在当今世界，读大学好像是人生中非常重要的一个环节，那么大学的责任到底是什么?康奈尔大学在强调个人发展的同时也特别注重社会责任，在你所能想到的大学的作用里，有培养合格公民这一项吗?大学又是怎样培养合格公民的呢?
What is the purpose of college? Certainly it prepares students for careers and offers opportunities for learning and personal advancement that they may not get otherwise. But what other purpose does college serve?
大学的目的是什么?当然，大学为个人的学习和进步提供机会，为个人的职业生涯打好基础。但是除此之外大学还有什么目的呢?
Like many leaders in higher education, Gretchen Ritter, the dean of arts and sciences at Cornell University ， believe that we also have a responsibility to foster good citizenship, and I think that’s one of the most important contributions college can make to society.
像高等教育的许多领导者一样，康奈尔大学艺术与科学院院长Gretchen Ritter认为大学也应以培养合格公民为己任，那也是大学能为社会所做的最重要的贡献之一。
Abraham Lincoln once said that in the face of political divisions, it is beholden upon all of us to come together by invoking the “better angels of our nature.” I hope that some of our graduates will be leaders in these debates and will devote some part of their professional lives to public service.
How does college foster these attributes of good citizenship? There are three things that matter deeply here: knowledge, public orientation, and human understanding. Colleges do this not only through what we teach but also through who we admit.
大学应该怎样培养优秀公民呢?有三个关键因素：知识、公众意识，和人文意识。大学不仅通过“教”来实现这些，也通过所招学生的素质来呈现这些。
In my college, more than a tenth of the freshman class grew up outside the United States. We have students at Cornell from every state in the country, and every class, religious, or social background imaginable. That uncommon diversity can create challenges at times in competing understandings of what constitutes justice, opportunity or social good, or when religious differences spill over into foreign policy debates. But learning to navigate discussions that entail deep, passionate, and sometimes opposing commitments is an essential skill for all of us — not just in the public sphere, but in our work lives and home lives as well. In all of these ways, a commitment to the role of college in fostering good citizenship correlates to the view that knowledge and human understanding provide us with a pathway to a better future.
在康奈尔大学，超过十分之一的大一新生是国际学生，这种文化背景的多样性使学生对于正义、机遇等的理解也不尽相同，那么能够正确地引导舆论就是一种很重要的能力了。总之，大学的重要责任之一就是培养合格的公民，让学生知道知识和人文意识能引导他们拥有一个更好的未来。
志向存高远，天阔任翱翔
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