路透社对于耶鲁设立新加坡分校的报道。。。

nicole1973

耶鲁与新加坡国立大学合作，预计2013年8月开始招收学生，但筹办过程中，耶鲁屡遭校内外人士抨击耶鲁捨弃学术自由原则，西方纷纷在亚洲许多威权国家成立分校时，是否该有所妥协？

3百多年来，耶鲁大学引以自豪的，就是培养出能够质疑、分析、挑战并批判的顶尖学生。现在，为推广这些价值，耶鲁用自己的招牌在海外设校，准备在2013年的夏天在新加坡推出博雅教育学院。这项充满抱负且所费不赀的计画，使不少耶鲁人同感振奋，他们表示这有助于维繫大学声誉，并建立该校的全球影响力。

被批违反校训

不过，这也引来学校教员及人权倡议者的激烈抨击。他们认为，在严格管控公共言论及集会的威权国家，不可能打造出一间致力于自由探索的菁英学院。

「耶鲁的校训是『光明与真理』。」耶鲁资工系教授费雪说：「我们前往的，是一个压制光明与真理的地方……我们用违背自身价值的方式，去重新界定耶鲁这块招牌。」

耶鲁与新加坡国立大学合作，从头建立一所全方位的博雅教育学院。该学院提供的主修科目，从人类学到都市研究都有；选修科目涵盖碎形几何学到道德推理；此外还提供丰富课外活动，如运动、戏剧、辩论甚至是杂耍社团。

2013年夏季预计会招收150位学生，而目前正在兴建的高耸建物，未来将容纳1千名大学生。
数十年来，美国大学向海外拓展，多数提供的是学位学程。与耶鲁计画最相近者，或许是纽约大学正在阿布达比及上海兴建的分校。然而，纽约大学的新校园是大学的分部；而吸引全球菁英学子的耶鲁大学，推动的则是特殊的溷合计画。学院名称为耶鲁新加坡国大学院。

耶鲁官员强调，新学院不是学校分部，授予的也不是耶鲁学位。耶鲁天文学教授贝林表示：「这不是耶鲁。」贝林将离开耶鲁，前往担任创校教务长。

这所新学院，完全由新加坡政府出资，政府亦会补助学费。新加坡公民的学费，1年是1万8千美元，其中包含住宿及伙食。国际学生学费是4万3千美元，若承诺毕业后留在新加坡公司工作3年，学费可享有折扣。

人权观察指控耶鲁「违背大学精神」；上个月，美国大学教授协会则表示，他们关心这项计画所涉及到的学术自由问题。
这项议题去年春天开始引发注意，当时耶鲁的教员进行表决，100人当中有69人以新加坡「长久以来对公民及至政治权力缺乏尊重」为由，对校方决定进驻新加坡的决定表示关注。

东南亚岛国新加坡虽是民主国家，但自从半世纪以前从英国独立以后，便一党独大至今。去年，一名英国作家因着书批评新加坡司法被关押。去年夏天，政府禁止一名反对党政治人物出境前往奥斯陆自由论坛发表演说。
然而，在新学院工作的耶鲁教职员表示，他们跟其他在新加坡校园教书的外国教授聊天，开始相信学术自由会受到尊重。

在耶鲁取得博士学位的毕夏，从1991年开始就在新加坡国立大学教心理学。他表示，自己从未感受到自己受限。毕夏说：「我们老在课堂上批评政府。」在爱滋病的课堂上，他跟学生自由讨论新加坡不利公卫的禁止鸡姦规定。
然而，耶鲁国大学院的自由及开放，跟美国学生所想像的不同。
也许，最恳切的批评是来自目前就读于耶鲁的新加坡人吴仪清（音译），她已取得耶鲁的大学学历，目前在耶鲁继续攻读语言学。去年春天，她在《耶鲁日报》专栏上表示，要敦促教员要尊重新加坡发展的规定，以确保公共秩序。

「焚烧《古兰经》在新加坡是非法的，我们同意这个规定。」她写道：「我们优先看重我们的价值……不同不代表就是错的。至少，这是我在耶鲁的博雅教育中学到的。」

部分言行仍遭禁止

新加坡禁止宣扬会造成种族及宗教冲突的言论。只要不跨过这条界线，学生可以自由听讲，并在校园内表达自己的观点。不过，院长刘易斯表示，户外集会活动要获得政府许可。新加坡法律对「集会」的定义很广，单独一人持标语抗议或举行公开辩论都算。

当教务长贝林被问到：「你能在市政府游行吗？」他回答不能，但这不困扰他，「实际上这跟教育事务无关」。贝林表示，就「学院的核心任务－研究、教学、不受限制的讨论」而论，他承诺会完全的自由。

在这个哲学问题底下，有另一务实问题：新学院会成功吗？

事实证明，新加坡不完全是高等教育的理想市场。澳洲的新南威尔斯大学2007年在新加坡设校，才一个学期就因为注册人数太少而关门大吉。去年夏天，纽约大学则因为财务困难，宣布关闭在新加坡的电影学院。

其他美国大学在新加坡的投资事业则表现较佳，如约翰霍普金斯大学成立的音乐学院。

（路透）

For more than 300 years, Yale University has prided itself on training top students to question and analyze, to challenge and critique.

Now, Yale is seeking to export those values by establishing the first foreign campus to bear its name, a liberal arts college in Singapore that is set to open this summer. The ambitious, multimillion-dollar project thrills many in the Yale community who say it will help the university maintain its prestige and build global influence.

But it has also stirred sharp criticism from faculty and human-rights advocates who say it is impossible to build an elite college dedicated to free inquiry in an authoritarian nation with heavy restrictions on public speech and assembly.
"Yale's motto is 'Lux et veritas,' or 'Light and truth,'" said Michael Fischer, a Yale professor of computer science. "We're going into a place with severe curbs on light and truth ... We're redefining the brand in a way that's contrary to Yale's values."

Working with the National University of Singapore, or NUS, Yale is building a comprehensive liberal arts college from scratch. The school will offer majors from anthropology to urban studies, electives from fractal geometry to moral reasoning, and a rich menu of extracurricular activities -- sports, drama, debate, even a juggling club.

Scheduled to open this summer with 150 students, it is slated to grow to about 1,000 undergraduates living in a high-rise campus now under construction.
While American universities have been venturing overseas for decades, they have mostly offered degree programs. The closest analogy to the Yale project may be New York University's branch campuses now under construction in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.
But the new NYU campuses are extensions of the university. The Yale venture ，which targets top students from around the globe, is an unusual hybrid. It will be called Yale-NUS College.
Yale officials are emphatic that the new school is not a branch campus. The degrees it issues will not be Yale degrees. "It is not Yale," said Charles Bailyn, an astronomy professor on leave from Yale to serve as the founding dean of Yale-NUS.
The new college will be funded entirely by the Singapore government, which will also subsidize tuition. Singapore citizens will pay about $18,000 a year, including room and board. International students will pay about $43,000 unless they secure a discount by committing to work for a Singapore company for three years after graduation.
Human Rights Watch accused Yale of "betraying the spirit of the university." This month the American Association of University Professors expressing concern about the project's implications for academic freedom.
That issue came to the fore last spring, when Yale faculty voted 100 to 69 for a resolution raising concern about the venture in light of "the history of lack of respect for civil and political rights" in Singapore.
Singapore, an island nation in southeast Asia, is a democracy but has been dominated by one political party since securing independence from Britain half a century ago. Last year a British author was jailed for writing a book critical of Singapore's judiciary. This spring the government prevented an opposition politician from leaving the country to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Still, Yale faculty working on the new college said they had spoken with foreign professors teaching on other campuses in Singapore and came away convinced that academic freedom would be respected.
George Bishop, a Yale PhD who been teaching psychology at the National University of Singapore since 1991, says he has never felt restricted. "We criticize the government all the time in class," said Bishop. In a class on the AIDS epidemic, he and his students freely discuss how Singapore's anti-sodomy laws hinder the nation's public-health.
Yet Yale-NUS will not be free and open in the way American students may expect.
Perhaps the most pointed critique came from E-Ching Ng, a Singaporean who earned an undergraduate degree at Yale and remained on campus to study linguistics. In a column in the Yale Daily News last spring, she urged faculty to respect the rules Singapore has developed to maintain public order.
"Qur'an burning is illegal in Singapore, and we like it that way," she wrote. "We prioritize our values…, and different doesn't mean wrong. At least, that's what I learned from a Yale liberal arts education."
Singapore bans speech deemed to promote racial or religious strife. As long as they toe that line, students will be free to hear speakers and express views inside campus buildings. But many outdoor assemblies will require a government permit, Yale-NUS President Pericles Lewis said. Singapore law defines "assembly" quite broadly, to include a single protester holding a sign or an open-air debate.
"Can you march on City Hall?" asked Bailyn, the Yale-NUS dean. No, he answered -- but said that didn't trouble him, as "that's not really an educational matter." Bailyn said he had been promised complete freedom with "the core mission of the college -- researching, teaching, unfettered discussion."

Under the philosophical questions lies a pragmatic one: Will the new college succeed?

Singapore has not always proved an ideal marketplace for higher education. Australia's University of New South Wales opened a campus in Singapore in 2007 -- only to shut it after one semester because of low enrollment. This fall, NYU announced it would close its film school in Singapore because of financial trouble.
Other American ventures in Singapore have done better, including a music conservatory developed by Johns Hopkins University. （Reuters）

JUNZIZI

学习了。。