英汉互译实践与技巧学 院：水利与建筑工程学院专业班级：电气xxx 班 姓 名：xxx 学 号：201xxxxxxxReasons for the Excellence of US Higher EducationBy Chuck M.VesExcellence extends beyond individual scholars and in stitutions it extends to systems. A basic question I have been asked innumerable times, especially when traveling abroad, is, Why is Americas system of higher education so good? It is, as has been said all too often, the envy of the world.I think there are seven primary reasons for the excellence of US higher education relative to that in other countries:We have a broad diversity of institutions ranging from small liberal arts colleges to Ivy League schools, to the great land grant universities, and to somewhat more focused institutions like MIT or Caltech. This diversity provides a wealth of environments and opportunities, from which individual students can select a school that best matches their needs and capabilities.We offer new assistant professors a wide open field of freedom to choose what they teach and the topics of research and scholarship they engage. We reject the hierarchical systems of many other nations in which junior faculty are subservient to, and indeed apprenticed to, senior professors. We therefore enjoy a constant flow of new ideas, passions, and approaches that keep us fresh and robust.In our research universities we meaningfully weave togetherteaching and research. This too brings a freshness, intensity, and constant renewal that is a critical component of institutional excellence.We welcome to our nation and our institutions students, scholars, and faculty from other countries. It is not possible to overstate the intellectual and cultural richness that immigrants have brought to US campuses. They have joined us to create what we are. Even the constant flow of international visitors to our campuses, and our faculty to theirs, is critically important.We have an implicit national science and technology policy that recognizes the support of frontier research in our universities as an important responsibility of the federal government. This policy is intended to provide financial support to researchers, in whatever institution they are located, based on their merit in a competitive marketplace of[7]ideas. It has the additional feature, elegant in its simplicity, that funding for infrastructure is attached to grants and contracts, and therefore flows to the researchers with the most meritorious ideas and track records.We have a tradition of individual philanthropy through which our alumni and others who believe in excellent education support our colleges and universities. They enable talented students from families of modest means to attend even the most costly schools. We have tax laws that encourage and enable such support, to an extent that is unique in theworld.We have a system of free competition for faculty and students. Such inter institutional competition, though it may be the bane of academic administrators’ daily lives, drives excellence.Most of these seven factors are constantly in danger. The political winds shift and change raising barriers to international flow of students and scholars, corrupting the merit-based, peer-reviewed award of federal research funds through rampant/pork barrel 0congressional ear-marking of projects and facilities, and raising the specter of price controls on higher education rather than emphasizing financial aid for needy students. Some private foundations and philanthropists blow hot and cold on supporting the academic enterprise, and often suppress creative forces by being overly prescriptive. Governing boards, especially in public institutions, occasionally at-tempt to interfere inappropriately with the freedom of faculty to choose the subjects of their research and teaching.All those who believe that it is important for the United States to have the best system of higher education in the world must therefore be constantly vigilant and advocate effectively for sustaining these elements of success.译文：美国高等教育优异的原因仅有优异的学者和大学是不够的,还应有优异的制度。
人们无数次地特别是我在国外旅行时问我一个基本问题:美国高等教育制度优异的原因是什么?正如人们常说的那样,它的确令世人羡慕。
我认为,与其他国家相比,美国高等教育制度之所以优异主要有以下七个原因:我们有多种多样的学府,包括小型文科学院、常春藤盟校和政府拨赠土地的大学,还有较专业的大学如麻省理工学院(MIT)或加州理工学院(Caltech)。
这种多样性提供了大量的环境和机遇,学生可以藉此选择最适合其需要和能力的学校。
我们给新助理教授提供完全开放的自由空间选择教学内容、挑选研究课题和学术领域。
而其他许多国家等级森严,资历浅的教员须给资深的教授打下手,实际上当学徒,我们反对这种做法。
所以,我们新思维、新激情和新方法不断涌现,因而常新而始终强健。
在我们的研究型大学里,教学和研究有机地结合在一起,从而使教学内容有新鲜感,研究不断深入,知识一直更新。