這位是哈佛2007年2月11日宣佈並於7月份正式上任的校長DrewG. Faust給哈佛大學2008年的本科畢業生做的演講的講稿，Drew G. Faust是哈佛歷史上第一位女性校長，第一位非哈佛畢業生校長，傑出的歷史學家，2001年從賓西法尼業大學到哈佛的Radcliffe學院任教，之前的哈佛上一任校長曾因爲公開發表“歧視女性”的言論被迫辭職。
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.
紀念教堂
麻省劍橋市
2008年6月3日
在這所久負盛名的大學的別具一格的儀式上，我站在了你們的面前，被期待着給予一些蘊含着恆久智慧的言論。站在這個講壇上，我穿得像個清教徒教長——一個可能會嚇到我的傑出前輩們的怪物，或許使他們中的一些人重新致力於剷除巫婆的事業上。這個時刻也許曾激勵了很多清教徒成爲教長。但現在，我在上面，你們在下面，此時此刻，屬於真理，爲了真理。
你們已經在哈佛做了四年的大學生，而我當哈佛校長還不到一年。你們認識了三個校長，而我只認識了你們這一屆大四的。算起來我哪有資格說什麼經驗之談？或許應該由你們上來展示一下智慧。要不我們換換位置？然後我就可以像哈佛法學院的學生那樣，在接下來的一個小時內不時地冷不防地提出問題。
學校和學生們似乎都在努力讓時間來到這一時刻，而且還差不多是步調一致的。我這兩天才得知哈佛從5月22日開始就不向你們提供伙食了。雖然有比喻說“我們早晚得給你們斷奶”，但沒想到我們的後勤還真的早早就把“奶”給斷了。
現在還是讓我們回到我剛纔提到的提問題的事上吧。讓我們設想下這是個哈佛大學給本科生的畢業服務，是以問答的形式。你們將問些問題，比如：“福校長啊，人生的價值是什麼呢？我們上這大學四年是爲了什麼呢？福校長，你大學畢業到現在的40年裏一定學到些什麼東西可以教給我們吧？”（40年啊，我就直說了，因爲我人生中的每段細節——當然包括我在布林茅爾女子學院的一年——現在似乎都成了公共資源。但請記住在哈佛我可是“新生”）
在某種程度上，在過去的一年裏你們一直都在讓我從事這種問答。從僅僅這些問題上，即使你們措辭問題都傾向於狹義，而我除了思考怎麼做出回答外，更激發我去思考的，是你們爲什麼問這些問題。
聽我解釋。提問從2007年冬天我的任職被公佈時與校方的會面就開始了。然後提問一直持續，不論是我在Kirkland House（哈佛的12個本科生宿舍之一┏暈綬夠故竊贚everett House（哈佛的12個本科生宿舍之一，本科高年級學生使用）吃晚飯，或是當我在辦公時間與學生會見，甚至是我在與國外認識的剛考來的研究生的談話中。你們問的第一個問題不是關於課業，不是讓我提建議，也不是爲了和教員接觸，甚至是想向我提建議。事實上，更不是爲了和我討論酒精政策。相反，你們不厭其煩問的卻是：爲什麼我們之中這麼多人將去華爾街？爲什麼我們大量的學生都從哈佛走向了金融，理財諮詢，投行？
對於這個問題有多種思考和回答方式。有一種解釋就是如WillieSutton所說的，一切向“錢”看。（Willie Sutton是個搶銀行犯，被逮住後當被問到爲什麼去搶銀行時，他說：“Becausethat is where the money is!”）你們中很多人見過的普通經濟學教授ClaudiaGoldin
和Larry Katz，基於對上世紀70年代以來的學生的職業選擇的研究，作出了差不多的回答。他們發現了值得注意的一點：即使從事金融業可以得到很高的金錢回報，很多學生仍然選擇做其它的事情。實事上，你們中間有37人簽到了“教育美國人”（Teach
for America，美國的一個組織，其作用類似於中國的“希望工程”）；1人將去跳探戈舞蹈並在阿根廷從事舞蹈療法；1人將致力於肯尼亞的農業發展；另有1人獲得了數學的榮譽學位，卻轉而去研究詩歌；1人將去美國空軍接受飛行員訓練；還有1人將加入到與乳癌抗戰當中。你們中的很多人將去法學院，醫學院或研究生院。但是，和Goldin
和Katz教授有據證明的一樣，你們中相當一部分人將選擇金融和理財諮詢。Crimson對於上屆學生的調查顯示，在就業的學生中，58%的男生和43%的女生做出了這個選擇。今年，即使在經濟受挑戰的一年，這個數據是39%。
也許是爲了高薪——難以抵抗的招聘誘惑，也許是爲了留在紐約然後和朋友們一起工作生活和享受人生，也許是爲了做自己感興趣的工作——對於這些選擇可以有各種各樣的理由。對你們中的一些人，無論如何那也只是個一兩年的契約。其他的一部分人相信他們只有在過得“富有”了以後纔有可能過得“富有”價值。不過，你們依然會問我，爲什麼要走這條路？
我發現我自己有時候對於回答你們的問題並沒有多大興趣，比較而言更感興趣的卻是捉摸你們爲什麼提那些問題。如果果真如Goldin和Katz教授所說；如果去搞金融確實是一個“理性”的選擇，爲什麼你們會不停地向我提出這類問題？爲什麼看似理性的選擇卻讓你們當中相當一部分人認爲是令人費解的，僞理性的，或出於某種需求和強迫所作出的並不自由的選擇？爲什麼這個問題似乎困擾着你們當中的很多一部分人？
我想，你們問我的是：關於人生價值的問題。雖然你們問得比較隱晦——即是些可以觀察和衡量的大四學生職業選擇的問題，而不是那抽象的，晦澀的，甚至會令人難堪的形而上學範疇的問題。人生價值，要人生？還是要價值？作爲Monty Python那部片子（指的是六人行裏《人生的價值》那一集）的諷刺意味的片名是不難理解的，作爲《辛普森一家》（美國特別受歡迎的動畫連續劇）的其中一集的主題也是不難理解的，可是當關係到“生存問題”的時候，就是不那麼好辦了。
那讓我們還是暫時摘下那戴着的哈佛面具，收起那缺乏熱情的冷漠，卸下我們看似刀槍不入的僞裝，讓我們嘗試去探尋你們問的一些問題的答案。
我覺得，你們之所以擔憂，是因爲你們不想僅僅是獲得傳統意義上的成功，而且要活得有價值。可是你們不清楚“魚”與“熊掌”怎樣才能“兼得”。你們不清楚是否，一家擁有著名品牌的企業提供的數目可觀的並且預期着你未來財富的起薪，可以讓你們的靈魂得到滿足。
然而，你們爲什麼擔憂呢？這部分地是我們的責任。當你們一踏進這個學校，我們就告訴你們：你們將成爲領導未來的中堅人物，你們將成爲美國人民依賴的最頂尖、最傑出的精英，你們將改變整個世界。我們“望子成龍”的期望使你們背上了負擔。而你們爲了實現這些期望也已經做得很好：在對課外活動的從事中，你們展示出對於服務性工作的奉獻精神；從對可持續發展的熱情擁護，你們表達出對這個星球的關懷；通過對今年總統競選的參與，你們做出了希望使美國政治重新恢復活力的實際行動。
但你們中的很多人現在會問，“怎樣才能把做這些有價值的事情和一個職業選擇結合起來呢？”“是否必須在一份有報酬卻沒價值的工作和一份有價值卻沒報酬的工作間做出抉擇呢？”“如果是一個單選題，您會選哪一個？”“有沒有折中的辦法？”
你們在問我，也是問你們自己問題，即關於價值觀的根本性的問題。你們在試圖調解兩個商品潛在的相互競爭，承認也許不可能兼得兩者。你們在經歷一次人生的轉折，而這個轉折需要你們自己做出一些決定。選擇一條道路——一份工作、一項事業或一個研究生課題——不單單是在選擇東西。每個決定都意味着“得”與“失”——過去與未來的種種可能。你們問我的問題其實有幾分是關於“失”，即你放棄的那條道路讓你失去了什麼。
金融、華爾街，“招聘”一詞已經成了這種博弈的符號，代表着比僅僅選擇一條職業道路更廣更深的一系列問題。這些問題早晚將面臨着你們每個人——如果你是從醫學院畢業，你將選擇一個具體從醫方向——做私人醫生還是專攻皮膚病，如果你學的是法律，你將決定是用你的法律知識爲一個公司法人賣命還是成爲公衆的正義化身，或是在
“教育美國人”兩年後你決定是否繼續從教。你們之所以擔憂，是因爲你們想擁有充滿價值的同時又是成功的人生；你們知道，你們被教育要有大的作爲，不僅僅是爲了個人，爲了自己生活地舒適，而是要讓周圍的世界因此而改變。因此你們纔不得不思考怎樣才能讓其成爲可能。
我認爲你們之所以擔憂有第二個原因——和第一個有關係但不是完全一樣。你們希望過得幸福。你們蜂擁着去修“積極心理學”這門課——課程代號“心1504”——和“幸福的科學”這門課，不就是爲了聽點人生“小貼士”？可是，我們怎樣才能獲得幸福？在這兒，我可以提供一個啓發性的答案：變老。調查數據顯示年長的人——也就是我這把年紀的人——覺得自己比年輕人更幸福。不過，很可能你們沒有人願意去等着去看這個答案。
在聊天時我聽過你們談到你們目前所面臨的選擇，我聽到你們一字一句地說出你們對於成功與幸福的關係的憂慮——也許，更精確地講，怎樣去定義成功才能使它具有或包含真正的幸福，而不僅僅是金錢和榮譽。你們害怕，報酬最豐厚的選擇，也許不是最有價值的和最令人滿意的選擇。但是你們也擔心，如果作爲一個藝術家或是一個演員，一個人民公僕或是一箇中學老師，該如何才能生存下去？然而，你們可曾想過，如果你的夢想是新聞業，怎樣才能想出一條通往夢想的道路呢？難道你會在讀了不知多少年研，寫了不知多少畢業論文終於畢業後，找一個英語教授的工作？
答案是：你不試試就永遠都不會知道。但如果你不試着去做自己熱愛的事情，不管是玩泥巴還是生物還是金融，如果連你自己都不去追求你認爲最有價值的事，你終將後悔。人生路漫漫，你總有時間去給自己留“後路”，但可別一開始就走“後路”。
我把這叫做我的關於職業選擇的“泊車”理論，幾十年來我一直都在向學生們“兜售”我的這個理論。不要因爲怕到了目的地找不到停車位而把車停在距離目的地20個路口的地方。直接到達你想去的地方，哪怕再繞回來停，你暫時停的地方只是你被迫停的地方。
你也許喜歡做投行，或是做金融抑或做理財諮詢。都可能是適合你的。那也許真的就是適合你的。或許你也會像我在Kirkland House見到的那個大四學生一樣，她剛從美國西海岸一家著名理財諮詢公司的面試回來。“我爲什麼要做這個？”她說，“我討厭坐飛機，我討厭住賓館，我是不會喜歡這份工作的。”找到你熱愛的工作。如果你把你一天中醒着的一大半時間用來做你不喜歡的事情，你是很難感到幸福的。
但是我在這兒說的最重要的是：你們在問那些問題——不僅是問我，而是在問你們自己。你們正在選擇人生的道路，同時也在對自己的選擇提出質疑。你們知道自己想過什麼樣的生活，也知道你們將行的道路不一定會把你們帶到想去的地方。這樣其實很好。某種程度上，我倒希望這是我們的錯。我們一直在標榜人生，像鏡子一樣照出未來你們的模樣，思考你們怎麼可以過得幸福，探索你們怎樣才能去做些對社會有價值的事：這些也許是文科教育可以給你們“裝備”的最有價值的東西。文科教育要求你們要活得“明白”。它使你探索和定義你做的每件事情背後的價值。它讓你成爲一個經常分析和反省自己的人。而這樣的人完全能夠掌控自己的人生或未來。從這個道理上講，文科——照它的字面意思——才使你們自由。（英語裏文科是Liberal
Art，照字面解釋是自由的藝術）學文科可以讓你有機會去進行理論的實踐，去發現你所做的選擇的價值。想過上有價值的，幸福的生活，最可靠的途徑就是爲了你的目標去奮鬥。不要安於現狀得過且過。隨時準備着改變人生的道路。記住我們對你們的我覺得是“過於崇高”的期待，可能你們自己也承認那些期待是有點“太高了”。不過如果想做些對於你們自己或是這個世界有點價值的事情，記住它們，它們將會像北斗一樣指引着你們。你們人生的價值將由你們去實現！
我都等不及想看看你們都最終會如何。畢業以後和學校常聯繫，常回“家”看看，讓我們瞭解你們的情況。