presidents. What should one make of these stran
Barack Obama invited a puzzling group of people into the White House: university presidents. What should one make of these stran
admin
2014-04-28
79
问题
Barack Obama invited a puzzling group of people into the White House: university presidents. What should one make of these strange creatures? Are they chief executives or labour leaders? Heads of pre-industrial guilds or champions of one of America’s most successful industries? Defenders of civilisation or merciless rack-renters?
Whatever they might be, they are at the heart of a political firestorm. Anger about the cost of college extends from the preppiest of parents to the grungiest of Occupiers. Mr. Obama is trying to channel the anger, to avoid being sideswiped by it. The White House invitation complained that costs have trebled in the past three decades. Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, has urged universities to address costs with "much greater urgency".
A sense of urgency is justified: ex-students have debts approaching $ 1 trillion. But calm reflection is needed too. America’s universities suffer from many maladies besides cost. And rising costs are often symptoms of much deeper problems: problems that were irritating during the years of affluence but which are cancerous in an age of austerity.
The first problem is the inability to say "no". For decades American universities have been offering more of everything more courses for undergraduates, more research students for professors and more rock walls for everybody on the merry assumption that there would always be more money to pay for it all. The second is Ivy League envy. The vast majority of American universities are obsessed by rising up the academic hierarchy, becoming a bit less like Yokel-U and a bit more like Yale.
Ivy League envy leads to an obsession with research. This can be a problem even in the best universities: students feel short-changed by professors fixated on crawling along the frontiers of knowledge with a magnifying glass. At lower-level universities it causes dysfunction. American professors of literature crank out 70, 000 scholarly publications a year, compared with 13, 757 in 1959. Most of these simply moulder: Mark Bauerlein of Emory University points out that, of the 16 research papers produced in 2004 by the University of Vermont’s literature department, a fairly representative institution, 11 have since received between zero and two citations. The time wasted writing articles that will never be read cannot be spent teaching. In "Academically Adrift" Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa argue that over a third of America’s students show no improvement in critical thinking or analytical reasoning after four years in college.
Popular anger about universities’ costs is rising just as technology is shaking colleges to their foundations. The Internet is changing the rules. Star academics can lecture to millions online rather than the chosen few in person. Testing and marking can be automated. And for-profit companies such as the University of Phoenix are stripping out costs by concentrating on a handful of popular courses as well as making full use of the Internet. The Sloan Foundation reports that online enrolments grew by 10% in 2010, against 2% for the sector as a whole.
Many universities’ first instinct will be to batten down the hatches and wait for this storm to pass. But the storm is not going to pass. The higher-education industry faces a stark choice: either adapt to a rapidly changing world or face a future of cheeseparing. It is surely better to rethink the career structure of your employees than to see it wither (the proportion of professors at four-year universities who are on track to win tenure fell from 50% in 1997 to 39% ten years later). And it is surely better to reform yourself than to have hostile politicians take you into receivership.
A growing number of universities are beginning to recognise this. They understand that the beginning of wisdom in academia, as in business in general, is choosing what not to do. They are in recovery from their Ivy League envy. They are also striking up relations with private-sector organisations. And a growing number of foundations, such as the Kauffman Foundation, are doing their best to spread the gospel of reform and renewal.
As to anger about the cost of college, Mr. Obama’s attitude is most likely to be
选项
A、apparent.
B、prudent.
C、equivocal.
D、aggressive.
答案
B
解析
态度题。由题干中的anger about the cost of college定位至第二段。第三句指出奥巴马对人们对大学费用的愤怒所做出的反应(Mr.Obama is trying to channel the anger,to avoid being side-swiped by it.),从中可知奥巴马为了避免引火烧身,在积极疏导人们的愤怒情绪,因此可以推断其态度审慎,故[B]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/7xpO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
OnlineShoppingIncreasinglypopularwithadultsandyoungpeople,onlineshoppinggivesyou【1】______tovariousproductsand
OnlineShoppingIncreasinglypopularwithadultsandyoungpeople,onlineshoppinggivesyou【1】______tovariousproductsand
A、respectpolicepersons.B、havealittlemorerespectforpolicewomanthanpoliceman.C、arelikelytosmackpolicewomanbecause
Accordingtothenews,whyhastheseniorpoliceofficerresigned?
Thebizarreanticsofsleepwalkershavepuzzledpolice,perplexedscientists,andfascinatedwritersforcenturies.Thereisan
Thebizarreanticsofsleepwalkershavepuzzledpolice,perplexedscientists,andfascinatedwritersforcenturies.Thereisan
PolicemanasaWriterIdecidedtobegintheterm’sworkwiththeshortstorysincethatformwouldbetheeasiestforthep
随机试题
真人养脏汤的功用是
混凝土立方体抗压强度标准值
大多数细菌繁殖一代的时间为
证券公司为单一客户办理定向资产管理业务,应当与客户签订定向资产管理合同,通过该客户的账户为客户提供资产管理服务。( )
旅行社的业务流程中,属于产品消费的是()。
坚持唯物辩证法,反对形而上学,是建设有中国特色社会主义的根本要求。()
【西楼会议】华东师范大学1999年中国当代史真题
构造主义学派的主要代表人物是()
对考生文件夹下WORD.docx文档中的文字进行编辑、排版和保存,具体要求如下:【文档开始】欠残阳技术数据采集技术的工程实际应用问题,归结起来主要有两点:一是要求更高的残阳率,以满足对高频信号的残阳要求;二是要求更大的残阳动态范围,以满足对微
IMPACTSANDMASSEXTINCTIONS(1)Meteoritesandimpactcratersbearwitnesstothefactthatlargeimpactsoccasionallyoccu
最新回复
(
0
)