大学如何服务社会.doc

美国耶鲁大学校长里查德·雷文教授发表主旨讲演： 大学如何服务于社会 Keynote Address: Chinese-Foreign University Presidents’ Forum President Richard C. Levin July 18, 2006 Shanghai, China 中外大学校长论坛 I am greatly honored by the invitation of the Ministry of Education to participate in this important biannual forum involving the presidents of Chinas leading universities and others from around the world. This is a propitious time for such a gathering, as those of us outside China continue to watch with admiration the enormous investment your country is making to improve the capacity, quality, and international standing of your universities. I want to express my gratitude to Minister Zhou Ji for taking the initiative to organize this event. I am delighted to participate. I have been asked to discuss how universities serve their society. This is a question well worth asking, at a time of such massive investment and growth here in China. To answer the question, I will draw mainly on the experience of American universities, not because their contributions are unique or more important than those of universities elsewhere. I focus on the U.S. experience strictly because I know it best, and I do so in full recognition that some of the lessons learned in my country may not apply directly to China. So let me go straight to the answer. I believe that universities serve their society in many ways, but I will focus on the contribution that they make through three activities in particular: research, education, and institutional citizenship. First, by advancing knowledge of science, technology, and medicine universities create the foundation for economic growth, material well-being and improvements in human health. Second, by educating students to be capable of flexible, adaptive, and creative responses to changing conditions, universities strengthen their societys capacity to innovate. And, third, by serving as models of institutional citizenship, universities make a direct contribution to social betterment and i