感恩节前给美国康乃尔大学的一位终身教授发了封邮件寒暄之外顺祝节日快乐，中间我大致写了一句：Hope the financial crisis in Wall Street do not bring any effect to your life.

     第二天收到他的回复邮件，中间有一句：All is well here & we have just had our first significant snowstorm (about 225 mm).The financial crisis has affected us all; it will likely affect my retirement plans, depending on how long & deep the crisis really is.

     看来Ithaca的暴风雪如期而至，却没有想到华尔街的风暴居然影响到国际著名大学终身教授的退休计划。

      我赶紧回信询问究竟，因为在我的印象中，美国终身tenure的教授应该是铁饭碗啊！后来这为教授来信解释如下：

      In the US, many state university systems have guaranteed pensions.  Others put an additional certain percentage of your base salary into various types of funds that are then owned by and controlled by the person.  These are all variable & related directly or indirectly to the stock market.  What you hope for is stability & growth, which is not the case right now.  Then there is social security as well.

        看来美国州立大学的教授饭碗似乎更铁，私立大学大多喜欢将养老基金与投资银行的衍生金融产品挂钩，以期获得更高的收益，没有想到金融海啸会不期而至。

         这一点，也许美国的大学应该向中国大学学习！