哈佛大学现任校长：德鲁·吉尔平·福斯特

　　In the curious custom of this venerable institution, I find myself standing bore you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. Here I am in a pulpit, dressed like a Puritan minister — an apparition that would have horrified many of my distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increase and Cotton into a true “Mather lather.” But here I am and there you are and it is the moment of and for Veritas.

　　在这所久负盛名的大学的别具一格的仪式上，我站在了你们的面前，被期待着给予一些蕴含着恒久智慧的言论。站在这个讲坛上，我穿得像个清教徒教长——一个可能会吓到我的杰出前辈们的怪物，或许使他们中的一些人重新致力于铲除巫婆的事业上。这个时刻也许曾激励了很多清教徒成为教长。但现在，我在上面，你们在下面，此时此刻，属于真理，为了真理。

　　You have been undergraduates for four years. I have been president for not quite one. You have known three presidents; I one senior class. Where then lies the voice of experience? Maybe you should be offering the wisdom. Perhaps our roles could be reversed and I could, in Harvard Law School style, do cold calls for the next hour or so.

　　你们已经在哈佛做了四年的大学生，而我当哈佛校长还不到一年。你们认识了三个校长，而我只认识了你们这一届大四的。算起来我哪有资格说什么经验之谈?或许应该由你们上来展示一下智慧。要不我们换换位置?然后我就可以像哈佛法学院的学生那样，在接下来的一个小时内不时地冷不防地提出问题。

　　We all do seem to have made it to this point — more or less in one piece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it quite so literally.

　　学校和学生们似乎都在努力让时间来到这一时刻，而且还差不多是步调一致的。我这两天才得知哈佛从5月22日开始就不向你们提供伙食了。虽然有比喻说“我们早晚得给你们断奶”，但没想到我们的后勤还真的早早就把“奶”给断了。

　　But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let’s imagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form of Q & A, and you were asking the questions. “What is the meaning of life, President Faust? What were these four years at Harvard for? President Faust, you must have learned something since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?” (Forty years. I’ll say it out loud since every detail of my life — and certainly the year of my Bryn Mawr degree — now seems to be publicly available. But please remember I was young for my class.)

　　现在还是让我们回到我刚才提到的提问题的事上吧。让我们设想下这是个哈佛大学给本科生的毕业服务，是以问答的形式。你们将问些问题，比如：“福校长啊，人生的价值是什么呢?我们上这大学四年是为了什么呢?福校长，你大学毕业到现在的40年里一定学到些什么东西可以教给我们吧?”

　　In a way, you have been engaging me in this Q & A for the past year. On just these questions, although you have phrased them a bit more narrowly. And I have been trying to figure out how I might answer and, perhaps more intriguingly, why you were asking.

　　在某种程度上，在过去的一年里你们一直都在让我从事这种问答。从仅仅这些问题上，即使你们措辞问题都倾向于狭义，而我除了思考怎么做出回答外，更激发我去思考的，是你们为什么问这些问题。

　　Let me explain. It actually began when I met with the UC just after my appointment was announced in the winter of 2007. Then the questions continued when I had lunch at Kirkland House, dinner at Leverett, when I met with students in my office hours, even with some recent graduates I encountered abroad. The first thing you asked me about wasn’t the curriculum or advising or faculty contact or even student space. In fact, it wasn’t even alcohol policy. Instead, you repeatedly asked me: Why are so many of us going to Wall Street? Why are we going in such numbers from Harvard to finance, consulting, i-banking?

　　听我解释。提问从2007年冬天我的任职被公布时与校方的会面就开始了。然后提问一直持续，不论是我在Kirkland House(哈佛的12个本科生宿舍之一)吃午饭还是在Leverett House(哈佛的12个本科生宿舍之一，本科高年级学生使用)吃晚饭，或是当我在办公时间与学生会见，甚至是我在与国外认识的刚考来的研究生的谈话中。你们问的第一个问题不是关于课业，不是让我提建议，也不是为了和教员接触，甚至是想向我提建议。事实上，更不是为了和我讨论酒精政策。相反，你们不厌其烦问的却是：为什么我们之中这么多人将去华尔街?为什么我们大量的学生都从哈佛走向了金融，理财咨询，投行?

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