Universities Branch OutA．As never before in their long history, universities have become i
Universities Branch Out
A．As never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of national
competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the place of the scientific
discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of educating the talent
required to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. But at the same time, the opening of
national borders to the flow of goods, services, information and especially people has
made universities a powerful force for global integration, mutual understanding and
geopolitical stability.
B．In response to the same forces that have driven the world economy, universities have
become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent
the entire range of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them
for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an
interconnected world and collaborative (合作的)research programs to advance science for
the benefit of all humanity.
C．Of the forces shaping higher education none is more sweeping than the movement across
borders. Over the past three decades the number of students leaving home each year to study
abroad has grown at an annual rate of 3.9 percent, from 800,000 in 1975 to 2.5 million in
2004. Most travel from one developed nation to another, but the flow from developing to
developed countries is growing rapidly. The reverse flow, from developed to developing
countries, is on the rise, too.
Today foreign students earn 30 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in the United States
and 38 percent of those in the United Kingdom. And the number crossing borders for
undergraduate study is growing as well, to 8 percent of the undergraduates at America’s
best institutions and 10 percent of all undergraduates in the U.K. In the United States, 20
percent of the newly hired professors in science and engineering are foreign-born, and in
China many newly hired faculty members at the top research universities received their
graduate education abroad.
D．Universities are also encouraging students to spend some of their undergraduate years in
another country. In Europe, more than 140,000 students participate in the Erasmus program
each year, taking courses for credit in one of 2,200 participating institutions across the
continent. And in the United States, institutions are helping place students in summer
internships (实习) abroad to prepare them for global careers. Yale and Harvard have led the
way, offering every undergraduate at least one international study or internship
opportunity—and providing the financial resources to make it possible.
E．Globalization is also reshaping the way research is done. One new trend involves
sourcing portions of a research program to another country. Yale professor and Howard
Hughes Medical Institute investigator Tian Xu directs a research center focused on the
genetics of human disease at Shanghai’s Fudan University, in collaboration with faculty
colleagues from both schools. The Shanghai center has 95 employees and graduate students
working in a 4,300-square-meter laboratory facility. Yale faculty, postdoctors and graduate
students visit regularly and attend videoconference seminars with scientists from both
campuses. The arrangement benefits both countries; Xu’s Yale lab is more productive,
thanks to the lower costs of conducting research in China, and Chinese graduate students,
postdoctors and faculty get on-the-job training from a world-class scientist and his U.S.
team.
F．As a result of its strength in science, the United States has consistently led the world
in the commercialization of major new technologies, from the mainframe. computer and the
integrated circuit of the 1960s to the Internet infrastructure (基础设施) and applications
software of the 1990s. The link between university-based science and industrial application
is often indirect but sometimes highly visible: Silicon Valley was intentionally created by
Stanford University, and Route 128 outside Boston has long housed companies spun off from
MIT and Harvard. Around the world, governments have encouraged copying of this model,
perhaps most successfully in Cambridge, England, where Microsoft and scores of other
leading software and biotechnology companies have set up shop around the university.
G． For all its success, the United States remains deeply hesitant about sustaining the
research-university model. Most politicians recognize the link between investment in
science and national economic strength, but support for research funding has been unsteady.
The budget of the National Institutes of Health doubled between 1998 and 2003, but has
risen more slowly than inflation since then. Support for the physical sciences and
engineering barely kept pace with inflation during that same period. The attempt to make up
lost ground is welcome, but the nation would be better served by steady, predictable
increases in science funding at the rate of long-term GDP growth, which is on the order of
inflation plus 3 percent per year.
H．American politicians have great difficulty recognizing that admitting more foreign
students can greatly promote the national interest by increasing international
understanding. Adjusted for inflation, public funding for international exchanges and
foreign-language study is well below the levels of 40 years ago. In the wake of September
11, changes in the visa process caused a dramatic decline in the number of foreign students
seeking admission to U.S. universities, and a corresponding surge in enrollments in
Australia, Singapore and the U.K. Objections from American university and business leaders
led to improvements in the process and a reversal of the decline, but the United States is
still seen by many as unwelcoming to international students.
I． Most Americans recognize that universities contribute to the nation’s well-being
through their scientific research, but many fear that foreign students threaten American
competitiveness by taking their knowledge and skills back home. They fail to grasp that
welcoming foreign students to the United States has two important positive effects: first,
the very best of them stay in the States and—like immigrants throughout history—
strengthen the nation; and second, foreign students who study in the United States become
ambassadors for many of its most cherished (珍视) values when they return home. Or at least
they understand them better. In America as elsewhere, few instruments of foreign policy are
as effective in promoting peace and stability as welcoming international university
students.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 2上作答。
46.American universities prepare their undergraduates for global careers by giving them
chances for international study or internship.
47.Since the mid-1970s, the enrollment of overseas students has increased at an annual
rate of 3.9 percent.
48.The enrollment of international students will have a positive impact on America rather
than threaten its competitiveness.
49.The way research is carried out in universities has changed as a result of
globalization.
50.Of the newly hired professors in science and engineering in the United States, twenty
percent come from foreign countries.
51.The number of foreign students applying to U.S. universities decreased sharply after
September 11 due to changes in the visa process.
52.The U.S. federal funding for research has been unsteady for years.
53.Around the world, governments encourage the model of linking university-based science
and industrial application.
54.Present-day universities have become a powerful force for global integration.
55.When foreign students leave America, they will bring American values back to their home
countries.
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