硅谷時代,斯坦福比哈佛更受青睞

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In academia, where brand reputation is everything, one university holds an especially enviable place these days when it comes to attracting students and money. To find it from this center of learning, turn west and go about 2,700 miles.

馬薩諸塞州坎布里奇——在學術界，品牌信譽就是一切。就吸引學生和金錢而言，有一所大學目前佔據着一個特別令人羨慕的地位。要找到它，你需要從這個學術重鎮向西走大約2700英里（約4300多公里）。

Riding a wave of interest in technology, Stanford University has become America's "it" school, by measures that Harvard once dominated. Stanford has had the nation's lowest undergraduate acceptance rate for two years in a row; in five of the last six years, it has topped the Princeton Review survey asking high school seniors to name their "dream college"; and year in and year out, it raises more money from donors than any other university.

在一波科技熱浪的推動下，按照曾經由哈佛大學(Harvard University)主宰的指標來衡量，斯坦福大學(Stanford University)已經成爲美國高等院校的“老大”。該校連續兩年成爲全美本科生錄取率最低的大學；在過去六年的五年中，根據《普林斯頓評論》(Princeton Review)面向高三學生進行的調查，斯坦福高居美國高中生“夢想中的大學”排行榜之首。年復一年，該校募集到比其他任何大學都要多的捐贈資金。

No one calls Duke "the Stanford of the South," or the University of Michigan "the public Stanford," at least not yet. But, for now at least, there is reason to doubt the long-held wisdom that the consensus gold standard in American higher education is Harvard, founded 378 years ago, which held its commencement on Thursday.

沒有人把杜克大學(Duke University)稱爲“南方的斯坦福”，或者把密歇根大學(University of Michigan)稱爲“公立斯坦福”，至少現在還沒有。但至少就目前而言，我們有理由懷疑人們長期以來形成的一個共識：美國高等教育的黃金標準是哈佛大學。這家創建於378年前的著名學府在上週四舉行了一年一度的畢業典禮。

"There's no question that right now, Stanford is seen as the place to be," said Robert Franek, who oversees the Princeton Review's college and university guidebooks and student surveys. Of course, that is more a measure of popularity than of quality, he said, and whether it will last is anyone's guess.

“斯坦福現在被視爲美國最好的大學，這一點毫無疑問，”《普林斯頓評論》學院與大學指南及學生調查事務負責人羅伯特·弗蘭尼克(Robert Franek)這樣說道。當然，這些調查顯示的是受歡迎程度，而不是教育質量，而且誰也說不準這種狀況能否持續下去，他說。

Professors, administrators and students here insist that on the whole, they are not afraid that Harvard will be knocked off its perch, either in substance or in reputation. But some concede, now that you mention it, that in particularly contemporary measures, like excellence in computer science, engineering and technology, Harvard could find much to emulate in that place out in California.

哈佛大學的教授、管理層和學生堅持認爲，就整體而言，他們並不害怕哈佛將被趕下王座，無論是在實質上還是在聲譽上。但談到這個話題時，一些人也承認，如果根據當代的指標來衡量，特別是在計算機科學和工程技術學科的卓越之處，加州那所大學的確有許多值得哈佛效仿的地方。

"Harvard for a long time had sort of an ambiguous relationship to applied science and engineering," said Harry R. Lewis, a computer science professor here and a former dean of Harvard College. "It wasn't considered the sort of thing gentlemen did."

“長期以來，哈佛跟應用科學和工程學科的關係一直模棱兩可，”哈佛大學計算機科學教授，哈佛學院(Harvard College)前院長哈利·R·劉易斯(Harry R. Lewis)說。“這些學科不被看做是紳士應該學的東西。”

People in academia tend to roll their eyes at the incessant effort to rank colleges and universities, insisting that they pay little attention to the ratings that their institutions spend so much time and energy chasing. They scoff at the notion that there is one pre-eminent institution, or that vast and varied schools can be seeded like football teams.

學界中人往往對層出不窮的高校排行榜不以爲然。儘管這些人所在的大學不遺餘力地追逐好名次，但他們堅稱自己甚少注意這些排名。他們對大學體系中存在一所超羣絕倫的大學，數量衆多、各式各樣的學校可以像橄欖球隊那樣排列名次這類觀點嗤之以鼻。

That has not stopped a growing list of organizations from taking a crack at it, and for what it's worth, in recent years ranking systems from U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, and Newsweek and The Daily Beast have, at various times, placed Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Williams, Yale and the United States Military Academy at the top of the heap.

這並沒有阻止越來越多的組織在這一領域一試身手。近些年來，《美國新聞與世界報道》(U.S. News & World Report)、《福布斯》(Forbes)、《新聞週刊》(Newsweek)和《每日野獸》(The Daily Beast)在不同時間把哈佛、普林斯頓(Princeton)、斯坦福、威廉姆斯(Williams)、耶魯(Yale)和西點軍校(United States Military Academy)置於傲視羣雄的榜首位置。

Stanford basks in its image as the hub of Silicon Valley, alma mater to a string of technology moguls; incubator of giants like Google, Yahoo and Cisco; and beneficiary of their success and philanthropy. In fact, while the university declined to comment for this article, administrators and professors there have voiced concerns that too much of the university's appeal is based on students' hopes of striking it rich in Silicon Valley.

位於硅谷中心的斯坦福大學沐浴在各種光環之下：一連串科技大佬的母校；谷歌(Google)、雅虎(Yahoo)和思科(Cisco)等公司的孵化器；他們的成功和慈善事業的受益者。事實上，雖然這所大學拒絕對本文發表評論，但該校的管理層和教授已經表達了另一種擔憂：斯坦福大學的吸引力過多地基於學生們的硅谷致富夢。

Other colleges would love to have such problems.

其他大學很想碰到這樣的問題。

"There has been an explosion of interest in engineering and related areas," said Alan M. Garber, Harvard's provost. "We simply have had a hard time keeping up with that demand."

“對工程及相關領域的興趣一直呈爆炸式增長，”哈佛大學教務長艾倫·M·加伯(Alan M. Garber)說。“我們根本無法跟上這種需求。”

At the same time, he said, Harvard has a number of joint projects with its neighbor the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and "it doesn't make sense for us to duplicate a lot of what M.I.T. does within Harvard."

與此同時，哈佛與它的鄰居美國麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)合作設立了許多項目，“對於我們來說，在哈佛內部大量重複麻省理工學院正在做的事情沒有任何意義。”

Undergraduates here are aware of the contrasts with Stanford (and Yale and Princeton and M.I.T.), but they vary widely in how seriously they take the topic.

哈佛的本科生都知道該校跟斯坦福（以及耶魯、普林斯頓和麻省理工學院）的差別，但在對待這個話題的嚴肅程度上，他們存在很大的不同。

Max Shayer, a senior from Alaska, graduated on Thursday after studying engineering and plans to work for a big oil company. But his younger brother has chosen to attend Stanford over Harvard, among other colleges, where he is likely to study engineering.

來自阿拉斯加的大四學生馬克斯·沙耶爾(Max Shayer)上週四正式畢業。這位工程專業學生計劃去一家大型石油公司工作。但他的弟弟已經選擇上斯坦福大學，可能會學習工程專業，他捨棄的衆多院校中就包括哈佛大學。

Mr. Shayer said he was pleased with his own engineering education but said he felt that big industrial companies, like Boeing, recruited more heavily at Stanford because of its legacy. "I would like to see Harvard build relationships with these long-established industries," he said.

沙耶爾說，他對自己接受的工程教育非常滿意。但他覺得，像波音公司( Boeing)這樣的大企業傳統上更側重於招聘斯坦福大學的畢業生。“我希望哈佛能夠跟這些歷史悠久的產業建立關係，”他說。

And, noting the incremental and inscrutable annual changes in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, others were skeptical about the idea of putting any particular university, or pair of universities, at the top of a national heap.

其他人則以《美國新聞與世界報道》排行榜每年高深莫測的增量變化爲例，紛紛質疑把任何特定大學或一對大學置於全國高校之上這種想法。

"It really depends on what you're looking to do," said Patrick Galvin, a graduating Harvard senior from California. "The top 10 schools are so incredible — they're separated by very little."

“這真的取決於你打算學習什麼專業，”來自加州的哈佛應屆畢業生帕特里克·高爾文(Patrick Galvin)說。“排名前十的學校都非常優秀，它們的差別微乎其微。”

About 5 percent of Harvard's undergraduate degrees are awarded in computer science or engineering, compared with about 27 percent at Stanford. At Stanford, about 90 percent of undergraduate students take at least one computer programming class, compared with about half at Harvard.

在哈佛大學，大約5%的本科學位被授予給計算機科學或工程專業學生，而斯坦福大學的這一比例大約爲27%。在斯坦福大學，大約90%的本科生至少選修一門計算機編程課，而這樣做的哈佛學生僅有一半左右。

The disparity has deep cultural roots at many liberal arts institutions: Anything that looked like practical career preparation was seen as something less than real undergraduate education. Stanford, which established an engineering school in the 1920s, was never like that. In fact, it has become one of many universities that worry about how far the pendulum has swung away from the humanities.

在許多文理院校，這種差距具有深厚的文化根源：凡是看起來務實的職業生涯準備，都不算是真正的本科教育。早在1920年代就開設了工程學院的斯坦福大學從來沒有這樣的傳統。事實上，和許多大學一樣，它開始擔心大學教育的鐘擺是否已經過度遠離人文學科。

Harvard administrators have worked for years to expand offerings in computer science and engineering, but the going has been slow. Harvard created its School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 2007, and it is planning a new campus across the Charles River, in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, largely for those studies.

哈佛大學管理層多年來一直努力擴展計算機科學和工程類學科教育，但進展緩慢。2007年，哈佛創建了工程與應用科學學院(School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)，目前正計劃在查爾斯河對面的波斯頓的奧斯頓社區設立一個主要從事這類學科教育的新校區。

Harvard professors in a variety of fields said that a little fear of a competitor was a healthy thing, and that the university was less complacent about its leadership than it once was.

哈佛大學從事各個領域研究的教授們表示，有點害怕競爭對手是一件健康的事情，這所大學對於它的領導力已經不像過去那麼自滿了。

"I think there's a halo effect that doesn't do Harvard any good, because Harvard has, at times, had pockets of mediocrity that it could get away with," said Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology and a noted author on that field and linguistics.

“我認爲光環效應對於哈佛大學沒有一點好處，因爲它有時會爲哈佛的一小部分平庸學科提供廕庇，”心理學教授，心理學和語言學領域的著名作家史蒂芬·品克(Steven Pinker)這樣說到。

Jill Lepore, the noted historian and Harvard professor, said that the gap between the real Harvard and the imagined one — the university in the film "The Social Network," she wrote, "is utterly unfamiliar to me" — was very, very old. She cited Benjamin Franklin, who as a teenager was frustrated that he could not attend Harvard College and lampooned it instead in one of his letters to The New-England Courant under the pseudonym Silence Dogood.

哈佛大學教授、著名歷史學家吉爾·萊波雷(Jill Lepore)表示，真正的哈佛和想象中的哈佛之間的差距是非常非常古老的。電影《社交網絡》(The Social Network)中的那所大學“對我來說，相當之陌生，”她寫道。她舉了本傑明·富蘭克林(Benjamin Franklin)的例子：不能上哈佛學院讓少年富蘭克林非常沮喪，於是他就借用筆名“無名好漢”(Silence Dogood)給《新英格蘭報》(The New-England Courant)寫了一封信，對這所學校大加諷刺。

He wrote of dull-witted children educated at great expense, who "learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a room genteelly," but emerge "as great blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited."

他寫道，那些花費巨大代價在這裏接受教育的蠢孩子“僅僅學會了怎樣才能顯得派頭十足，如何彬彬有禮地進入一個房間，”但最終“還是那個榆木腦袋，只不過變得更加驕傲和自負”。

Decades later, his view of Harvard apparently changed, Franklin became one of its patrons.

幾十年後，他對哈佛的看法明顯改觀，富蘭克林成爲了該校的贊助人之一。