清華大學與華盛頓大學在西雅圖合作辦學
SEATTLE — With hometown companies like Amazon and Microsoft, this bustling region on the Puget Sound easily ranks in the top tier of technology hubs in the United States.
西雅圖——作爲亞馬遜(Amazon)和微軟(Microsoft)等公司的家鄉，位於普及灣(Puget Sound)的這個繁榮區域，可以輕鬆躋身美國一流科技中心之列。But the area lags its peers in one glaring way: It is home to a single major research university, the University of Washington, while nearly every other big technology scene in the country has at least two.
但與美國其他大型科技中心相比，它有一個明顯的薄弱環節：這裏只有一所重要的研究型大學，即華盛頓大學(University of Washington)，而其他中心至少有兩所這種檔次的大學。
For years, that weakness has stoked local unease about whether the gap between the supply of people with computer-related degrees and the surge in demand for those skills could impede the region’s economy. “We’ve long realized we’re at a relative competitive disadvantage when it comes to higher education,” said Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel.
多年來，這個薄弱環節令當地人感到不安，因爲這裏對計算機相關人才的需求激增，而對人才的培養卻不足，其差距有可能會阻礙該地區的經濟發展。“我們早就意識到，在高等教育方面，我們相對處在劣勢，”微軟總法律顧問布拉德福德·L·史密斯(Bradford L. Smith)說。
On Thursday, Seattle’s top academic and business leaders unveiled a plan to create a new institute of learning, with the goal of strengthening the educational foundation of the region’s high-tech economy. The institute, the Global Innovation Exchange, is a partnership between the University of Washington and one of China’s leading research universities, Tsinghua University. It will open in fall 2016 with a master’s degree program in technology innovation.
本週四，西雅圖學術界和商業界的領袖，公佈了建立一所新高校的計劃，目的是加強該地區高科技經濟的教育基礎。這所機構名爲全球創新學院(Global Innovation Exchange)，是華盛頓大學和中國一流的研究型院校清華大學合作成立的，將在2016年秋季開學，開設技術創新相關的碩士學位課程。Microsoft will contribute $40 million to help the institute get started. Some of the money will go toward creating a base for the institute in a large new urban development project in Bellevue, Wash., about 10 miles from the University of Washington’s main campus. Faculty for the school will come from the University of Washington, Tsinghua and, eventually, a couple other international universities the Global Innovation Exchange expects to attract as partners.
微軟將出資4000萬美元（約合2.5億元人民幣）幫助該學院起步，其中部分資金將用於爲該學院修建基地。這將是一個新的大型城市開發項目，位於華盛頓州貝爾維尤，距離華盛頓大學主校區大約10英里（約合16公里）。全球創新學院的教師將來自華盛頓大學、清華大學，以及該院期望吸引參與合作的其他幾所國際性大學。It will start with only a few dozen Students, but the institute has a goal of more than 3,000 a decade from now. Tsinghua is expected to help recruit Chinese students to the institute, providing an important global aspect, said Ana Mari Cauce, interim president of the University of Washington.
它最初只招收幾十名學生，但計劃在十年裏增加到逾3000名。清華大學將幫助該學院招收中國學生，這提供了一個重要的全球性維度，華盛頓大學的臨時校長安娜·瑪麗·科斯(Ana Mari Cauce)表示。“This will be the first time a Chinese university has a physical spot in the U.S.,” Dr. Cauce said in an interview before the public announcement of the institute. “That’s a big deal.”
“這是中國大學首次在美國擁有了一個實體立足點，”在公開宣佈該學院成立的消息之前，科斯博士在接受採訪時說。“這是一件大事。”The institute will not initially grant undergraduate degrees, which will limit its potential to make a dent in the region’s deficit of technology talent, at least in the near term. But the participants in the project said it was too early to predict what the institute could eventually become. “Fundamentally, it’s about looking ahead a decade and a century,” Mr. Smith said.
該學院最初不會授予本科學位，這將限制其改善該地區技術人才缺口的潛力，至少在短期內是這樣。但該項目的參與者說，現在爲時尚早，還無法預言該機構最終會達到怎樣的狀態。“根本而言，它面向的是未來10年、100年。”史密斯說。A 2013 report by the Washington Student Achievement Council, a state agency focused on education, said the state needed to produce more than 2,700 additional bachelor’s degrees annually in computer science to meet projected employer demand in the region through 2021. The University of Washington currently awards about 300 computer science degrees a year.
華盛頓州學生成就理事會(Washington Student Achievement Council)是該州政府一所關注教育的機構，其2013年的一份報告稱，該州每年需要另外再培養2700名計算機科學學士，才能滿足該地區僱主2021年前的預計需求量。華盛頓大學目前每年向大約300名學生授予計算機科學學位。Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, an online real estate company based in Seattle, said he had never seen a region so solely dependent on one research institution. “I was shocked when I got here,” Mr. Kelman said. “Really, it’s Microsoft and Amazon and a dozen other companies our size and hundreds of even smaller ones picking over the same group of graduating computer scientists. It’s an incredibly small group of people.”
總部位於西雅圖的在線房地產公司Redfin的首席執行官格倫·凱爾曼(Glenn Kelman)表示，他從未見過一個地區如此單一地只依賴一所研究機構。“來到這裏的時候我震驚了，”凱爾曼說。“真的，微軟、亞馬遜、十幾家和我們規模一樣大，以及數百家規模更小的公司，都在從同一批計算機科學畢業生中選人。畢業生少得令人難以置信。”Silicon Valley’s development is closely linked to the strength of two institutes of higher education, one public and the other private, the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford. The University of Washington, a public university, has one of the top computer science programs in the country. But it turns away a significant number of students applying for computer science because it has not had enough money to increase capacity.
硅谷的發展和兩家高等教育機構的實力密切相關，它們分別是公立的加州大學伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)和私立的斯坦福大學(Stanford)。作爲一所公立大學，華盛頓大學有在全美名列前茅的計算機科學課程。但因爲沒有足夠的資金擴充教學能力，學校會拒絕大量申請計算機科學的學生。The university is seeking to graduate more computer science students through an effort separate from the Global Innovation Exchange. Last week, it announced that Microsoft was the lead donor, with a $10 million gift, for a $110 million effort to build a new 130,000-square-foot computer science building, one that will allow the university to double, to 600, the number of degrees it awards annually in the field.
華盛頓大學正尋求通過全球創新學院之外的另一個項目，培養更多計算機科學專業的學生。上週，該校宣佈，將花費1.1億美元修建一座13萬平方英尺（約合1.2萬平方米）的計算機科學大樓，微軟作爲主要捐贈方，將出資1000萬美元。新樓將使該校每年的計算機科學畢業生人數翻倍，增至600人。The institute will not concentrate on long-term research at first, focusing instead on “project-based learning,” in which students work on intensive, short-term undertakings. The first students will work on projects related to wearable technology and the Internet of things.
全球創新學院初期不會把精力集中在長期研究上，而是會關注於“基於項目的學習”，期間學生會參與大量高強度的短期項目。第一批學生將參與和可穿戴技術及物聯網有關的項目。“China and the United States are two leading economies with enormous strengths in technological innovation,” said Qiu Yong, president of Tsinghua University. “The higher educational collaboration between them facilitates the scientific and technological progress and social development around the world.”
“中國和美國這兩個主要經濟體在科技創新方面都有巨大的優勢，”清華大學校長邱勇說。“兩國之間的高等教育合作會促進全世界的科技進步和社會發展。”The Global Innovation Exchange was inspired partly by Cornell Tech, an effort to create a major new computer science-focused campus on Roosevelt Island in New York. That project, which had its groundbreaking this week, also has an international partner in Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The Cornell project will involve close collaborations with technology companies, partly to make it more responsive to industry trends.
全球創新學院的設想，在一定程度上是受了康奈爾科技學院(Cornell Tech)的啓發。該項目計劃在紐約的羅斯福島上創辦一個主要服務於計算機科學的新校區。已於本週動工的該項目，也有一個國際合作夥伴，以色列理工學院(Technion-Israel Institute of Technology)。康奈爾的項目將包括與科技公司的密切協作，這在一定程度上是爲了讓自己能更敏捷地應對行業趨勢。Daniel P. Huttenlocher, the dean of Cornell Tech, said he was excited to see the institute in the Seattle area get off the ground.
康奈爾科技學院的院長丹尼爾·P·胡滕洛赫爾(Daniel P. Huttenlocher)表示，看到西雅圖地區這個項目啓動，他感到很興奮。“These are leading-edge experiments in how to educate students for a new kind of world,” said Dr. Huttenlocher, who spoke with the University of Washington educators as they were planning the project.
“在如何爲新世界培養學生方面，這些都是前沿試驗，”胡滕洛赫爾說。華盛頓大學的教師在對項目進行規劃時，胡滕洛赫爾曾與他們有過交流。In a nod to one of the top technical universities in the country, M.I.T., the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the founders of the Global Innovation Exchange have already taken to referring to it by the initials G.I.X. They even occasionally pronounce the name as “geeks.”
創始人已經開始習慣用首字母縮寫GIX來指代全球創新學院了，這是在效仿以MIT來指代美國首屈一指的科技類院校麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)。他們甚至偶爾還會把這個名字讀作geeks（意爲“極客”——譯註）。“These days geeks rule,” Dr. Cauce said.
“現如今是極客的世界，”科斯說。
