上海紐約大學(xué)2024屆本科生畢業(yè)典禮致辭
校長 | 童世駿
致辭以英文進行，以下為中文譯文和英文原文
尊敬的各位來賓，親愛的同事們，同學(xué)們以及家長們：
請允許我向2024屆所有的畢業(yè)生表達最熱烈的祝賀，祝賀你們作為上海紐約大學(xué)的本科生圓滿結(jié)束了四年的學(xué)習(xí)生涯。同時，我也要向所有為學(xué)生們付出愛心、關(guān)懷和努力的人們，表達衷心的感謝！
不到兩周后，我任職上海紐約大學(xué)校長，就要滿四周年了。所以，請允許我接下來把畢業(yè)典禮致辭，這個對于校長來說的一年一次的活動，冒昧地變成四年一次的活動；我想以此感謝你們，在過去四年里，我從你們那里也學(xué)了不少。
我從你們身上學(xué)到很多，首先是因為你們學(xué)習(xí)經(jīng)歷的豐富程度，尤其就你們的學(xué)習(xí)場所而言，在世界高等教育的歷史上是獨一無二的。
和其他大學(xué)生一樣，你們不僅在校園內(nèi)學(xué)習(xí)，而且在校園外學(xué)習(xí)；和紐約大學(xué)的其他學(xué)生一樣，你們不僅在自己的主校園學(xué)習(xí)，還到其他地方的校園去學(xué)習(xí)；和其他上紐大學(xué)生一樣，你們不僅在上海學(xué)習(xí)，也在中國其他地方學(xué)習(xí)。
但和所有其他學(xué)生不同的是，你們不僅在真實空間學(xué)習(xí)，而且在虛擬空間學(xué)習(xí)；你們不僅在共享空間學(xué)習(xí)，而且在隔離空間學(xué)習(xí)；你們不僅在專為學(xué)習(xí)而設(shè)計的空間學(xué)習(xí)，而且在專為睡覺而設(shè)計的空間學(xué)習(xí)；你們不僅在世紀大道校園學(xué)習(xí)，而且在從前稱作三林塘的這個前灘校園學(xué)習(xí)。我深感榮幸，幾乎在以上所有地方，我都曾與你們共同學(xué)習(xí)。
我尤其高興的是，你們以各種方式讓我知道，你們不僅在上海各處，而且還在世界各地，度過快樂時光。
我得承認，我真的有點嫉妒你們——不是因為你們參觀了我未能前往的博物館，品嘗了我未能嘗到的美食，參與了我未能參加的活動，結(jié)交了我未能結(jié)識的朋友，而是因為你們能夠用這么多富有想象力和創(chuàng)造性的方式，將這些“點”連成一條“線”，一條通往你們個人發(fā)展下一個階段的線。
我也得承認，有時候，看到你們因為無法兼顧那些美好選項而糾結(jié)煩惱，我的快樂是帶著一點點壞笑的。
當(dāng)然，我更想知道的，是你們?nèi)绾慰创谏虾＜~約大學(xué)的那些學(xué)習(xí)機會，以及你們?yōu)楹翁貏e喜歡其中的一些課程。我特別高興的，是你們說之所以喜歡某些課，并不是因為可以得高分，也并不是因為本來有的興趣得到了滿足，而是因為覺得這些課程既經(jīng)典又酷炫，因為對你們心目中優(yōu)秀學(xué)府的形象來說，這些課程既是那么匹配，又甚至有所超越。
我也想特別感謝你們常常讓我把教的過程變成學(xué)的過程——讓我在教課程、開講座、參加“校長下午茶”或發(fā)表像這樣的演講之中或之后，學(xué)到許多。感謝你們對我的一些立場和論證拒絕輕易同意，或拒絕假裝同意，這些立場和論證往往是我自己后來也會覺得不夠清晰、不大站得住腳的。
我也要順便感謝你們提供了最重要的數(shù)據(jù)來支持我的這個觀點：正因為人類會發(fā)問、會提出有意義的問題，與人工智能相比，人類智能是具有永恒的優(yōu)越性的。
我可以從你們那里有所學(xué)習(xí)的機會還有許多，但我現(xiàn)在不想一一例舉這些機會，而只想再用一個例子強調(diào)這一點：在讓我知道當(dāng)做什么、不當(dāng)做什么方面，你們的作用是獨一無二的。
在幾個月以前，碰上好天氣，在去學(xué)校的路上，我曾喜歡在蘇州河畔美麗步道上騎十分鐘單車。但從某一天開始，我騎車繞開行人步道了，因為我突然意識到，如果面對我的四歲外孫，我會無法解釋，外公為何要在只供行人走路的步道上騎車車。
親愛的同學(xué)們，你們對我的引導(dǎo)作用，也是與此類似的：面對你們，我常常要想想，該怎么解釋我為什么做這個選擇，而不是那個選擇。
親愛的2024屆畢業(yè)生們，你們可能已經(jīng)猜到了，以上關(guān)于我自己所說的話，其實是為對你們說臨別寄語做鋪墊。
是的，下面就是我衷心地希望你們記住的話：從今天起，你們將成為學(xué)弟學(xué)妹們模仿或追隨的對象；從今天起，你們將經(jīng)常被未曾參加過這樣的畢業(yè)典禮的人們問及，為什么你要這樣做，而不是那樣做。在我看來，從今天起，能否一直在自己的人生旅程中對這樣的問題做出解答，將是你們未來要參加的最重要的“比賽”。
最近我去了紐約，在我愛逛的思存書店（Strand Bookstore）里看到一本書，它將哈佛和耶魯兩校間一年一度的橄欖球比賽描述為“唯一重要的比賽”。那本書很有意思，但我最后還是沒有買，因為對“唯一最重要的比賽”，我有自己的理解：這種比賽之取勝，“當(dāng)且僅當(dāng)”這樣的時刻，即我們能冷靜、坦然地、而且自信地向那些視我們?yōu)榘駱拥娜私忉屪约耗切┯械赖绿N含之選擇的時刻。
既然說到“比賽”，我想就用這個比喻來結(jié)束演講：親愛的每一位2024屆畢業(yè)生，我希望你們在今年的畢業(yè)典禮中，都會受到一位獨特嘉賓的獨特啟發(fā)，這位嘉賓之所以備受贊譽和推崇，不僅僅是因為他在那些奇妙比賽中的杰出表現(xiàn)，也常常因為他在那些比賽之后的睿智言談。
盡管現(xiàn)在難以想象，有朝一日，當(dāng)你們在我剛剛說的那場“唯一重要的比賽”中取得勝利后，面對向你們歡呼慶功的觀眾，你們的講演中會有哪些連珠妙語。但是我作為與你們幾乎同時成為紐約大學(xué)一員的人，我知道我對你們有怎樣的希望，那就是：在被問到是怎么贏得這場“唯一重要的比賽”的時候，我希望你們都能回答說：“我之所以打贏那場比賽，是因為我曾經(jīng)是一支叫做‘上海紐約大學(xué)’的球隊的成員。”
謝謝大家。
英文原文
Distinguished guests, dear colleagues, dear students,
and their loved ones,
Please allow me to express my warmest congratulations
to all the students of the class of 2024 for the happy
conclusion of your four years as NYU Shanghai
undergraduate students, and my heartfelt thanks to
everyone who has devoted love, care, and endless efforts
to our students!
In less than two weeks, I will have been the
Chancellor of NYU Shanghai for four years. So please
allow me to take the liberty to turn this occasion, this
once-a-year occasion for a university chancellor, into a
once-every-four-year opportunity, in order to express my
gratitude to you for what I have hopefully learned from
you over the past four years.
I learned a lot from you because you are likely a
cohort of students who have had the richest learning
experiences, particularly in terms of the locations of
learning, in the world history of higher education.
Like other college students, you did your learning
both on campus and off campus; like other NYU students,
you did your learning both on your home campus and on
other campuses; like other NYU Shanghai students, you
did your learning both in Shanghai and in other parts of
the country. Unlike any other students in the past four
years, however, you did your learning in spaces that are
not only real but also virtual, not only shared but also
isolated, not only designed for studying but also
designed for sleeping, and not only at Century Avenue
but also at Qiantan, a region previously called 三林塘. I’m
very happy to have had the privilege of being together
with you in almost all these spaces, and I thank you
very much for this, indeed.
I am particularly happy to have learned a lot from you
when you showed in various ways your happy times not
only in other parts of the city, but also in other parts
of the world. I must confess that I’m a little jealous
of you, not because of the museums you visited, the
foods you enjoyed, the events you participated in, and
the friends you met in so many countries and cities that
I have not been able to visit, but because of your
ability to connect these “dots” into a “l(fā)ine” that leads
to the next stage of your personal development in so
many imaginative and creative ways. I should also
confess that sometimes I enjoyed seeing you torn between
those wonderful options that you know you cannot take
all at the same time.
Of course I was keener to know how you see the
learning opportunities here at NYU Shanghai and why you
particularly appreciate some of the courses you
attended; I was particularly happy when you told me that
you appreciated these courses not because there you
could get higher scores, nor because there your prior
interests were met more sufficiently, but because you
found these courses so cool and so classic at the same
time, and you thought they both matched and transcended
the image of a good university in your mind.
I would like to express a special kind of gratitude to
you for what I learnt when or after I taught a course,
gave a talk, joined an afternoon tea, or made a speech
like this one. Thank you very much for refusing to agree
or to pretend to agree with those positions or arguments
of mine that I myself may come to see as too ambiguous
or too weak later on.
I thank you very much, by the way, also for providing
important data supporting my argument for the permanent
human superiority vis-à-vis AI: the human interest in
prompting relevant questions.
There are a lot more opportunities I have or could
have learnt from you, but I am not going to list all
these opportunities now. I want to emphasize the special
role you play in telling me what I should do and what I
should not by citing only one more example. Several
months ago, on my way to school every morning I used to
spend 10 minutes biking on a beautiful pedestrian path
along the Suchow Creek during fine days. But one day I
stopped doing that, and took another route to bike
instead, for suddenly I realized that I would have
difficulties explaining to my grandson of 4 why grandpa
biked on a path that is exclusively for walking.
In a similar way, my dear students, you play a special
role in guiding me: I often need to think how to explain
to you why I chose to do this instead of that.
What I said above about myself, as you may guess, is
to prepare for what I would like to advise you today, my
dear students of 2024. Yes, this is what I would like to
say to you most sincerely at this moment: please keep in
mind that from today on you will be seen by all
undergraduate college students and those younger as
someone to be imitated or followed; from today on, that
is to say, you will often need to explain to anybody who
has not yet attended a commencement ceremony like this
why you do this but not that. Whether you will be able
to give your explanations all the way along your life
from now on is, in my view, the most important game you
will play in the future. The annual football
competition, or the annual “American football”
competition, between Harvard and Yale, is described to
be “the only game that matters” by a book I happened to
see recently in my favorite place to visit in New York,
the Strand Bookstore. This is an interesting book but I
did not buy it, because in my mind, the game in which we
win if and only if we can give our explanations about
our morally significant choices to those who look to us
for examples calmly, comfortably and confidently, is
rather the only game that matters.
With the metaphor of “game,” I would like now to
conclude my speech by wishing all of you, my dear
students of 2024, to be inspired by the person who will
give this year’s NYU Shanghai Commencement Guest Speech
today, the person who is respected and admired not only
for what he did during those incredible matches, but
very often also for what he said after these matches.
It’s impossible to imagine at present what you guys will
most charmingly say in the future before the audience
applauding your victories in “the only game that
matters” that I just mentioned; but I, as a person who
became an NYU community member almost at the same time
as you did, would hope that you, when asked how you have
managed to win that game, could all say this: I did this
because I was once a player of a team called NYU
Shanghai.
Thank you very much for your attention.
|
