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一流大学建设：总理必读
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一流大学建设：总理必读
2010.02.04
曹聪老兄的博士导师Jonathan Cole在2010年1月12日出版了一本新书，叫做The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected（《美国名校：卓越的起源，不可或缺的国家作用，需要捍卫的理由》）。
这本书应该是总理必读书目，可是不知为何原因，曹聪兄居然没有在博客中给大家及时介绍，想必不是因为书名太长的缘故。（注：曹聪兄现在已经立即弥补了这一遗憾。见《一流大学的“核心价值”和“金科玉律”——科尔教授『美国名校』简介》，链接：http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=292722）
Amazon上Jonathan Cole新书的信息链接：http://www.amazon.com/Great-American-University-Preeminence-Indispensable/dp/1586484087
Jonathan Cole在哥伦比亚大学校报Record上有关本书的专访视频连接：http://news.columbia.edu/oncampus/1887
wiki百科有关Jonathan Cole的信息链接：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_R._Cole
为什么说这本书是总理必读数目呢？
这当然不是因为Jonathan Cole是曹聪兄的博士导师，而是因为Jonathan Cole曾经做过哥伦比亚大学的CAO（Chief Academic Officer，简称曹长），也就是Provost and Dean of Faculties，长达14年之久（1983－2003），是美国高等教育界过去20多年里面最有影响的人物。
更重要的是，Jonathan Cole是科学社会学泰斗Robert Merton的得意门生，他本身的专长是科学社会学和科学政策。
不仅如此，在这本640页的大部头中，Jonathan Cole还专门讨论了他在中国大学的访问和考察，讨论了中国建设世界一流大学的现实性、可能性和需要重视的问题。
如果总理或者他的智囊们不读这本书，只是在那里摸着石头过河地建设一流大学，恐怕是交待不过去的。
前两天国内媒体纷纷报道了施一公教授和温家宝总理讨论世界一流大学建设的新闻。新闻中说，
当施一公结束发言时，温家宝对大家说：“我们要下决心加快建设世界一流大学。”他略微停顿一下，提高了声音，语气坚定地说：“中国一定能够出现世界一流大学。”深受感染的施一公也回应道：“一定能。”
新华网《温家宝总理就《政府工作报告（征求意见稿）》征求科教文卫体界代表意见座谈会侧记》新闻链接：http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2010-02/02/content_12915754.htm
巧妇难为无米之炊。既然新闻中没有报道施一公教授向温总理提到Jonathan Cole的这本书，这件事请就只好由本人隔山打炮了。
其实，温总理不一定有时间读这本书，因此也许可以建议中国科学院政策所的两位科学网名博先把这本书研究研究，在翻译整理总结之后给温总理呈上去更好。这总比他们在科学网上没有第一手资料地放空炮要有价值得多。如果春节一过他们就抓紧时间的话，或许能赶上为三月份的两会献礼。
本人过去曾经有两篇博文谈到Jonathan Cole，Merton的科学社会学以及科学政策问题。
《向曹聪博士讨教科学社会学》博文链接：http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=4994
《99%的科学发现是1%的科学家做出的》博文链接：http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=8172
其中有一篇王铮老师很有意见的博文《99%的科学发现是1%的科学家做出的》，就是立足于Jonathan Cole和他的兄弟Stephen Cole在1972年Science上发表的重要的科学计量学研究论文。
还是建设一流大学要紧。这些往事，就不多提了。
Amazon网站上的评论和介绍：
Editorial Reviews
Review
Kirkus,STARRED review
“An elegant, comprehensive examination of how American universities became the best in the world, and why research matters….A sound, enthusiastic look at the crucial vitality of the American university system.”
William G. Bowen, President Emeritus, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
“Jonathan Cole has given us a stimulating and provocative account of how the American research university came to be, the ideas it has contributed, and the challenges it faces. Not everyone will agree with all of the argument, but everyone can learn from it.”
Geoffrey R. Stone, Former Provost of the University of Chicago and author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime
“Jonathan Cole has written the definitive work on the American research university. A monumental achievement, The Great American University explores the complex historical and cultural reasons for the international preeminence of American higher education, documents the profound contributions American research universities have made, and continue to make, to our nation and to the world, and identifies and analyzes the dangers that now threaten to undermine one of the strongest pillars of American excellence.”
Jeffrey D. Sachs, professor, Columbia University; director, the Earth Institute
“Jonathan Cole has produced a masterpiece, a modern classic. This is at once a scintillating biography of the great American university, a powerful diagnosis of its major challenges today, and an invaluable guide for a robust future of this unique, world-changing institution. This is sociological inquiry, technological history, and social philosophy at its most powerful, a penetrating study of how America’s research universities have been shaped by and have shaped American society. Cole’s study will be avidly read in all parts of the world, as societies attempt to emulate and adapt the strengths of America’s research universities to the challenges of building knowledge-based economies and democratic societies of the twenty-first century.”
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor, Harvard University
“I can think of no one better than Jonathan Cole to lead the crucial discussion on the role of the American university as the preeminent seat of intellectual and technological innovation. In the face of alarming trends in legislation and government intervention, he offers a precise and extremely well written prescription for how the American university can once again prevail.”
Cori Bargmann, professor, the Rockefeller University; member of the National Academy of Science
“A passionate and intelligent defense of the university’s role in creating knowledge, not just disseminating it. Every university has its own story; this book steps back to tell the history of American universities as a whole. Cole describes the logic, people, and context that drove the universities to pair teaching with research and discovery. He provides an irresistible tour of advances in science and culture that grew in the universities, from artificial hips to Google to eyewitness unreliability, and a clear-eyed view of their failings, from red scares to groupthink. Cole is a compelling advocate, and his book is a resource for academics, students, and all friends of the university.”
Vartan Gregorian, president, Carnegie Corporation of New York; former president, Brown University
“The story of American universities has been one of great success. Now, at a time when American higher education in general—and American public higher education in particular—is in crisis, Jonathan Cole’s The Great American University is a timely analysis of higher education’s current problems and prospects. I hope that policymakers will heed the author’s cogent arguments about the centrality of American universities in the panoply of our national life, as well as their vital contribution to the economic, political, and social advancement of the United States.”
Product Description
Although America’s universities have become the envy of the world for their creative energy and their production of transformative knowledge, few understand how and why they have become preeminent. This groundbreaking book traces the origins and the evolution of our great universities. It shows how they grew out of sleepy colleges at the turn of the twentieth century into powerful institutions that continue to generate new industries and advance our standard of living. Far from inevitable, this transformation was enabled by a highly competitive system that invested public tax dollars in university research and students while granting universities substantial autonomy. Today, America’s universities face considerable threats. Even greater than foreign competition are the threats from within the United States. Under the Bush administration, government increasingly imposed ideological constraints on the freedom of academic inquiry. Restrictive visa policies instituted after 9/11 continue to discourage talented foreign graduate students from training in the United States. The international financial crisis, which has depleted university endowments and state investments in higher education, threatens the vitality of some of our greatest institutions of higher learning. In order to sustain and enhance the American tradition of excellence, we must nurture this powerful－yet underappreciated－national resource.
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-176-292650.html
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