08年哈弗校长Faust给毕业生的演讲

这位是哈佛2007年2月11日宣布并于7月份正式上任的校长DrewG. Faust给哈佛大学2008年的本科毕业生做的演讲的讲稿，Drew G. Faust是哈佛历史上第一位女性校长，第一位非哈佛毕业生校长，杰出的历史学家，2001年从宾西法尼业大学到哈佛的Radcliffe学院任教，之前的哈佛上一任校长曾因为公开发表“歧视女性”的言论被迫辞职。

Baccalaureate address to Class of 2008
Cambridge, Mass.
June 3, 2008

As prepared for delivery

In the curious custom of this venerable institution, I find myselfstanding before you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. Here I am in apulpit, dressed like a Puritan minister — an apparition that would havehorrified many of my distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some ofthem to the extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increaseand Cotton into a true “Mather lather.” But here I am and there you are and itis the moment of and for Veritas.

You have been undergraduates for four years. I have been president fornot quite one. You have known three presidents; I one senior class. Where thenlies the voice of experience? Maybe you should be offering the wisdom. Perhapsour roles could be reversed and I could, in Harvard Law School style, do coldcalls for the next hour or so.

We all do seem to have made it to this point — more or less in onepiece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinnersince May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. Inever knew we took it quite so literally.

But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let’simagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form. of Q & A, and youwere asking the questions. “What is the meaning of life, President Faust? Whatwere these four years at Harvard for? President Faust, you must have learnedsomething 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 ofmy Bryn Mawr degree — now seems to be publicly available. But please remember Iwas young for my class.)

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

Let me explain. It actually began when I met with the UC just after myappointment was announced in the winter of 2007. Then the questions continuedwhen I had lunch at Kirkland House, dinner at Leverett, when I met withstudents in my office hours, even with some recent graduates I encounteredabroad. The first thing you asked me about wasn’t the curriculum or advising orfaculty 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?

There are a number of ways to think about this question and how toanswer it. There is the Willie Sutton approach. You may know that when he wasasked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”Professors Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz, whom many of you have encountered inyour economics concentration, offer a not dissimilar answer based on theirstudy of student career choices since the seventies. They find it notable that,given the very high pecuniary rewards in finance, many students nonethelessstill choose to do something else. Indeed, 37 of you have signed on with Teachfor America; one of you will dance tango and work in dance therapy in Argentina;another will be engaged in agricultural development in Kenya; another, with anhonors degree in math, will study poetry; another will train as a pilot withthe USAF; another will work to combat breast cancer. Numbers of you will go tolaw school, medical school, and graduate school. But, consistent with thepattern Goldin and Katz have documented, a considerable number of you areselecting finance and consulting. The Crimson’s survey of last year’s classreported that 58 percent of men and 43 percent of women entering the workforcemade this choice. This year, even in challenging economic times, the figure is39 percent.

High salaries, the all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut, thereassurance for many of you that you will be in New York working and living andenjoying life alongside your friends, the promise of interesting work — thereare lots of ways to explain these choices. For some of you, it is a commitmentfor only a year or two in any case. Others believe they will best be able to dogood by first doing well. Yet, you ask me why you are following this path.

I find myself in some ways less interested in answering your questionthan in figuring out why you are posing it. If Professors Goldin and Katz haveit right; if finance is indeed the “rational choice,” why do you keep raisingthis issue with me? Why does this seemingly rational choice strike a number ofyou as not understandable, as not entirely rational, as in some sense less afree choice than a compulsion or necessity? Why does this seem to be troublingso many of you?

You are asking me, I think, about the meaning of life, though you haveposed your question in code — in terms of the observable and measurablephenomenon of senior career choice rather than the abstract, unfathomable and almostembarrassing realm of metaphysics. The Meaning of Life — capital M, capital L —is a cliché — easier to deal with as the ironic title of a Monty Python movieor the subject of a Simpsons episode than as a matter about which one woulddare admit to harboring serious concern.

But let’s for a moment abandon our Harvard savoir faire, ourimperturbability, our pretense of invulnerability, and try to find thebeginnings of some answers to your question.

I think you are worried because you want your lives not just to beconventionally successful, but to be meaningful, and you are not sure how thosetwo goals fit together. You are not sure if a generous starting salary at aprestigious brand name organization together with the promise of future wealthwill feed your soul.

Why are you worried? Partly it is our fault. We have told you from themoment you arrived here that you will be the leaders responsible for thefuture, that you are the best and the brightest on whom we will all depend,that you will change the world. We have burdened you with no smallexpectations. And you have already done remarkable things to fulfill them: yourdedication to service demonstrated in your extracurricular engagements, yourconcern about the future of the planet expressed in your vigorous championingof sustainability, your reinvigoration of American politics through engagementin this year’s presidential contests.

But many of you are now wondering how these commitments fit with acareer choice. Is it necessary to decide between remunerative work andmeaningful work? If it were to be either/or, which would you choose? Is there away to have both?

You are asking me and yourselves fundamental questions about values,about trying to reconcile potentially competing goods, about recognizing thatit may not be possible to have it all. You are at a moment of transition thatrequires making choices. And selecting one option — a job, a career, a graduateprogram — means not selecting others. Every decision means loss as well as gain— possibilities foregone as well as possibilities embraced. Your question to meis partly about that — about loss of roads not taken.

Finance, Wall Street, “recruiting” have become the symbol of thisdilemma, representing a set of issues that is much broader and deeper than justone career path. These are issues that in one way or another will at some pointface you all — as you graduate from medical school and choose a specialty —family practice or dermatology, as you decide whether to use your law degree towork for a corporate firm or as a public defender, as you decide whether tostay in teaching after your two years with TFA. You are worried because youwant to have both a meaningful life and a successful one; you know you wereeducated to make a difference not just for yourself, for your own comfort andsatisfaction, but for the world around you. And now you have to figure out theway to make that possible.

I think there is a second reason you are worried — related to but notentirely distinct from the first. You want to be happy. You have flocked tocourses like “Positive Psychology” — Psych 1504 — and “The Science ofHappiness” in search of tips. But how do we find happiness? I can offer oneencouraging answer: get older. Turns out that survey data show older people —that is, my age — report themselves happier than do younger ones. But perhapsyou don’t want to wait.

As I have listened to you talk about the choices ahead of you, I haveheard you articulate your worries about the relationship of success andhappiness — perhaps, more accurately, how to define success so that it yieldsand encompasses real happiness, not just money and prestige. The mostremunerative choice, you fear, may not be the most meaningful and the mostsatisfying. But you wonder how you would ever survive as an artist or an actoror a public servant or a high school teacher? How would you ever figure out apath by which to make your way in journalism? Would you ever find a job as anEnglish professor after you finished who knows how many years of graduateschool and dissertation writing?

The answer is: you won’t know till you try. But if you don’t try to dowhat you love — whether it is painting or biology or finance; if you don’tpursue what you think will be most meaningful, you will regret it. Life islong. There is always time for Plan B. But don’t begin with it.

I think of this as my parking space theory of career choice, and I havebeen sharing it with students for decades. Don’t park 20 blocks from yourdestination because you think you’ll never find a space. Go where you want tobe and then circle back to where you have to be.

You may love investment banking or finance or consulting. It might bejust right for you. Or, you might be like the senior I met at lunch at Kirklandwho had just returned from an interview on the West Coast with a prestigiousconsulting firm. “Why am I doing this?” she asked. “I hate flying, I hatehotels, I won’t like this job.” Find work you love. It is hard to be happy ifyou spend more than half your waking hours doing something you don’t.

But what is ultimately most important here is that you are asking thequestion — not just of me but of yourselves. You are choosing roads and at thesame time challenging your own choices. You have a notion of what you want yourlife to be and you are not sure the road you are taking is going to get youthere. This is the best news. And it is also, I hope, to some degree, ourfault. Noticing your life, reflecting upon it, considering how you can live itwell, wondering how you can do good: These are perhaps the most valuable thingsthat a liberal arts education has equipped you to do. A liberal educationdemands that you live self-consciously. It prepares you to seek and define themeaning inherent in all you do. It has made you an analyst and critic ofyourself, a person in this way supremely equipped to take charge of your lifeand how it unfolds. It is in this sense that the liberal arts are liberal — asin liberare — to free. They empower you with the possibility of exercisingagency, of discovering meaning, of making choices. The surest way to have ameaningful, happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it. Don’t settle.Be prepared to change routes. Remember the impossible expectations we have of you,and even as you recognize they are impossible, remember how important they areas a lodestar guiding you toward something that matters to you and to theworld. The meaning of your life is for you to make.

I can’t wait to see how you all turn out. Do come back, from time totime, and let us know.

纪念教堂
麻省剑桥市
2008年6月3日
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。

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。

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。

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？”（40年啊，我就直说了，因为我人生中的每段细节——当然包括我在布林茅尔女子学院的一年——现在似乎都成了公共资源。但请记住在哈佛我可是“新生”）

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。

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┏晕绶够故窃贚everett 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？

对于这个问题有多种思考和回答方式。有一种解释就是如WillieSutton所说的，一切向“钱”看。（Willie Sutton是个抢银行犯，被逮住后当被问到为什么去抢银行时，他说：“Becausethat is where the money is!”）你们中很多人见过的普通经济学教授ClaudiaGoldin 和Larry Katz，基于对上世纪70年代以来的学生的职业选择的研究，作出了差不多的回答。他们发现了值得注意的一点：即使从事金融业可以得到很高的金钱回报，很多学生仍然选择做其它的事情。实事上，你们中间有37人签到了“教育美国人”（Teach for America，美国的一个组织，其作用类似于中国的“希望工程”）；1人将去跳探戈舞蹈并在阿根廷从事舞蹈疗法；1人将致力于肯尼亚的农业发展；另有1人获得了数学的荣誉学位，却转而去研究诗歌；1人将去美国空军接受飞行员训练；还有1人将加入到与乳癌抗战当中。你们中的很多人将去法学院，医学院或研究生院。但是，和Goldin 和Katz教授有据证明的一样，你们中相当一部分人将选择金融和理财咨询。Crimson对于上届学生的调查显示，在就业的学生中，58%的男生和43%的女生做出了这个选择。今年，即使在经济受挑战的一年，这个数据是39%。

也许是为了高薪——难以抵抗的招聘诱惑，也许是为了留在纽约然后和朋友们一起工作生活和享受人生，也许是为了做自己感兴趣的工作——对于这些选择可以有各种各样的理由。对你们中的一些人，无论如何那也只是个一两年的契约。其他的一部分人相信他们只有在过得“富有”了以后才有可能过得“富有”价值。不过，你们依然会问我，为什么要走这条路？

我发现我自己有时候对于回答你们的问题并没有多大兴趣，比较而言更感兴趣的却是捉摸你们为什么提那些问题。如果果真如Goldin和Katz教授所说；如果去搞金融确实是一个“理性”的选择，为什么你们会不停地向我提出这类问题？为什么看似理性的选择却让你们当中相当一部分人认为是令人费解的，伪理性的，或出于某种需求和强迫所作出的并不自由的选择？为什么这个问题似乎困扰着你们当中的很多一部分人？

我想，你们问我的是：关于人生价值的问题。虽然你们问得比较隐晦——即是些可以观察和衡量的大四学生职业选择的问题，而不是那抽象的，晦涩的，甚至会令人难堪的形而上学范畴的问题。人生价值，要人生？还是要价值？作为Monty Python那部片子（指的是六人行里《人生的价值》那一集）的讽刺意味的片名是不难理解的，作为《辛普森一家》（美国特别受欢迎的动画连续剧）的其中一集的主题也是不难理解的，可是当关系到“生存问题”的时候，就是不那么好办了。

那让我们还是暂时摘下那戴着的哈佛面具，收起那缺乏热情的冷漠，卸下我们看似刀枪不入的伪装，让我们尝试去探寻你们问的一些问题的答案。

我觉得，你们之所以担忧，是因为你们不想仅仅是获得传统意义上的成功，而且要活得有价值。可是你们不清楚“鱼”与“熊掌”怎样才能“兼得”。你们不清楚是否，一家拥有著名品牌的企业提供的数目可观的并且预期着你未来财富的起薪，可以让你们的灵魂得到满足。

然而，你们为什么担忧呢？这部分地是我们的责任。当你们一踏进这个学校，我们就告诉你们：你们将成为领导未来的中坚人物，你们将成为美国人民依赖的最顶尖、最杰出的精英，你们将改变整个世界。我们“望子成龙”的期望使你们背上了负担。而你们为了实现这些期望也已经做得很好：在对课外活动的从事中，你们展示出对于服务性工作的奉献精神；从对可持续发展的热情拥护，你们表达出对这个星球的关怀；通过对今年总统竞选的参与，你们做出了希望使美国政治重新恢复活力的实际行动。

但你们中的很多人现在会问，“怎样才能把做这些有价值的事情和一个职业选择结合起来呢？”“是否必须在一份有报酬却没价值的工作和一份有价值却没报酬的工作间做出抉择呢？”“如果是一个单选题，您会选哪一个？”“有没有折中的办法？”

你们在问我，也是问你们自己问题，即关于价值观的根本性的问题。你们在试图调解两个商品潜在的相互竞争，承认也许不可能兼得两者。你们在经历一次人生的转折，而这个转折需要你们自己做出一些决定。选择一条道路——一份工作、一项事业或一个研究生课题——不单单是在选择东西。每个决定都意味着“得”与“失”——过去与未来的种种可能。你们问我的问题其实有几分是关于“失”，即你放弃的那条道路让你失去了什么。

金融、华尔街，“招聘”一词已经成了这种博弈的符号，代表着比仅仅选择一条职业道路更广更深的一系列问题。这些问题早晚将面临着你们每个人——如果你是从医学院毕业，你将选择一个具体从医方向——做私人医生还是专攻皮肤病，如果你学的是法律，你将决定是用你的法律知识为一个公司法人卖命还是成为公众的正义化身，或是在 “教育美国人”两年后你决定是否继续从教。你们之所以担忧，是因为你们想拥有充满价值的同时又是成功的人生；你们知道，你们被教育要有大的作为，不仅仅是为了个人，为了自己生活地舒适，而是要让周围的世界因此而改变。因此你们才不得不思考怎样才能让其成为可能。

我认为你们之所以担忧有第二个原因——和第一个有关系但不是完全一样。你们希望过得幸福。你们蜂拥着去修“积极心理学”这门课——课程代号“心1504”——和“幸福的科学”这门课，不就是为了听点人生“小贴士”？可是，我们怎样才能获得幸福？在这儿，我可以提供一个启发性的答案：变老。调查数据显示年长的人——也就是我这把年纪的人——觉得自己比年轻人更幸福。不过，很可能你们没有人愿意去等着去看这个答案。

在聊天时我听过你们谈到你们目前所面临的选择，我听到你们一字一句地说出你们对于成功与幸福的关系的忧虑——也许，更精确地讲，怎样去定义成功才能使它具有或包含真正的幸福，而不仅仅是金钱和荣誉。你们害怕，报酬最丰厚的选择，也许不是最有价值的和最令人满意的选择。但是你们也担心，如果作为一个艺术家或是一个演员，一个人民公仆或是一个中学老师，该如何才能生存下去？然而，你们可曾想过，如果你的梦想是新闻业，怎样才能想出一条通往梦想的道路呢？难道你会在读了不知多少年研，写了不知多少毕业论文终于毕业后，找一个英语教授的工作？

答案是：你不试试就永远都不会知道。但如果你不试着去做自己热爱的事情，不管是玩泥巴还是生物还是金融，如果连你自己都不去追求你认为最有价值的事，你终将后悔。人生路漫漫，你总有时间去给自己留“后路”，但可别一开始就走“后路”。

我把这叫做我的关于职业选择的“泊车”理论，几十年来我一直都在向学生们“兜售”我的这个理论。不要因为怕到了目的地找不到停车位而把车停在距离目的地20个路口的地方。直接到达你想去的地方，哪怕再绕回来停，你暂时停的地方只是你被迫停的地方。

你也许喜欢做投行，或是做金融抑或做理财咨询。都可能是适合你的。那也许真的就是适合你的。或许你也会像我在Kirkland House见到的那个大四学生一样，她刚从美国西海岸一家著名理财咨询公司的面试回来。“我为什么要做这个？”她说，“我讨厌坐飞机，我讨厌住宾馆，我是不会喜欢这份工作的。”找到你热爱的工作。如果你把你一天中醒着的一大半时间用来做你不喜欢的事情，你是很难感到幸福的。

但是我在这儿说的最重要的是：你们在问那些问题——不仅是问我，而是在问你们自己。你们正在选择人生的道路，同时也在对自己的选择提出质疑。你们知道自己想过什么样的生活，也知道你们将行的道路不一定会把你们带到想去的地方。这样其实很好。某种程度上，我倒希望这是我们的错。我们一直在标榜人生，像镜子一样照出未来你们的模样，思考你们怎么可以过得幸福，探索你们怎样才能去做些对社会有价值的事：这些也许是文科教育可以给你们“装备”的最有价值的东西。文科教育要求你们要活得“明白”。它使你探索和定义你做的每件事情背后的价值。它让你成为一个经常分析和反省自己的人。而这样的人完全能够掌控自己的人生或未来。从这个道理上讲，文科——照它的字面意思——才使你们自由。（英语里文科是Liberal Art，照字面解释是自由的艺术）学文科可以让你有机会去进行理论的实践，去发现你所做的选择的价值。想过上有价值的，幸福的生活，最可靠的途径就是为了你的目标去奋斗。不要安于现状得过且过。随时准备着改变人生的道路。记住我们对你们的我觉得是“过于崇高”的期待，可能你们自己也承认那些期待是有点“太高了”。不过如果想做些对于你们自己或是这个世界有点价值的事情，记住它们，它们将会像北斗一样指引着你们。你们人生的价值将由你们去实现！

我都等不及想看看你们都最终会如何。毕业以后和学校常联系，常回“家”看看，让我们了解你们的情况。