《经济学人》双语：新加坡第一所文科耶鲁国立大学为什么要关闭？

《经济学人》双语：新加坡第一所文科学院--耶鲁国立大学为什么要关闭？

文/Irene-自由英语之路

【本篇内容简述】

【Para1】引入：从耶鲁—新加坡国大学院讲起，大学关闭，合并课程在2022年前组建一所新学院。并介绍了该学校，成立于2013，是耶鲁大学与新加坡国立大学之间的纽带。

【Para2】建校的原因：测试美国式的文科教育能否在亚洲扎根。

【Para3&4&5】关闭学校的原因：国立大学做出的决定，一是耶鲁—新加坡国大学院是“排他性的”，不包容。二是财务不可持续。三是师生们怀疑可能是由于政治因素。

【Para6】政治因素例子：总理李显龙的讲话和该学院取消了一位著名剧作家教授的异议课程。

【Para7】结尾与评论：没有问师生们的意见，甚至院长开始都不知道。最后一句耐人寻味，带点讽刺意味，政治良知所能得到的回报是沉默。

（文末的补充材料对理解本文有帮助）

标题：

Higher education in Singapore

Lessons learnt

Yale-NUS, Singapore’s first liberal-arts college closes its doors

新加坡的高等教育

吸取的教训

新加坡第一所文科学院耶鲁-新加坡国立大学学院关闭

Students are up in arms

学生们在奋起反抗

原文日期：2021年9月4日

Paragraph 1：

CLASSES THE next day were cancelled, the email said, and everyone was encouraged to attend a town hall instead.

邮件上说，第二天的课被取消了，每个人都被鼓励去市政厅上课。

A wave of speculation rippled through the student body at Yale-NUS, a college set up in 2013 as a tie-up between Yale University and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

在耶鲁—新加坡国大学院（见文末补充资料）的学生身上，一股投机浪潮席卷而来，这所大学成立于2013，是耶鲁大学与新加坡国立大学之间的纽带。

At the meeting on August 27th administrators announced that the college’s programmes will be combined with another at NUS to form a new institution by 2022.

在8月27日的会议上，管理人员宣布，该学院的课程将与国立大学的其他课程合并，在2022年前组建一所新学院。

When the current crop of first-years graduate, Yale-NUS will cease to exist.

当目前的第一年毕业生毕业时，耶鲁—新加坡国大学院将不复存在。

Paragraph 2:

Most undergraduate students in Singapore choose specialised courses of study, such as medicine or law.

新加坡的大多数本科生选择专业课程，如医学或法律。

Some universities had begun experimenting with interdisciplinary curriculums but it was with Yale-NUS, the city-state’s first liberal-arts college, that Singapore signalled its commitment to a new approach.

一些大学已经开始尝试跨学科课程，但正是在耶鲁—新加坡国大学院，新加坡第一所文科学院的帮助下，新加坡才表明了其对新方法的承诺。

Its launch was billed as a grand experiment testing whether an American-style liberal-arts education could sink roots in Asia.

它的推出被宣传为一项宏大的实验，测试美国式的文科教育能否在亚洲扎根。

Paragraph 3:

The decision to close the college was made by NUS, which is consolidating six departments, Yale-NUS among them, into three new colleges.

关闭这所学院的决定是由国立大学做出的，该校正在将六个系合并为三所新学院，其中包括耶鲁—新加坡国大学院。

The restructuring, which affects about 18,000 students or half the student body, is in fact a mark of the university’s commitment to the liberal arts, argues Chan Heng Chee, a diplomat who sits on the college’s board.

该校董事会成员、外交官陈恒志认为，此次重组影响了约18000名学生，占学生总数的一半，实际上是该校致力于发展文科的标志。

The purpose is to make “liberal-arts education more accessible [to Singaporeans] and more inclusive”, she says. Yale-NUS is “exclusive”, she argues.

她说，目的是让“新加坡人更容易接受文科教育，也更包容”。她认为耶鲁—新加坡国大学院是“排他性的”。

It admits at most 1,000 students a year, 40% of whom are foreign. The new college will enroll twice as many students and will, if NUS fees are anything to go by, charge them less.

它每年最多招收1000名学生，其中40%是外国人。这所新学院将招收两倍的学生，如果新加坡国立大学的学费可以接受的话，它将收取更少的学费。

Paragraph 4:

Another reason to close the college was its “financial unsustainability”, says Ms Chan.

陈女士说，关闭该学院的另一个原因是“财务不可持续”。

Yale-NUS had hoped eventually to secure as much private funding as do top-tier American liberal-arts colleges, but by March had raised just a measly $320m.

耶鲁—新加坡国大学院曾希望最终能获得与美国顶级文科学院一样多的私人资金，但到了3月份，它只筹集了区区3.2亿美元。

Concern about the financial model “started the conversation” about what to do with the college, says Ms Chan.

陈女士表示，对财务模式的担忧“引发了关于如何处理学院的讨论”。

But Pericles Lewis, the first president of Yale-NUS, who also sits on the board, notes that it had “a few years left” to achieve its fundraising targets, and could have doubled the number of students it admits.

但耶鲁—新加坡国大学院的第一任校长伯里克利斯·刘易斯（也担任董事会成员），他指出，该校还有“几年时间”来实现其筹款目标，招生人数本可以翻一番。

Paragraph 5:

Some professors and students suspect there were other considerations at play. Political activism is frowned upon in Singapore, which has been ruled by the same party since 1959.

一些教授和学生怀疑还有其他因素在起作用。新加坡自1959年以来一直由同一政党统治，政治激进主义在新加坡是不受欢迎的。

Yale-NUS students were more likely to express their political views and were better organised than their peers at other universities, says Cherian George, the author of a recent report on academic freedom in Singapore.

最近一份关于新加坡学术自由的报告的作者切里安·乔治说，耶鲁—新加坡国大学院的学生比其他大学的同龄人更容易表达他们的政治观点，组织条理性也更好。

Ms Chan pooh-poohs the notion that the government was keen to muzzle mouthy students. The government, she says, knew what it was signing up for when it launched the college.

陈女士对政府热衷于压制夸夸其谈的学生的说法嗤之以鼻。她说，政府在创办这所学院时就知道自己在做什么。

Paragraph 6:

At the opening of the new campus in 2015 Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, said that the college would have “to adapt the Yale model to Asia”.

2015年，新加坡总理李显龙在新校区开幕式上表示，该学院将“使耶鲁模式适应亚洲”。

Four years later the college appeared to do just that when it cancelled a course on dissent taught by a prominent playwright because, it said, it was not sufficiently rigorous.

学校似乎就是这么做的，四年后，该学院取消了一位著名剧作家教授的异议课程，因为该课程不够严格。

Responding to allegations that the college had caved to political pressure, Mr Lewis conducted an investigation which yielded no evidence of government coercion.

针对有关该学院屈服于政治压力的指控，刘易斯进行了一项调查，没有发现政府胁迫的证据。

Yet Ong Ye Kung, then the education minister, supported cancelling the course, declaring in Parliament that “political conscientisation”—when people become aware of how they are oppressed—“is not the taxpayer’s idea of what education means”.

然而，时任教育部长的翁业功支持取消这门课程，在议会上宣布，“政治良知”——当人们意识到自己受到压迫时——“不是纳税人对教育意义的理解”。

Paragraph 7:

News of the closure came as a shock to students and teachers, who were not consulted. Neither was the college president, Tan Tai Yong, who was reportedly “gobsmacked and flabbergasted” when informed in July.

学校关闭的消息让学生和老师感到震惊，因为没有询问师生们的意见。也没有询问学院院长谭泰勇的意见，据报道他在7月份被告知时“目瞪口呆”。

During the virtual town hall, microphones were muted; students had to send questions via a mediator. At the end of the meeting, students could be heard shouting with frustration, according to the college newspaper.

虚拟市政厅期间，麦克风静音；学生们必须通过调解人提出问题。据《校报》报道，在会议结束时，可以听到学生们沮丧地大叫。

All they are likely to get in return for their “conscientisation” on this issue is silence.

他们在这个问题上的“政治良知”所能得到的回报是沉默。

（恭喜读完本篇，英语阅读量704左右）

本文出自《The Economist》Asia版块，仅供个人学习交流使用。

【补充资料】

文章中关于Yale-NUS是什么？（来源于百度百科）

Yale-NUS：耶鲁-新加坡国立大学学院（Yale-NUS College）是新加坡的一所文理学院，由耶鲁大学和新加坡国立大学联合成立于2011年，校址在新加坡国立大学的大学城中。耶鲁—新加坡国大学院是新加坡第一所文理学院，也是美国耶鲁大学建校300余年来首个在海外发展开设的学院，使之成为亚洲首个享有常春藤盟校命名的学校。

耶鲁—新加坡国大学院为四年制寄宿学院。学校设有14个专业，分别是人类学、艺术与人文、经济学、环境研究、国际事务、历史、生命科学、文学、数学计算机与统计、哲学、政经哲（PPE）、物理学、心理学、以及城市研究专业。2013年，该校迎来了第一届学生共157人。目前约50%的在校生为新加坡本土学生，其余50%为国际学生。师生比例约为1：8，班级平均大小为18-20人。

【重点词汇】（13个）

up in arms

竭力反对；进行武装斗争

ripple/rpl/

v.使泛起涟漪；扩散

interdisciplinary/ntdsplnri/involving different areas of knowledge or study.

adj. 各学科间的；跨学科的

bill/bl/ to advertise or describe sb/sth in a particular way.

v. 宣布；用海报宣传(熟词偏义：常见意思是“账单”)

sink roots

扎根

pooh-pooh/pupu/

v. 轻视; 蔑视; 贬低

muzzle/mzl/to prevent sb from expressing their opinions in public as they want to.

vt. 压制；封锁…的言论

mouthy/maθi/ used to describe a person who talks a lot, sometimes expressing their opinions strongly and in a rude way.

adj. 说大话的；夸夸其谈的

rigorous/rɡrs/demanding that particular rules, processes, etc. are strictly followed.

adj. 严格的，严厉的

cave/kev/to finally do what sb wants after you have been strongly opposing them.

v. 让步；屈服；屈从(熟词偏义：常见意思是“山洞”)

coercion/kn/

n. 强迫；高压政治

gobsmacked/ɡbsmkt/so surprised that you do not know what to say.

adj. 目瞪口呆的；大吃一惊的

flabbergasted/flbɡɑstd/extremely surprised and/or shocked .

adj. 目瞪口呆的，大吃一惊的

【重点句子】（3个）

Its launch was billed as a grand experiment testing whether an American-style liberal-arts education could sink roots in Asia.

它的推出被宣传为一项宏大的实验，测试美国式的文科教育能否在亚洲扎根。

Yale-NUS students were more likely to express their political views and were better organised than their peers at other universities.

耶鲁—新加坡国大学院的学生比其他大学的同龄人更容易表达他们的政治观点，组织条理性也更好。

He was reportedly “gobsmacked and flabbergasted” when informed in July.

据报道他在7月份被告知时“目瞪口呆”。

【重点词根】（1+4个）

muzzle压制；封锁…的言论

与词根mord-,mors相同- 源自拉丁语 mordere "to bite."= bite, 表示“咬”，如：

remorserms/ n. 懊悔；同情

mordacious/mdes/ adj. 锐利的；辛辣的

smirch/smt/ v. 弄脏；污蔑，诋毁

mordant/mdnt/ n. 腐蚀剂adj. 尖锐刻薄的; 讥讽的

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