美国文理学院：守望在小型学院的发展路径上——访美国玛卡莱斯特学院校长布莱恩·罗森伯格

记者 王春春 张男星

文理学院有着悠久的历史，曾经在美国高等教育史上占据主导地位，如今仍是美国高等教育体系中独具特色的一类大学，多为私立性质，具有以本科教育为主、规模小、实施住宿制、师生比高、重视教学、坚持博雅教育等特点。在美国高等教育大众化进程中，文理学院数量较之以往大幅减少。在这种情况下，文理学院对学生最大的吸引力是什么？学费昂贵的文理学院真的只是中产阶级的“秘密俱乐部”吗？随着越来越多的大学开始设立类似文理学院的住宿学院，文理学院的独特性体现在哪里？存在的价值是什么？文理学院如何使教师在科研与教学之间保持平衡？如何判断文理学院的办学质量？文理学院特有的共同体氛围是如何形成的？具有怎样的作用？文理学院面临哪些挑战？是坚持小而精，还是转型发展，文理学院未来有怎样的发展趋势？围绕这些问题，本期高端访谈对美国玛卡莱斯特学院(Macalester College，也译为默士达学院)校长布莱恩·罗森伯格进行了专访。

玛卡莱斯特学院校长 布莱恩·罗森伯格

●没有一个地方是适合所有学生的——最重要的是找到适合你的大学。世界上很多人没有机会接受文理学院的这种教育。事实上，获得这种机会既是一种优先权，也是一种责任——回馈社会的责任。我们的目标不是仅仅训练学生获得第一份工作，而是让他们接受训练，为最后一份工作准备，这意味着他们要有能力适应各种变化。我们要让学生知道，文理学院将有益于各个阶层不同背景的学生，而不仅仅是中产阶级和上层阶级学生的选择。

《大学》：罗森伯格校长，您好！您认为文理学院对学生最大的吸引力是什么？

罗森伯格校长：我总是对正在挑选大学的学生说，没有一个地方是适合所有学生的——最重要的是找到适合你的大学。每个人对这个问题的回答都不一样。对我们而言，关键是要准确并如实地介绍玛卡莱斯特学院，让学生自己判断是否适合他们。

对于选择玛卡莱斯特学院的学生，我觉得有几个很重要的因素。显然，那些对小型文理学院感兴趣的学生，他们喜欢小班教学，希望与教师进行大量的交流。他们希望一个不同于大型综合性学校的学习环境。

但是对于那些选择玛卡莱斯特学院的学生，我认为还有一些其他的因素。首先是我们的校址。我们是一所坐落在大城市里的小学院，文理学院很少会坐落在大城市里。明州双城虽然没有北京那么大，但是也有300万人之多。这是很多学生选择玛卡莱斯特学院的原因之一。

另外一个重要因素就是我们高度重视国际化，许多学生因此而来。他们喜欢我们这个学校有来自90多个不同国家的学生。他们喜欢我们有很多不同的国际化课程和活动。要想在21世纪有所发展，不仅需要了解当地社会和美国社会，还需要对国际社会有所了解，作为一所小型文理学院，我们可以提供非常有特色的国际化教育。

这就是我向学生介绍的玛卡莱斯特学院，首先，这是一所文理学院，其次，我们坐落在城市，同时还有国际化的视野。当学生选择大学时，我会告诉他们，如果你想选一个小的文理学院，希望在城市生活，并拥有国际化视野，这所大学非常适合。如果对这些都不感兴趣，那学生多半不会认为这是适合他的学校。我认为对学生如实相告很重要，如果学生不明就里地进入一所大学就读，是不会感到开心的。

University:What do you think attracts students most to liberal arts colleges?

President Rosenberg:I always tell students who are looking for a college that there is no one right place for every student—and the most important thing is to fi nd the college that’s right for you. The answer to that question is not the same for every student. It’s crucial for us to provide an accurate and honest representation of Macalester,so students can decide if it’s the right place for them.

For the students who are drawn to Macalester, there are several factors. Students who are interested in liberal arts colleges want small classes and lots of interaction with faculty members. They want a different environment than a large university.

But at Macalester in particular, there are additional factors that are very important to the students who choose us. One is our location: we are a small college in a large city, and there are very few liberal arts colleges that offer that combination. The Twins Cities aren’t large like Beijing, but there are about three million people. That’s one reason that students are attracted to Macalester.

The other big piece is that we are so internationally focused. Many students enroll because of that. They like the fact that we have students from almost 90 countries. They like that we have so many different internationally focused programs. If you are going to thrive in the 21st century, it’s good to have an understanding of the global community, not just your local community or the American community. We provide that at a pretty unique level for a small college.

That’s what I tell students about Macalester: it’s liberal arts, it’s urban, and it’s international. I tell students that if you want a small liberal arts college, if you want to be in a city, if you want a global focus, this could be a great match. If those things are not interesting to you, then our students probably don’t agree that it’s a good match. It’s important to be honest with students, because no one would be happy if students enroll at a college without knowing what’s behind their choice.

《大学》：每所学校都有其独特之处，文理学院有着怎样的教育使命？

罗森伯格校长：是的。玛卡莱斯特学院的教育使命包括以下四大方面，即追求卓越学术、国际主义、多元文化，以及融入社会。追求学术卓越是最重要的一点，没有卓越的学术水平，其他都是空谈。国际主义也就是强调全球视角，多元文化即吸收不同文化背景的人才，融入社会意味着要服务社会。

我们深信这些价值。当我跟学生谈起我们的使命及其意涵时，我告诉他们，你们在玛卡莱斯特学院接受的是一种非常优越的教育。世界上很多人没有机会接受这种教育。事实上，获得这种机会既是一种优先权，也是一种责任——回馈社会的责任。我们的学生一定要意识到自己的幸运并帮助那些不这么幸运的人。这也是玛卡莱斯特学院的精神之一。我们希望所有学生取得成功，也希望他们帮助别人获得成功。我喜欢说，玛卡莱斯特学院的毕业生不仅在自己的领域非常成功，而且通过各种途径帮助他人回馈社会。这也是这所学校的精神所在。

University:Every college is unique. What’s the mission of liberal arts colleges?

President Rosenberg:At Macalester, we talk about our mission in terms of four pillars: academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism, and civic engagement. Academic excellence is fi rst and foremost—without academic excellence, nothing else really matters. Internationalism emphasizes the global focus;multiculturalism means bringing together people from many different cultures and backgrounds. civic engagement means service for society.

We believe deeply in these values. When I talk to our students about our mission and what it means， I tell them that the kind of education you get at Macalester is a great privilege. Most people in the world don’t have opportunities for that kind of education. This opportunity is a great privilege, but it’s also a responsibility—a responsibility to give back. Our students must recognize that they’re fortunate, and they need to help others who aren’t as fortunate. That’s part of the spirit of Macalester College. We want students to be successful in their own right, but we also want them to help others to be successful. I love to say that Macalester graduates are not only very successful in their fi elds but also fi nd ways to give back in their communities to others in need. That is the spirit of this school.

《大学》：文理学院的学生毕业后一般从事什么工作？

罗森伯格校长：他们从事各行各业的工作。你知道，在玛卡莱斯特学院，有些专业的毕业生直接进入职业生涯。现在，数学专业和计算机科学专业很受欢迎，经济学专业也很热门。这些专业的很多学生毕业后直接从事金融和技术工作。而其他专业的就业倾向不是很明显，譬如我自己所学的英语专业，以及历史和哲学专业。但是我们的目标是让每一位学生都能掌握一些技能，使他们在自己的职业生涯中取得成功。

需要注意的是，工种总在变化。现在社会最重要的一些工作20年前根本就不存在。因此我们的目标不是仅仅训练学生获得第一份工作，而是让他们接受训练，为最后一份工作准备，这意味着他们要有能力适应各种变化。一个普通美国人一生平均要换4—6份工作。我们要保证我们的学生准备充分，可以适应所有的工作，即使有些工作他们现在还没听说过。

第一份工作很重要，第二份、第三份和第四份工作也是如此。我认为文理学院的毕业生对这种变化准备得格外充分。如果你就读的是专门培养技术工程师的学校，那么你所受到的训练就是为这一份工作做准备。但是如果你就读的学校教会你精通写作，辩证思考，具备数量分析和推理能力，善于进行团队合作，那么你就能适应不同类型的工作。

University:What do liberal arts colleges’ students do after graduation?

President Rosenberg:They do everything. At Macalester, we have some disciplines where students go immediately into careers. Right now majors like mathematics and computer science are very popular. Economics is very popular. Many of those students go directly into jobs in fi nance and technology. My own major was English.If you major in English or history or philosophy, the career paths may not be as obvious. But our goal is to help every student develop the skills to be successful in their careers.

And it’s important to remember that jobs change. Many of the most important jobs today didn’t even exist 20 years ago, so our goal is not just to train students for their fi rst job, it’s to train them for their last job, and that means they’ll have the skills to adapt to change. The average person in the United States will change job four to six times during a career. We want to make sure that our graduates are prepared for all of the jobs they don’t even know about yet.

The fi rst job is important, but so is the second and third and fourth, and we think that liberal arts college graduates are particularly well-suited to adapt. If you go to a school to be, let’s say, a technology engineer, you’ll be trained to do that one thing. But if you go to a school where you learn how to write well and to think critically and to use quantities of reasoning and to work in teams, all of these things can be adapted to many different jobs.

《大学》：有观点认为文理学院是中产阶级的“秘密俱乐部”，您同意这种看法吗？

罗森伯格校长：我认为对部分学生而言确实如此，对于一些要考虑上大学的十六七岁的学生，特别是那些经济上不属于中产阶级，有些甚至处于中低产阶层的学生，他们对文理学院知之甚少。他们在高中阶段没有机会了解文理学院，因为文理学院的知名度没有大型的研究型大学那么高。因此，对一些学生来说，文理学院很神秘。这也是我们面临的一个问题。

我们希望更多学生能够了解我们，知道我们提供的这种教育的好处，因此我们尽可能多地访问高中。但是，由于学校规模小，我们能做的工作就十分有限，因为我们没有成百上千的招生工作人员，只有很小的招生队伍。我们要让学生知道，文理学院将有益于各个阶层不同背景的学生，而不仅仅是中产阶级和上层阶级学生的选择。

上大学的花费取决于各个学校，在玛卡莱斯特学院，我们为学生提供多种财政资助。在玛卡莱斯特学院，80%的学生没有支付全额学费。当我们录取学生时，我们会提供足够的助学金以充分满足他们提出的经济需求，使他们能够入学。如果学生只能支付20%的学费，我们就提供足够的财政资助来支付剩余的80%的费用。

这就意味着有时候对于那些资源不多的学生，我们收的学费比公立大学低，因为我们为学生提供了大笔财政资助。但很多家庭对此并不了解。因此，我们需要告诉他们，让他们知道可以选择这种教育，这一点很重要。一些家庭看待大学的学费时，就好像去商店只看商品的价格标签，然后就说“我买不起”。但实际上，如果你支付不起这个价格，我们会打折。但很多人不明白这个道理，因为这很难理解，也有些复杂。在玛卡莱斯特学院，由于支付能力不同，每个人实际支付的学费也有所不同。

University:It is said that liberal arts colleges are a kind of secret club for the middle class. How do you think about this?

President Rosenberg:I think there can be some truth to that, when you look at the 16- or 17-year-olds thinking about college, and particularly those who are below the middle class socioeconomically and have little knowledge of liberal arts colleges. Many of those students don’t have an opportunity to learn about this kind of college when they’re in high school, and liberal arts colleges aren’t as visible as big research universities. For some of those students, liberal arts colleges are a mystery. That’s a challenge for us.

We’d like more of those students to know about us—and the bene fi ts from the kind of education that we provide—so we try to visit as many high schools as we can. But there’s only so much a small college can do. We don’t have hundreds of people doing admissions work for us; we have a very small group. Liberal arts colleges can bene fi t students from all different backgrounds, not just middle or upper class. We want to make sure that students know that.

The cost of college depends on each school, and at a place like Macalester, we provide extensive fi nancial aid. About 80 percent of Macalester students pay less than the full price. When we admit students, we provide enough fi nancial aid to meet their full demonstrated economic need, so they can attend college. If you can only afford to pay 20 percent of our cost, we will provide enough fi nancial aid to cover the remaining 80 percent.

That means that sometimes, for students who don’t have a lot of resources, we are actually less expensive than public colleges because we provide so much fi nancial aid. That’s a story that a lot of families don’t know. It’s important for us to be able to tell that story, so they can realize that this kind of education is an option for them.Some families look at it like going to a store, looking at a price on a label, and saying, “I can’t afford that.” But the story is more complicated, because it is a price on a label, but we also put it on sale. We say that if you can’t afford to pay that price, we’ll charge you less, so you can have access to this. That’s dif fi cult to understand, and it’s a complicated message. At Macalester, everyone pays a different price based on ability to pay.

●我认为追求卓越的最好方法是目标明确，聚焦于一件事，然后把它做好。当你同时关注十件事时，你很难将十件事都做好。文理学院和综合性大学的区别在于，博雅教育是我们关注的全部，却只是他们工作的一部分。一些大学也有文理学部，但那不是文理学院，他们有通识教育的元素，但却缺少文理学院其他的元素。你不能指望将学生放在建筑物里就能使他们拥有教育经历。实施住宿制是为了给学生创造一个具有教育意义的居住环境。每一位玛卡莱斯特学院的员工都是一名教育者。每个人都用自己的方式教育学生。

《大学》：很多规模大的高校里也设置了一些文理学院，这是否对小型文理学院构成了威胁？

罗森伯格校长：一些大型高校也设立了文理学部，这在一定程度上是承认文理学院提供了最好的教育，因为他们在效仿我们，他们是在不同的环境下尝试我们的工作。

有些大型高校做得很好，区别在于像玛卡莱斯特学院这样的文理学院只关注一件事，即给所有本科生提供可能是全世界最好的教育。而研究型大学关注很多事，他们有很多任务，他们还需要创造知识。在很多情况下，一些大学有5万多名在校生，拥有医院、医学院、法学院、商学院和工学院，需要关注的事情很多。我认为追求卓越的最好方法是目标明确，聚焦于一件事，然后把它做好。当你同时关注十件事时，你很难将十件事都做好。

在我看来，文理学院和综合性大学的区别在于，博雅教育是我们关注的全部，却只是他们工作的一部分，他们对此付出的精力和注意力比我们少得多。比如，我非常敬重的明尼苏达大学的校长，他还必须得考虑医院、政治等各种事务，我考虑的全都是如何教好本科生。

University:There are some small residential colleges created within many big universities. Is that a kind of threat to liberal arts colleges?

President Rosenberg:Some large universities have created small liberal arts divisions, too. In some ways,that’s recognizing that liberal arts colleges provide the best education, because they’re recreating what we do, just in a different institutional setting.

Some of those larger universities do it very well, but the difference is that a liberal arts college like Macalester is focused on one thing: providing undergraduates with the best possible education in the world.Research universities are focused on many things, with many different missions. They have the mission of producing original knowledge. In many cases, there are universities with 50,000 students as well as a hospital,medical school, law school, business school, and engineering school. They’re doing many things, and my view is that the best way to be excellent is to have a clear focus on one thing—and then do that very well. When you’re focused on 10 things, it’s harder to be excellent in all of them.

That’s the difference between a liberal arts college and a large university: a larger university is doing liberal arts as part of their work, but they don’t devote—in my view—as much of their energy and attention to that work as we do. At Macalester, it’s all we think about.

I know the president of the University of Minnesota, and I have a very high regard for him. He has to think about a hospital; he has to think about politics. All I think about is teaching undergraduates.

《大学》：但与此同时，在大型的大学里，学生有更多的选择，因为他们的学校更大，有更多的教师资源、课程和其他资源。

罗森伯格校长：他们确实有更多的资源。事实是，比起只有2,000名学生的学校，一所拥有50,000名学生的学校确实能提供更多选择，但是也有很多学生“淹没”在里面。文理学院的师生比要高得多。在玛卡莱斯特学院，每10名学生就有一名全职教师。在大的综合性大学，师生比则要低得多。尽管他们更有广度，但我认为我们更有深度。我们能够专注于更小的课堂教学，师生联系更紧密。我曾在两所常春藤大学念过书。我曾经在康奈尔大学读本科，在哥伦比亚大学读博士，我知道这类学校的很多课程由研究生讲授，很多课堂的规模都很大。在我看来，我在这些地方接受的教育都还不够好。在玛卡莱斯特学院，我们的课堂规模更小，每一门课程都是由专业的教师任教。我更愿意让教授来教，而不是让另外一个学生来教我。在大型的研究型大学，你往往和两三百甚至四五百的学生坐在一间教室里，接受另外一名学生的教学。而如果一个课堂只有10或15人，且由教授亲自教学，学习方式就会截然不同。

University:But at the same time, students have more choices since the universities are bigger and there are more faculty members, more curriculum and more resources.

President Rosenberg:They do have more choices. The fact is, an institution with 50,000 students is able to offer more options than one with 2,000 students. But a lot of students are drowning in that. The ratio of students to faculty is much smaller at liberal arts colleges. At Macalester College, for every 10 students, we have one fulltime faculty member. At a large university, that number is much bigger. Even though they have more width, I think we have more depth. We can focus on smaller classes and our faculty can work more closely with students. I was a student at two Ivy League universities. I went to Cornell University as an undergraduate and studied at Columbia University for my PhD, and in places like those, a lot of classes are very large and taught by graduate students. In my view, the education in that environment is not as good. At Macalester College, classes are smaller, and all of them are taught by professional faculty members. I’d rather be taught by a professor than by another student. In a larger research university you’re often taught by another student, in a room with 200 or 300 or 400 or 500 other students. You learn in a very different way when you’re in a room with 10 or 15 students and one professor.

《大学》：那么，和那些大型的研究型大学相比，文理学院的不足之处又是什么呢？

罗森伯格校长：第一，文理学院在经济上面临更大的挑战。当学校规模更大的时候，可以产生某种规模经济效应，这就使得经营小型院校面临更大的挑战。

第二，文理学院没有研究型大学知名度高。常春藤盟校即便在中国都是人尽皆知。人们听说这些学校是因为他们规模如此之大。但是，小学校很难有这种知名度。这使得规模小的学校在招生时就面临更多挑战。

第三，不是每位教授都喜欢小学校，我们需要争取热爱教学且致力于教学的教师。很多博士更喜欢做研究，对他们而言，研究型大学更有吸引力。所以有时候我们在与研究型大学相互竞争以吸引最好的教师时，面临更大的困难，因为文理学院更注重教学。这也是一大挑战，但是如果我们能找到合适的教师人选——真正热爱教学的人选，我们就能取得引人注目的成绩。

University:Well, then what’s the disadvantage for liberal arts colleges compared with those big universities?

President Rosenberg:First, the economics are more challenging. There are certain economies of scale when an institution is bigger, and running a small institution is more challenging.

Second, liberal arts colleges are not as visible as the research universities. It’s true even in China, where everyone has heard of the Ivy League schools. People know these schools because they’re so big. But when you’re small, it’s much harder to have that visibility. That creates more challenges for small schools in attracting students.

Third, not every professor wants to be at a small school. We have to get people who are dedicated to teaching. Some PhDs would rather focus on research, and for those people, a research university environment might be more attractive. Sometimes it’s a little bit harder for us to compete to attract the best faculty, because there’s more teaching in liberal arts colleges. That’s a challenge, but if we can fi nd the right faculty—the ones who really want to teach—then we think the results are outstanding.

《大学》：您认为文理学院的博雅教育和一般大学所提倡的通识教育有什么区别？

罗森伯格校长：这个问题问得好。我认为“博雅”是最难理解的术语之一，在美国教育体系中使用广泛，意义多种多样，使用方法也不同。有些大学倾向于使用“通识教育”，即提供不同学科领域的入门教学。这是博雅教育的一部分。

在我看来，通识教育和博雅教育不同。通识教育只是文理学院办学使命和工作的一部分。通识教育的理念不是某一特定领域的教育而是更宽泛的教育，但是我们做的不限于此。文理学院的一些基本特征例如规模小和实施住宿制，使得师生之间可以密切交流，这对于其博雅教育非常重要。

美国文理学院规模小，实施住宿制，提供较为广博的教育。一些大学也有文理学部，但那不是文理学院。因为这些学校规模很大，有很多在校生——他们有通识教育的元素，但却缺少文理学院其他的元素。以“住宿制”这个元素为例，我们为学生提供的不仅是四年的教育——不仅是教室里的课堂经历——本质上还是一种家的体验、一种生活体验。学生不仅在课堂内学习，也在课堂外学习。他们向同学学习，从住校经历中学习，通过学生活动、志愿者工作、社团和体育活动学习。

University:What’s the difference between a liberal arts education and general education?

President Rosenberg：It’s a very good question, because I think the term “liberal arts” is one of most difficult to understand and most widely and variously used in American education, because they are used in different ways. Some colleges prefer to use the phrase “general education,” which provides you with an introduction to many different fi elds. That’s a part of the liberal arts.

There is a difference between general education, in my view, and the liberal arts education. The liberal arts college includes general education as a part of its mission and work. The idea of general education is not just education in a particular field, but a much broader education. But that’s not all we are. Other essential characteristics such as a small size and residential, so you can have close interactions between students and faculty,are very important.

American liberal arts colleges are small, residential and provide that broad education. Some universities have a college of liberal arts, but that’s not a liberal arts college because it’s large and there are lots of students on campus—it has the general education component, but not the rest. For example, the residential component:we provide students not just with an education for four years—not just the classroom experience—but basically a home, a living experience. The students learn not only inside the classroom but also outside the classroom. They learn from their classmates and their residential experience, through their student activities and their volunteer work, through their clubs and sports.

《大学》：实施住宿制是美国文理学院的典型特征之一。住宿经历何以使文理学院的教育有所不同？

罗森伯格校长：一天有24个小时，学生在课堂上的时间只有5到6个小时，或者更少，剩余的时间该怎么办？这些时间如何用来促进他们的教育？我们花了大量的时间来思考这个问题。你不能指望将学生放在建筑物里就能使他们拥有教育经历。我们总是通过与他人一起生活来学习，但是课外活动必须有计划有目的性。我们不仅仅是让学生住在一起。

学校有专门的部门，即“学生生活部”，他们主要关注学生在学术领域之外的所有生活。这些部门的工作者都在思考学生的教育。他们做大量的规划设计工作，他们力图为学生提供一种课堂上无法获得的教育体验，例如:与不同的人进行交流，给他人提供帮助，等等。有些活动在课堂上很难实施，因此我们帮助学生在课外进行。

我们每年都会给学生安排课外教育项目。我们邀请演讲者到学校来，我们还有一百多个不同的学生组织。我们尽量组织——部分地而非完全地组织——学生的课外生活。这不仅对学生的学习有益，而且有助于实现学校的办学使命。有些活动是国际化的，有些是文化方面的，有些是服务性质的。因此，这实际上不仅是居住，这更是规划——实施住宿制是为了给学生创造一个具有教育意义的居住环境。

University:“Residential” is one of the typical characteristics of a liberal arts college. How does the residential experience make a difference?

President Rosenberg：There are 24 hours in a day, and students are in classes for fi ve or six of those hours(and maybe even less). What about the rest of the hours? How do those contribute to their education? We spend a lot of time thinking about that. You can’t just put students in a building and expect them to have an educational experience. You are always learning things from living with people. But there has to be a purpose for programming outside the classroom. We don’t just have students live together.

We have a department called Student Life that’s focused essentially on everything that goes on in the students’ lives outside the academic areas. The people who work in these areas all think about their education,and they do a tremendous amount of the programming. They try to provide another kind of education for students that they can’t get in the academic classroom: things like interacting with people who are different from you or what kind of service can help others. Some of these things are hard to do in class, so we help students outside the classroom think about those things.

Every year we organize educational programs outside the classroom for students. We bring in speakers,and we have over a hundred different student organizations. We try to organize—partially, not totally—their lives outside the classroom. That also contributes to their learning and supports the mission of the college. Some of it’s international, some is cultural, some is service. So it’s not just living, it is actually programming—it’s creating an educational living environment.

《大学》：就是说课堂外的经历和课堂内的经历同等重要，甚至更重要。这就意味着所有的教职员工实际上都肩负着教育者的角色？

罗森伯格校长：对。我们试着建立一种意识，即每一位玛卡莱斯特人都为同一个目标奋斗，即，尽可能为学生提供最好的教育。在我看来，每一位玛卡莱斯特学院的员工都是一名教育者。每个人都用自己的方式教育学生。

例如，如果学校技术部门出现故障，其他工作就无法开展。因此计算机管理员、住宿管理员、操场管理员都在用自己的方式推动玛卡莱斯特学院的教育。我希望每个人都能参与其中。

University:So outside class experience is as important as classroom experience, even more important.Therefore, the administrators and the staff are also supposed to be educators in the college. Is that true?

President Rosenberg:Yes, we tried to create a sense that everyone at Macalester is all working toward the same aim and to the same goal, which is to provide the best possible education to the students. In my view,everyone working at Macalester College is an educator. Everyone is contributing in their own way to the educational experience of all students.

If the technology doesn't work, for example, then other things don’t work. The people who take care of computers, the people who take care of the residential resources, the people who take care of the grounds: they are all contributing in their own way. I want everyone to be that part of work.

●在某种程度上，文理学院对教师的要求是最高的，因为他们既要成为优秀的教师，又得成为优秀的研究者，还要为社会提供服务。在文理学院当教师确实很难，但是如果你给他们提供适当的支持，他们还是很可能获得成功，大多数也确实都成功了。大多数教师获得终身教职后继续研究并带动学生进行研究，这是也文理学院的另一优势。最重要的是聘请到正确的人。这绝不是仅仅看成绩单或者推荐信那么简单，而是要去发掘热爱这份工作、能够从中获得发展和成功，并且喜爱这种环境的人。

《大学》：文理学院历来强调本科教育，您怎样看待研究与教学的关系？

罗森伯格校长：这是一个动态的过程，但我认为这二者之间大体上保持平衡比较好。大多数教师会说他们的确喜欢这种教学和研究之间的平衡。两者都很必要，相互促进。任何一方单独存在都是不完善的。但凡认为教学和研究可以独立存在的教师，要么可以去主要关注研究的研究型大学工作，要么可以去几乎完全强调教学的社区学院工作。在文理学院，两者缺一不可。

玛卡莱斯特学院的教授非常擅长教学，但是仅仅擅长教学或者仅仅擅长科研都是不够的。教学和研究都得优秀。如果仅擅长研究，而不擅长教学，也将无法获得晋升。这是为什么教师总感觉有压力。这确实很难，这是一个问题。

University:Liberal arts colleges are always focused on undergraduate education. What do you think of the relationship between teaching and research?

President Rosenberg:It’s always a work in progress, but I think the balance largely is good. I think most of our faculty members would say that they really like the way teaching and research are balanced. Both pieces are necessary; one is helping the other. Neither is seen as being ideal by itself, and if faculty members think that one can exist completely without the other, they should probably be at a different kind of institution—either research universities with the focus almost entirely on research or maybe community colleges with their emphasis almost entirely on teaching. The liberal arts college is what they come together.

Macalester professors are very good at teaching. But it’s not enough to be good in either teaching or research. You need to be good at both. If you are very good at research but your teaching is not very good, you cannot get the promotion. That’s why faculty always feel pressure—that’s really dif fi cult, and that’s a problem.

《大学》：文理学院如何评价教师的教学？

罗森伯格校长：我们会询问在这里上课的学生，问他们如何看待曾经上过的课程。我们有大量来自学生和教师同事的证据，再加上教师的教学大纲，以及教师对自己教学的反思。终身职轨的教师在入职六年后进行终身教职评审。因此，我们有6年的数据，评审时间则要花好几个月。因此，教师要经过所在系的评审，然后由选举出的教职工委员会——教师人事委员会——进行评审。

University:How is teaching evaluated in liberal arts colleges?

President Rosenberg:We look at students who are taking their classes, and we ask what they think of the class. We have a large body of evidence from students and a professor’s colleagues, as well as a professor’s syllabi and their own re fl ections about their teaching. We evaluate people for tenure after six years, so we have six years of evidence. Then the review process takes a few months. You can be reviewed by your own department, then by an elected committee of the faculty called the faculty personnel committee.

《大学》：文理学院的一些教师认为，他们既要成为优秀的教师，还要应对较高的研究要求，压力太大。作为校长，您怎么看？

罗森伯格校长：我认为他们的工作量确实很重。在某种程度上，文理学院对教师的要求是最高的，因为他们既要成为优秀的教师，又得成为优秀的研究者，还要为社会提供服务。而在研究型大学，教学不是最重要的，你可以因为你的研究获得终身教职，也可以因为你的研究而无法获得终身教职。但是在类似玛卡莱斯特学院这样的学校，教师必须各方面优秀，这给广大教师尤其是年轻教师带来了很多工作和很大的压力。

因此我们努力减轻这种压力，尽力给教师提供指导，资助他们的研究，给他们做研究的时间，例如学术休假。我们尽力为他们提供持续的培训及指导和各种支持，这样做的结果就是，大多数教师都获得了终身教职，在玛卡莱斯特学院有80%到90%的终身职轨上的教师获得终身教职。在文理学院当教师确实很难，但是如果你给他们提供适当的支持，他们还是很可能获得成功，大多数也确实都成功了。如果不给他们适当的支持，结果将会大不相同。

我们学校设立了教学学术中心，在这里与教职工讨论如何教学等教学法问题、与研究相关的问题，以及如何适应文理学院的工作等问题。每一年，我都和所有新进教师碰面，了解他们的需求。我们给他们提供大量的继续教育，指导他们如何在玛卡莱斯特学院这样的地方获得成功。这都是我们要做的事。他们需要得到所在系的支持，需要优秀同事帮助其理解如何成为一名成功的教师，需要所有这些条件。我们通过共同努力确保每一位教师都成功。

University:Some faculty think that the research load at liberal arts colleges is too heavy since they are supposed to be great teachers. What do you think about this phenomenon as a president?

President Rosenberg:I think it’s a very heavy load. In some ways, the demands on the faculty at liberal arts colleges are the hardest of all, because they’re expected to be great teachers and great researchers, and to provide service to the community. At a research university, where teaching is less important, you’ll get tenure (or not get tenure) on the basis of your research. But at a place like Macalester College, you have to be good at everything,and I think that creates a lot of work and a lot of pressure on young faculty.

We try to do what we can to relieve that pressure. We provide faculty with mentoring, with funding for their research, with time to do their research. They get a sabbatical tenure to do the research. We try to provide them with training all along the way. The result is that most faculty members get tenure: I would say 80 to 90 percent of faculty members who stand for tenure at Macalester get it. It's hard, but if you provide professors with the right support, then it is very possible for them to fi nd success. Most of them are successful. If you don’t provide them with right support, you will get a different result.

We have something called Center for Scholarship and Teaching, and we have many sessions where we talk with faculty about how to teach, research issues, what means to be at a liberal arts college. Every year I meet with all of the new faculty. We provide them with a lot of continuing education and how to be successful at a place like Macalester. You need good support from your department and your colleagues to help you understand how to be successful. So you need all of those things together. It’s a communal effort to make sure the professors are successful.

《大学》：有观点认为文理学院的教授在得到终身教职后就停止了研究，真的是这样吗？

罗森伯格校长：不，我觉得不是。我是终身教职委员会的成员，负责对每位教师进行评审。终身教职评审主要看教师三方面的工作，包括教学、研究和服务，包括社会服务和对大学的服务。教学是最重要的，研究次之。我们希望文理学院的教师是教学专家，在这方面文理学院堪称模范。我们认为他们需要成为优秀的教师，也需要在各自的学科领域里积极开展研究。如果你准备教授化学，你需要了解化学领域的研究进展，最好的方法就是成为一名活跃的研究者。我们希望教学和研究并重。

大学教师获得终身教职后，很容易停止研究，因为终身教职能够为其职业生涯提供保障。但是根据我的经验，大多数教师都继续进行研究，因为他们热爱研究。这也是他们选择这份职业的原因所在。无论是作为一名化学家、心理学家，还是数学家，大多数教师都不愿意放弃研究，他们会继续研究下去。

因此，大多数教师继续研究并带动学生进行研究，这是也文理学院的另一优势。如果你是一名大型研究型大学里化学专业的本科生，你一般没有机会与最好的教师直接合作研究，最可能跟教师一起开展研究的是研究生。而文理学院的教师和学生经常合著论文，一起参加专业会议并做报告。这对于本科生是一个机会，可以很早就参与到高水平的学术研究中，同时这也是一个优势，有利于他们考取研究生院，因为他们有更多的学术研究经历。文理学院毕业生去研究生院的比例更高，比综合性大学高得多。我认为这是因为他们在本科阶段就有更多的机会去做研究。

University:Some people say that for the professors in liberal arts colleges, their research discontinues when they get the tenure, is that true?

President Rosenberg:No, I don’t think it is. I am part of the tenure committee, so I review every faculty member. When we review faculty for the tenure, we look at three categories of work: teaching, research, and service. I would say that teaching is the most important, but right behind teaching is research. We expect faculty at liberal arts colleges to be teacher-scholars, and that’s the model. We believe that they need to be great teachers but also active in discipline. If you are going to teach chemistry, you need to know what’s going on in the fi eld and the best way to do that is to be an active researcher yourself. We expect both.

When you get tenure, certainly it is easier if you choose to stop doing research, because the central tenure guarantees your position for the rest of your career. But my experience has been that most faculty members continue their research, because they love it. That’s why they choose their profession. As a chemist, a psychologist,or a mathematician, most people don’t want to stop. They want to continue doing it.

So most do and most of them, certainly in the sciences, involve student in their research, which is another advantage of the liberal arts college. If you are a chemistry student at big research university, you will not have the opportunity to do research with the best faculty—the graduate students do. If you are a chemistry student at Macalester，you will have the opportunity to work directly in research with faculty members. They are all undergraduates and so very often our faculty or our students will co-author papers and co-offer presentations at professional conferences. It’s an opportunity to do research at a very high level at very early point in an academic career, which gives you an advantage when you go on to graduate school, because you have more experience of doing that. And it’s liberal arts colleges that send the highest percentage of students to graduate school on sciences, much higher than big universities. And I think it is because they have the opportunities to do research as undergraduates.

《大学》：除了为教师提供研究资金和时间，文理学院如何使教师保持教学与科研之间的平衡？

罗森伯格校长：在我看来，最重要的是聘请到正确的人。每个人的喜好都不一样。对每份工作而言，最大的挑战就是找到一个由衷喜爱这份工作的人。你需要热爱自己的工作，才能做好这份工作。我们招聘人才就是要找到热爱这份工作的人。整个招聘过程要看两三百名申请者的申请信，最终才聘到合适的人。这绝不是仅仅看成绩单或者推荐信那么简单，而是要去发掘热爱这份工作、能够从中获得发展和成功，并且喜爱这种环境的人。

同样的环境并非对每一位教师都是理想的。这是相互匹配的问题，就像学生要选择适合自己的大学一样。这就像有些人喜欢生活在城市，有些人喜欢居住在乡村。对于不同的人，面对同样的环境，有的人会开心，有的人不开心，这取决于他们看重什么。

University:What plays the important role in keeping the balance of research and teaching for faculty members besides funding and time for research in liberal arts coueges?

President Rosenberg:For me, the most important thing is hiring the right people. For every job, the challenge is to fi nd a person who really embraces the nature of that job. You need to love your work and then you’ll do it very well. Our job is to find people who would love this work and that is a process of looking at those two or three hundred applicants before hiring someone. It’s more than looking at a transcript or looking at recommendations. It’s really asking who will love this work and thrive with this work, someone who wants this kind of environment.

The same environment is not ideal for every faculty member. It’s about making the right match, just as we emphasize students looking for a college. It’s like that some people love living in a city and some love living in the country. You could have the same environment, and different people would be happy or not happy depending upon what’s important to them.

《大学》：看来招到合适的人对于文理学院的发展很重要，那么文理学院是如何聘到合适的教师呢？

罗森伯格校长：这是一个费力的过程。以历史学科为例，当我们发出教师岗位招聘广告后，我们可能会收到两三百封应聘信。我们有一个专门的招聘委员会审阅这些岗位申请，一步一步地筛选，然后对通过筛选的人员进行面试，最后再选出三到四人到学校参加面试。这是个审慎同时也非常耗时费力的过程，需要考察很多的申请者，经历漫长的过程，因此最终通过筛选留下来工作的都是非常出色的人选。

University:How do liberal arts colleges hire the right people?

President Rosenberg:It's a very exhaustive process. Typically, in a fi eld like history, when we advertise for a faculty position, we might have two or three hundred people apply for one position. And so we have a committee,that reviews all of our applications and narrow them down. Then people are interviewed and then typically the fi nal step means bringing three or four to campus. It's a very time-consuming and careful process. Typically the people who get through of all of that will be outstanding.

《大学》：您认为文理学院最吸引这些岗位申请者的是什么？学校如何吸引最优秀的合适人选？

罗森伯格校长：我认为我们所能提供的最好的是学生。玛卡莱斯特学院的学生都是非常棒的。得天下英才而教之，是对教师最大的奖赏。我们最好的招聘“工具”就是我们的学生，因为他们都非常优秀。应聘者来到我们的学校和学生见面后会说“我想教他们，因为他们很聪明也很积极主动”，这有助于我们的招聘工作。正如我之前提到的，我们给教职工提供各种支持，包括学术休假、研究资金等，这些都很重要，但我认为最终一位教师是否愿意来这个学校主要是看是否有机会能教优秀的学生，这才是我们最大的吸引力。

University:What do you think is the most attractive for those people, and how do you attract the right people?

President Rosenberg:I think the best thing we have to offer is our students. Our students at Macalester College are extraordinarily strong. If you are a teacher, there’s nothing as rewarding as having great students. The best recruiting tool we have at Macalester is our students because they are so good. People come in and meet our students and they say, “I want to teach them, because they are so smart and they are so motivated,” and that helps us recruit. Other things are important—as I mentioned earlier, the support we provide such as the sabbatical time and research funding—but at the end of the day, whether people want to be at a college depends on whether they have a chance to teach great students. That’s our best recruiting tool.

●大学最难的一件事就是定义质量并衡量教育成果，但是我们不能因此置之不理。收入的多少不是衡量职业成功的唯一方式。我觉得我们应该一直努力让明天比今天做得更好。我们应该能从自己擅长的事中获得成就感和愉悦感，这也是玛卡莱斯特学院一直所希望的。

《大学》：如您所说，学术卓越是最重要的，如何判断文理学院的办学质量？

罗森伯格校长：这是一个很好的问题。我认为大学最难的一件事就是定义质量并衡量教育成果。我们在这方面做得越来越好，但是仍不够好，部分原因在于我们的“产品”是人。如果我们生产的是汽车或者手机，就很容易衡量产品的质量，因为你知道手机和汽车能否用。当你的产品是受过教育的人，你如何衡量？很难衡量。大学很难做好这点，但是我们不能因此置之不理。

那么我们如何知道自己确实做得不错呢？玛卡莱斯特学院并没有什么独特的做法。我们很仔细地评估学生的能力，在学生进校和离校的时候分别测试其写作能力，看他们的写作是否有所提高？答案是肯定的，他们确实有所提高。此外，我们还有通识教育要求，包括写作要求、数量推理要求、语言要求，国际化要求及多元文化要求，在每一方面我们都试图建立评价标准来检测这些要求对学生是否有益。

我们还尝试另一种方法来衡量学校质量，即关注毕业率。多少学生进校后按时毕业？玛卡莱斯特学院有90%的学生按时毕业，毕业率很高。但是美国很多大学生不能毕业，这是美国教育的一个大问题，存在大量浪费，包括金钱、人力资源、时间和机会的浪费。

同时我们还观察学生，看他们是否满意玛卡莱斯特学院的指导，结果发现绝大多数都很满意。比如，对于理科学生，我们了解多少学生毕业后进入研究生院，他们考入什么学校？多少学生选择医学院？多少学生进入自己心仪的学校？我们也关注这些结果。不存在哪一种衡量标准就足以定义学术卓越。但是我们试着收集各种标准，有些是可以量化的，有些则不能量化。

我们是否取得了理想的结果？我的回答一直都是我们做得还不够好。我觉得我们应该一直努力让明天比今天做得更好。我们应该能从自己擅长的事中获得成就感和愉悦感，这也是玛卡莱斯特学院一直所希望的。我曾经是英文教授，我最喜欢的诗人是罗伯特·布朗宁，他的诗中有这样一句话“人应该超越自己”。我喜欢这种理念，不要满足于现状，要不断超越自己，因为这意味着你总是努力做得更好。我想这是做每件事都应该持有的态度。你总是想着做得更好，大学也应该如此。如果沾沾自喜，就会越来越糟。

University:As you said, academic excellence is the most important thing. How do you de fi ne the quality of a liberal arts college?

President Rosenberg:That is a great question. One of the hardest challenges for colleges is to de fi ne what quality means and measure outcomes. We’ve gotten better at it, but we are still not very good at it. Part of it is that our product is people. If you are producing automobiles or phones, it’s much easier to measure the quality. You know the phone works; you know the car works. When what you are producing is educated people, how do you measure that? It’s hard to measure, so colleges have never been very good at that. But that shouldn’t let us off the hook.

How do we know how well we are doing? What we do at Macalester College is not so unique. We do a pretty careful assessment of students’ ability. We test students’ writing ability when they arrive, and then we test their writing ability on the way out. Are they writing better? And the answer is yes, they are. We have set the general education requirements, and there are writing, quantity reasoning, and language requirements. And then there is an internationalism and multicultural requirement. In each of these areas, we try to develop assessment tools to determine whether these requirements actually help students.

That’s one way of determining whether we are, in fact, providing academic excellence. We also try to measure it by looking at our graduation rate. How many students graduated on time? At Macalester, it’s 90 percent. That is very high. Across the United States, a very, very high percentage of students don’t graduate from college. That’s a big problem in the US, and there are numerous wastes of money and human resources, time and opportunities.

We also survey students to see if they are satis fi ed with the guidance from Macalester, and overwhelmingly we see they are. For science students, we look how many of them go to graduate school. What school do they get into? How many of them get into medical school? How many get into the school they want? We look at those outcomes, too. There is no one measure that by itself can define academic excellence. But we try to collect a variety of measures, some of which are quanti fi able, some of which are not.

Are we getting the results we want? My view is that the answer should always be that we are not good enough. I think we should always strive to be better tomorrow than we are today. We should take satisfaction and pleasure in the things you do well, and we should also aspire. I used to be an English professor, and one of my favorite poets in English is Robert Browning. There is a line in one of his poems that says, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” I like the notion that you should always reach for something that is beyond what you can grasp because that means you are trying to be better. And I think every business should have that attitude—and colleges should have the attitude. If you get complacent, you’ll probably get worse.

《大学》：有哪些评估工具可以用来衡量文理学院的办学质量？

罗森伯格校长：不同的机构研制了不同的评估工具，有联邦政府制定的评估方法，也有专业的认证机构进行的评估，学校还有自己开发的一些评估工具。

美国联邦政府开发了一些衡量标准。现在他们创造了一种院校计分卡，你可以在教育部的网站上找到这种卡。他们统计美国每一所大学或学院的学生毕业率及毕业生的平均收入水平。

但我认为这些标准的作用是有限的，因为这些标准不够细。它们并没有体现学生学到了多少，只是体现了学生挣了多少钱。能挣多少钱主要由他所学的专业决定的，而不是取决于他学得有多好，比如学工科通常就比学英语要挣得多。这是显而易见的道理。有些学生想学习英语，想成为英语教师，这并不意味着他们不成功。在苹果公司工作的学生只是选择了不同的职业而已。收入的多少不是衡量职业成功的唯一方式。

美国的每所大学都需要通过认证机构认证。他们通过各种标准和指标来判断你是否做到了你所宣称的那样。我们学校通过了这项十年一次的评估和认证过程。

此外，我们学校自己也制定了一些重要的评估工具，衡量学生是否学会了写作，是否懂得如何运用数字，是否具备了批判性思维能力，等等。

University:What kinds of assessment tools are used to evaluate the quality of liberal arts colleges?

President Rosenberg:There are various assessments developed by different institutions. There are assessments by the federal government, there are accreditation agencies to assess the colleges, and the colleges themselves develop some assessment tools.

The federal government in the US is developing some tools. They now have created what they called College Scorecard and you can fi nd it on the Department of Education website. For every college or university in the US, you can see the percentage of students that graduate and the average income level after graduation for those students.

But I think those tools are of limited use. They don’t really tell you how much students learned; they tell you how much money students are making. How much money you make is more determined by what you study: if you study engineering, you’re generally going to earn more than if you study English. We don’t need a lot of tools to tell us that. Some students want to study English and be an English teacher—that does not mean they are not successful. Students working at Apple simply have a different profession. Financial tools are not the only way to measure success in a profession.

Every college in the US has to be accredited by the accreditation agencies. They look at different measures to see if you are doing what you claim to be doing. We pass that assessment and the accreditation processes, which happen every ten years.

We also develop important tools ourselves to determine whether students are doing things like learning how to write, learning how to use numbers, and learning critical thinking skills.

《大学》：根据贵校的学生满意度调查，您认为目前文理学院在哪些方面还做得不够好？

罗森伯格校长：就玛卡莱斯特学院而言，我们的学生在学校所期待的、与学校使命一致的那些方面做得很好，尤其是与其他学校的学生相比。玛卡莱斯特学院的学生认为学校的生活使他们更了解其他文化，更有能力和与自己不同的人进行交流，更加致力于为他人服务。

或许玛卡莱斯特学院的学生的学习动机不是来自经济层面的考虑，这与其他学校的学生不同。有时，当我们问他们“什么对你最重要？”我们必须得促使他们认识到经济上成功也是很好的。你可以在经济上很富裕，你也可以致力于让世界变得更美好，这二者并不冲突。我认为，在经济危机之后的几年中确实如此，学生们更加意识到经济保障的重要性。就业市场因为经济衰退非常暗淡，因此学生更加意识到经济稳定是保证，是需要考虑的问题。家长会关心这个问题，但学生有时关心，有时却不关心。

University:According to the satisfaction survey in your college, at what aspect you are not very good till now?

President Rosenberg:Where we think our students are doing best, particularly relative to students from other colleges, is in areas that consistent with our mission. Macalester students said they developed greater understanding of other cultures. They have developed a better ability to interact with people who are different from them, and they have developed a stronger commitment to service to others.

Maybe Macalester students are generally not as financially motivated as students from other schools.Sometimes, if we ask them what’s most important to them, you have to push them to realize that it’s okay to be fi nancially successful. You can be fi nancially successful and still be committed to making the world a better place—they’re not mutually exclusive. In the last few years since the great recession, though, students have become more aware of the importance of financial security. The job market got so difficult because of the economic disruption, so students became more aware of the fact that fi nancial security is something we need to think about. The parents think about it, but students sometimes do and sometimes not as much.

●尽管我们学校不大，但还是必须尽力打破一些隔阂。这很难，但是通过这些活动让大家聚起来，让每个成员都理解学校的办学目标和使命，非常重要。从大学产生的那一刻起，办学的目标之一就是建一个充满活力的学习生活社区。我认为小型院校现在依然如此，也尤其如此。

《大学》：您在前面提到管理者和教辅人员也都是学院的教育者，怎样才能使不同部门的教职员工齐心协力，共同实现大学的教育使命？

罗森伯格校长：首先，我率先做出榜样，尊重所有领域的员工。其次，花时间将大家团结在一起，这很重要。因此，每个学期我们都会有几次机会让大家集中在一起来庆祝我们在玛卡莱斯特学院的工作。例如，我们有教职工答谢午餐将所有人聚集到一起。春天我们也聚会。我们还有一个假日派对。每年我们都会有几次聚会，让大家感受到自己是整个大家庭中的一员。

尽管我们学校不大，但还是必须尽力打破一些隔阂。这很难，但是通过这些活动让大家聚起来，让每个成员都理解学校的办学目标和使命，非常重要。也正因为规模足够小，我们可以让大家一次都能聚齐，倘若有2万或3万员工，是做不到这一点的。

University:How do you make people in different departments work together for the same goal of the college?

President Rosenberg:First of all, I try to set an example of showing respect for all of those people in all of those areas. Second, I also think it’s important to have times when you bring everybody together. Several times each semester, we will have an event to bring everybody together and to celebrate what we do at Macalester. For instance, we have a faculty and staff appreciation lunch when we will bring everybody together. We do the same thing in the spring. We have a holiday party. Several times during the year we try to bring everybody together so that everyone feels part of the same community.

Though we are not a large college, you still have to work to try to break down barriers. It’s not easy, but I think having those events for everybody to come together, and making sure that everybody understands the mission is really important. We are small enough so we can get everybody together at once. If you are in a place that has 20,000 or 30,000 employees, you can’t do that.

《大学》：是不是在规模小的高校里更容易形成“共同体氛围”？

罗森伯格校长：一般而言，规模小的文理学院不断尝试利用规模小的优势来形成共同体氛围。有些学校比其他学校做得更好一些，我认为玛卡莱斯特学院在这方面尤其出色，营造出了大家同舟共济的氛围。这在一些大学就不大可能，因为它们的规模太大。这就如同在小公司和大公司工作有所差别一样，小公司的员工更容易混熟，为同一个目标努力，而在大公司要这样做就很难，也许不是不可能，只是更难。

University:Is it easier to build a sense of community in small colleges?

President Rosenberg:I think generally small liberal arts colleges try very hard to take advantage of their smallness and create a sense of community. Some can do that better than others, and I’d like to think that Macalester does that particularly well, creating the thought that we’re all in this together. For some places like universities it’s impossible, because they’re just too big. That’s like the difference between working at a very large company and at a small company: it’s much easier in a small company for everybody to know everyone else and for people to feel like they’re part of the same work. When an organization is larger, it’s harder—maybe not impossible, but harder.

《大学》：您是在努力营造一种“共同体氛围”，作为文理学院的一种重要文化？

罗森伯格校长：是的。我想从大学产生的那一刻起，办学的目标之一就是建一个充满活力的学习生活社区。我认为小型院校现在依然如此，也尤其如此。这从小型院校的校友联系更加密切就可见一斑：他们感觉自己更像一个俱乐部或者是一个家庭的成员。我认为，比起规模大的学校，小型院校更容易让人有这种感觉。而在我儿子就读的密歇根大学，他们拥有大约35万名校友，而我们只有3万校友，更容易建立一种家庭归属感。

与规模大的高校相比，在小型学院工作的另一个优势就是，教职工更容易接触到其他系科的人，譬如，如果一个英语系有50名教师，那么很有可能的是，你几乎所有时间都在和其他英语教授打交道。而在玛卡莱斯特学院，英语系或许只有10个人，你更有可能接触到其他系科的人，而且你们之间不仅是学术交流，还有社会交往。我们鼓励团队教学，例如两个不同院系的老师可以合作教学。这在规模小的院校更容易实施。我相信，在玛卡莱斯特学院这样的环境中，让大多数教职工最喜欢的地方就是，他们可以和学科背景迥异的人们进行交流。这有利于建立一种共同体意识，也有助于他们进行跨学科的学术交流。在规模较小的院校里，更容易看到跨学科课程。

University:Do you try to create the sense of community as part of the culture of liberal arts colleges?

President Rosenberg :I think so. From the time that colleges were fi rst created, one of the goals was to create a living and learning community. I think that remains particularly true of these small colleges. One of the ways that you can tell is that the alumni tend to be more deeply connected than at big places: they feel like they’re part of something—a club and a family. It’s easier to generate that feeling when a college is small than when it’s very, very big. At place like University of Michigan, where my son went, they probably have 350,000 alumni. We have 30,000. It’s easier to create a sense of being part of a family when it’s 30,000 instead of 350,000.

One of the advantages of being at a small college is that a faculty member would be much more likely to interact with people outside the department. At a large university where there might be 50 people in the English department, you might spend almost all of your time just interacting with other English professors. At Macalester,where there might be 10 people in the English department, you’re much more likely to interact with people in other departments—not just in your academic work, but also in social settings. We encourage team-teaching,with faculty from two different departments can teach together. That’s easier to do at a small place. I think most faculty will tell you that one of the things they’d like about an environment like Macalester’s is that they do get to interact with people whose disciplines are very different from their own. It helps create a sense of community and also helps intellectually to interact with people from a range of disciplines. I think you tend to see a more interdisciplinary curriculum at small places than at big places.

●我觉得文理学院提供的教育仍然是美国最好的教育，但是这种院校越来越少而不是越来越多。文理学院现在面临着许多重大挑战。我们必须确保不要丢掉卓越，尽可能提高效率，更好地教育学生。我不认为从文理学院转型成研究型大学更好，这会改变我们，而我们更愿意保持自己的特色，我希望专注于我们的使命，这是我们办学的核心，即，教育好本科生。如果文理学院消失了，那意味着某些极其有价值的东西丢失了。规模小的时候，很难把一些事情都做好，但是我仍然宁可小而出色，也不要扩大规模。

《大学》：您自从2007年开始担任玛卡莱斯特学院大学校长一职已经13年了。13年来，学校最大的变化是什么？您最看重学校哪方面的发展？

罗森伯格校长：我们进一步发扬了共同体精神。比起13年前，现在学校的共同体氛围更加浓厚。有时候有人问我，让我夜不成眠的是什么，我最担心的是什么。我想是财务模式，即如何在提高我们的教学质量的同时，寻求到更多的经济支持——如何确保给不同经济背景的学生提供世界一流的教育。这是我感到最吃力的问题。

University:You have been president of Macalester College for more than 13 years since 2007. In the 13 years what’s the biggest change at Macalester College? What aspect do you pay a lot of effort into?

President Rosenberg:I think we’ve developed a much stronger culture of being one community. I think it’s more a sense of community now than there was 13 years ago. Sometimes people ask me what keeps me up at night, what I worry about the most. It’s the fi nancial model; it’s balancing the quality of what we do with the access to fi nancial aid—how we make sure we are providing a world-class education to an economically diverse group of students. That’s the hardest thing I do.

《大学》：文理学院在美国曾经占主导地位，那时绝大多数大学都是文理学院，而现在文理学院只占不到6%的份额。您如何看待文理学院现在美国高等教育中的地位和未来的发展趋势？

罗森伯格校长：我觉得文理学院现在面临着许多重大挑战。首先，小型学院如今经济状况越来越严峻，这些院校大都是私立院校。而在中国和世界其他国家，大学主要是公立性质，有政府的财政支持。在美国，大多数文理学院都是私立的，他们自己筹措资金，学费很贵。所以很多学生确实无法支付这些小型私立文理学院学费，选择这些学校的学生人数正在大幅减少，因此很多类似的学院正慢慢地销声匿迹。很多院校选择转型，变成其他类型的学校。也有少数文理学院实力雄厚，财力充足，发展得很好，但是这样的学校不多。我觉得文理学院提供的教育仍然是美国最好的教育，但是这种院校越来越少而不是越来越多。我认为在未来的十年，文理学院的数量还会持续减少，而不是增加。

University:We know that in the past, liberal arts colleges were dominant: most of the colleges were liberal arts colleges, but now they only account for about 6 percent. What do you think about their status in the American higher education system?

President Rosenberg:I think that liberal arts colleges now face a number of quite signi fi cant challenges.First of all, the economic circumstances of small colleges now are more and more dif fi cult. Most of these colleges are private, unlike in China and really in most of the world, where most colleges are public and fi nanced by the government. Most liberal arts colleges are private and they fi nance themselves and they're very expensive. And so the number of people who are really able to pay what it costs to get an education at a small private liberal arts college is shrinking relatively quickly. You have seen overnight a number of these colleges go away. You see a lot of them change into different kinds of colleges. There’s a small group of liberal arts colleges that are very strong and that are well-resourced, so they have enough money to be successful. But that number is not large. I think it's still the best kind of education we provide in the United States, but you probably see fewer rather than more liberal arts colleges. I think the number in ten years will be smaller than it is now, not larger.

《大学》：您认为文理学院应如何应对这一挑战？

罗森伯格校长：一是告诉人们博雅教育具有很大的价值。我认为有必要让人们相信投资这种昂贵的教育是值得的，一定会有所回报。文理学院会更多地宣传这种价值。二是确保我们确实为在校生提供了高质量的博雅教育。还有一点就是控制成本。我们必须确保不要丢掉卓越，尽可能提高效率，更好地教育学生。应对这一挑战，我们需要传递信息，提供教育价值，提升自己的效率。这些都是现在至关重要的问题。

University:How to cope with the challenges?

President Rosenberg:Part of it is delivering the message to people that a liberal arts education has a great deal of value. I think people need to be convinced that the investment on an expensive education is worth it and will pay them back. Part of it is making sure that we provide the liberal arts’ high level of value to the students who enroll in our schools. And part of it is controlling our costs. We have to make sure we are not losing our excellence and that we are as ef fi cient as possible as we educate our students. It’s a matter of message, it’s a matter of providing value, and it’s a matter of being ef fi cient ourselves. They are all things that are crucial right now.

《大学》：如何使人们相信文理学院的这种教育价值呢？

罗森伯格校长：我们得向人们证明他们投资在文理学院的教育是值得的。但我们面临的一个挑战是，有些价值很难去衡量。博雅教育一方面要帮助学生为就业做准备，但也要为学生过上更加丰富和更有思想的生活做准备，还要使学生成为有参与意识的公民，但是这些都很难衡量。就业是很容易衡量的，譬如我们可以展示的是，在玛卡莱斯特学院有70%的学生继续深造获得更高的学位，我校学生毕业之后的就业率大约是美国大学生平均就业率的两倍。尤其是当这些毕业生到35岁左右时，他们开始获得一些额外的收入，也就是说他们当初在玛卡莱斯特学院这样的地方上大学的回报就开始体现出来，而这之后都是他们的收益。

所以，对于大多数人来说尤其重要的一点是，我们需要表明我们将能提供的经济价值。我们可以将钱花在很多方面，教育的不同之处在于它能提供最大的投资回报。你可以买一辆小汽车或一栋房子，但是你知道车子开的时间越长，价值越低；你无法预计房价走向，它有可能上涨，也有可能下降。可以确定的是，如果你将钱投资到教育，你肯定可以获得很好的回报。在我看来，在所有你能花钱的地方，教育对于一个家长或学生来说是最重要的，是其他一切的关键。

University:How do you convince people of the value of liberal arts education provided by this kind of college?

President Rosenberg:We have to provide evidence that shows that this kind of education will provide value for the investment. Some of the challenges is that some of the value that we provide is not easily measured.Liberal arts education is designed in part to prepare for your job. But it's also designed to prepare you to live a richer or more thoughtful life, and to be an engaged citizen, and those things are very dif fi cult to measure.

The job part is the easiest to measure. What we can show, for instance, is that at a place like Macalester College, about 70 percent of our students go on and get an advanced degree. The percentage of our students who get jobs when they leave college is about twice the average for students graduating from US colleges. Typically by the time alumni are in their mid-thirties, they will gain extra income from graduating from a place like Macalester College that will pay back the cost of attending, so everything after that is a gain.

For a lot of people, it’s really important that we demonstrate the economic value that we will provide. There are many things in our lives that we can spend money on. The difference for education is that it provides the highest return on our investment. When you buy a car, or when you buy a house, you know the value of the car will go down as soon as it’s not new. You don’t know what’s going to happen to the house: the value may go up or the value may go down. You can be pretty sure when you invest in education that you’re going to get a positive return on it. For all the things you can spend money on, in my view, as a parent, as a student, education is by far the most important. It’s the key to everything else.

《大学》：您有没有想过扩大学院规模？如果有可能，您愿意将文理学院转型成研究型大学吗？为什么？

罗森伯格校长：没有。我不认为从文理学院转型成研究型大学更好。这会改变我们，而我们更愿意保持自己的特色，我希望专注于我们的使命，这是我们办学的核心，即，教育好本科生。我宁愿继续我们擅长的工作，而不是去干别的。文理学院不同于研究型大学，它是完全不同的组织和教学机构。

我认为文理学院的工作很重要，我们也做得很好。我仍然相信，即便有各种新发明的技术，依然没有什么可以替代学生和教师之间的密切交流，及学生之间的交流。这是人与人之间的交流。我认为文理学院这个特殊的环境可以有效地促进这种交流。为什么要改变它？我不想去改变它。如果时代迫使它改变，我们就改变，如果没有，我们就不会改变。如果文理学院消失了，那意味着某些极其有价值的东西丢失了。

规模越大越好，我想这是个事实，不仅大学如此，企业也这样。越来越多的企业因为小而很难生存。教育也不是特例。大企业的经济模式通常运转得更好，这一理念可能也适用于教育领域。这也是为什么很多小型院校正在挣扎。规模小的时候，很难把一些事情都做好。但是我仍然宁可小而出色，也不要扩大规模。

University:Have you ever thought of making the college bigger? Would you like to develop it into a research university if possible? Why or why not?

President Rosenberg:No. I don't see evolving from a liberal arts college to a research university as something that would be better. It would make us different and I think that I would prefer not to be different.I’ll prefer to keep focused on the mission that is at the heart of what we do, which is educating undergraduates.I would rather keep doing what we are doing well than try to be something else. A liberal arts college is not a research university. It is a whole different organization, a different institution.

I think that the work is important and the outcomes are really good. I still think, even with all the technology that has been created, that nothing can really substitute for the closer interaction between students and faculty, and closer interaction among students. It’s all about human beings interacting with other human beings. I think this particular environment allows that to happen in a very fruitful way. So why change it? I don’t want to change it. If circumstances force it to change, then we will, but if they don’t, then I think we will not. If these kinds of places ever go away, something extremely valuable will have been lost.

Bigger is better. That’s true, not just in colleges, but when you think about business. For more and more businesses, it’s hard to be small and survive. Education is not unique. And the notion that the economic model of a very large business works better— there may be some truth to that in education. That is why some of these institutions are struggling. It’s hard to do these things small. But I would rather be small and outstanding than larger.