ON a recent Sunday afternoon, a monthly meeting convened¹ around a long table in a Whole Foods cafeteria on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As people settled in, the organizer plopped down a bag of potato chips and tackled housekeeping matters, like soliciting² contributions. But she did not insist. "I know that some of you are in fragile situations," she said.

最近一个星期天下午，在曼哈顿上西城一家全食餐厅(Whole Foods)的长桌旁，一场月度会议如期举行。待所有人坐定后，组织者拿出一袋薯片放在桌子上，随即开始处理内部事务，比如募集捐款，但她并没有执意要求。“我知道你们有些人的处境不太好，”她说。

One attendee recalled scraping by on $9,000 a year. "I was exhausted³ by years of living in poverty," she said. Her neighbor chimed in: "Amen, sister."

一位与会者回忆说，有一年她的年收入只有9000美元，日子过得很苦。“多年的贫困生活让我精疲力竭，”她说。她的邻座插话说：“阿门，我的姊妹。”

An eavesdropper⁴ might have been surprised to learn what the group had in common: formidable academic credentials⁵. Sitting at the table were a historian, a sociologist⁶, a linguist⁷ and a dozen other scholars. Most held doctorates⁹; a few were either close to completion or had left before finishing. All had toiled¹⁰ for years in graduate school but, by choice or circumstance, almost none had arrived at the promised destination of tenure¹²-track professorships (the one who had was thinking of leaving). Now they found themselves at a gathering¹³ of a group called Versatile¹⁴ Ph.D. to support their pursuit of nontraditional careers.

如果碰巧偷听到他们的谈话，或许你会惊讶万分地获悉这群人有一个共同点：令人敬畏的学术造诣。围坐在桌子四周的，是一位历史学家、一位社会学家、一位语言学家和十几位其他领域的学者。大多数人拥有博士学位，还有几位或即将完成，或中途放弃。所有人都在研究生院苦读多年，但要么是出于个人选择，要么是因为客观环境，几乎所有人都未获得他们孜孜以求的终身教授席位，一位获得教职的幸运儿也萌生退意。现在，一个名叫“多面手博士”(Versatile Ph.D.)，旨在支持博士生寻求非传统职业的团体让这些博士生齐聚一堂。

After a round of introductions, the participants broke into clusters to swap¹⁵ stories and tips. A 32-year-old man who had studied ancient religion at Princeton wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of his employer, a finance website; he talked up his job to a physicist¹⁶ who was finalizing¹⁷ her thesis. The historian, a teacher at an elite¹⁸ private school, advised a recent American studies Ph.D. on where to find job postings and how to package himself. That young Ph.D., Adam Capitanio, who completed his degree in 2012, had looked for an academic position for three years, focusing his search on the Northeast and applying for at least 60 jobs. He hadn't received a single interview. Now he was working as an editorial associate at an academic publisher, trying to devise a long-term plan. "Things were kind of desperate before I had that job," he said. "This gives me some flexibility¹⁹ to figure out what I actually want to do."

一轮自我介绍结束后，与会者三三两两地聚拢在一起，互相交流求职故事和技巧。一位曾在普林斯顿大学(Princeton University)研究古代宗教的32岁男士，身穿一件印有其雇主（一家财经网站）名称的T恤衫；他向一位即将完成论文的女物理学家宣扬这份工作的种种好处。目前在一家私立名校任教的历史学家，给一位最近获得美国研究学位的博士提供在哪里寻找招聘广告、如何包装自己的建议。这位毕业于2012年的年轻博士名叫亚当·卡皮塔尼奥(Adam Capitanio)，近三年来一直在美国东北部寻找学术性工作，他至少已经申请了60份工作，但连一个面试机会都没有争取到。卡皮塔尼奥目前在一家学术性出版机构当助理编辑，正尝试着制定一项长期计划。“在获得这份工作前，我几乎快绝望了，”他说，“这份工作具有一定的灵活性，让我有时间弄清楚自己真正想做什么事情。”

Dr. Capitanio's experience is far from unusual. According to a 2011 National Science Foundation survey, 35 percent of doctorate⁸ recipients²⁰ — and 43 percent of those in the humanities — had no commitment for employment at the time of completion. Fewer than half of Ph.D.'s are expected to land tenure-track jobs. And many voluntarily choose another path because they want higher pay or more direct engagement with the world than monographs²¹ and tenure committees seem to allow.

卡皮塔尼奥博士的经历绝非特例。根据美国国家科学基金会(National Science Foundation)2011年的一项调查，35%的博士学位获得者——43%的人文学科博士——在完成学业时没有签下就业意向书。有望走上追求终身教职这条路的博士预期不到一半。许多人自愿选择另一条路径，因为他们希望获得更高的薪水，更直接地接触世界，而这些东西似乎是撰写专著和终身教职委员会所不能给予的。

Though graduates have faced similar conditions for decades, the past few years have seen a surge in efforts to connect Ph.D.'s with gratifying employment outside academia and even to rethink the purpose of doctoral education. "The issue itself is not a new issue," said Debra Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. "The response, I would say, is definitely new."

尽管博士毕业生数十年来一直面临类似的就业形势，但在过去几年，越来越多的人尝试着把博士学位和令人满意的非学术性工作挂起钩来，甚至开始反思博士生教育的目的。“这个问题本身不那么新鲜，”研究生院理事会(Council of Graduate Schools)会长黛布拉·斯图尔特(Debra Stewart)说。“但我想说，出现现在这种反应肯定是前所未有的。”

In addition to New York, Versatile Ph.D. groups have formed in at least seven other cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles. Abundant online resources help Ph.D.'s turn curricula vitae into résumés and market their skills to nonacademic employers. And former academics can find kindred souls at blogs like "Chronicles of a Recovering Academic" and "Dr. Outta Here" (obscenity alert).

除纽约以外，包括费城、芝加哥和洛杉矶在内的其他7个城市也组建了多面手博士小组。丰富的在线资源帮助博士们把他们的学术资历转化为个人履历，然后向非学术类雇主推销自己的技能。这些曾经的学者可以在《学术复苏编年史》(Chronicles of a Recovering Academic)和《前博士汇聚地》（Dr. Outta Here，需警惕淫秽内容）等博客上找到同道中人。

The spirit of change has even begun to take root inside the ivory tower. The University of California, Berkeley, held a "Beyond Academia" conference last spring, hosting Ph.D. speakers who have succeeded in other domains²², from consulting to biotech. Similar events are planned at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, which established its new Office of Career Planning and Professional Development in February.

变革的精神甚至已经开始在象牙塔内部扎根。加州大学伯克利分校(The University of California, Berkeley)去年春天举办了一个名为“超越学术界”的会议，邀请从咨询到生物技术等各类领域获得成功的博士发表主题演讲。纽约市立大学(City University of New York)研究生中心也计划举办类似活动，该中心于今年2月份成立了一个职业规划和专业发展办公室。

The problem is especially urgent in the humanities. For Ph.D.'s in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), industry has long been a viable²³ option. But students who study, say, Russian literature or medieval history have few obvious alternative careers in their fields. They confront questions about their relevance²⁴ even inside the academy, let alone outside it.

在人文学科，这一问题尤为迫切。对于STEM学科（科学、技术、工程和数学）的博士生来说，产业界早已是一个可行的就业选择。但研究俄罗斯文学或中世纪历史的学生在其专业领域并没有多少显见的职业选项。甚至在大学校园内部，他们也经常面对各种质疑其专业意义的问题，更遑论校园以外了。

In August, the Scholarly Communication Institute released a report titled "Humanities Unbound: Supporting Careers and Scholarship Beyond the Tenure Track." In it, Katina Rogers, the lead researcher, discusses the nascent²⁵ concept of alternative academic, or alt-ac, professions. The term has gained widespread currency (and its own Twitter hashtag) and can refer to jobs within universities but outside the professoriate, like administrator²⁶ or librarian, as well as nonacademic roles like government-employed historian and museum curator.

8月份，学术交流研究所(Scholarly Communication Institute)发布了一份题为《脱离束缚的人文学科：支持终身教职之外的职业生涯和学术研究》的报告。首席研究员卡蒂娜·罗杰斯(Katina Rogers)在这份报告中探讨了一个方兴未艾的概念——学术替代性职业(alt-ac)。这一术语及其Twitter话题标签已经获得广泛传播，除了受聘于政府机构的历史学家和博物馆馆长等非学术性工作之外，它还可以指代非教学岗位的校内工作，比如行政人员和图书管理员。

Dr. Rogers suggests that alt-ac is less a matter of where you work than how — "with the same intellectual curiosity that fueled the desire to go to graduate school in the first place, and applying the same kinds of skills, such as close reading, historical inquiry²⁷ or written argumentation, to the tasks at hand." In an interview, she credited the neologism with infusing "positive energy" into the often gloomy conversations about alternative careers. The alt-ac ethos holds that nonacademic work is not a fallback plan for failures but a win-win: Ph.D.'s can bring their deep expertise²⁹ and advanced skills to a whole gamut³⁰ of challenges, rather than remaining cocooned³¹ in the ivory tower.

罗杰斯博士认为，学术替代性职业与其说是一个在哪里工作的问题，倒不如说是一个如何工作的问题——“如何凭借最初让你产生读研冲动的那股求知欲，运用诸如研读文本、探究历史和书面论证这类与从事学术研究相同的技能，完成手头的任务。”在接受记者采访时，她称赞这个新词为通常悲观的替代性职业讨论注入了一股“正能量”。学术替代性职业风潮认为，非学术性工作并非万不得已的备用计划，而是双赢选择：博士生能够依凭其深厚的专业知识和高超的技能应对一切挑战，而不是继续蛰居在象牙塔之中。

Karen Shanton explored unconscious cognitive³² processes for her philosophy Ph.D. from Rutgers but works at the National Conference of State Legislatures, which provides legislators with nonpartisan analysis. She won the two-year fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Its Public Fellows program, created in 2011, places Ph.D.'s from the humanities and social sciences in nonprofit and government organizations.

卡伦·尚顿(Karen Shanton)曾在罗格斯大学(Rutgers Univesity)探索无意识的认知过程，并获得了哲学博士学位，但她目前就职于为议员提供超党派分析的全美州议会联合会(National Conference of State Legislatures)。美国学术团体协会(American Council of Learned Societies)给予她一份为期两年的研究员职位。该协会在2011年创建了一个公共研究员计划，以帮助人文和社会科学博士生进入非营利性和政府机构工作。

Dr. Shanton said her education "absolutely" informs her work, which focuses in part on voter ID laws, as she draws on her writing and thinking skills as well as her knowledge of how the mind works. "It's actually kind of great because it has a lot of the benefits of academia," she said. But "with politics, you can have a sort of more immediate³³ impact."

尚顿博士表示，博士教育经历“绝对”有益于她的工作，因为除了熟稔大脑运行机理知识之外，她还可以发挥自身的写作和思维技能。“这的确是一份非常棒的工作，因为它具有学术性工作的许多好处，”她说。但“政治类工作可以产生立竿见影的影响。”她目前的工作重点包括拟定选民身份法律。

While the alt-ac perspective is relatively³⁴ rosy³⁵, some disenchanted academic refugees embrace what they call the "post-ac" identity. The website "How to Leave Academia" recently published a post-ac manifesto³⁶, defining the orientation³⁷ as "a belief that the current system is flawed, cruel, unsustainable and therefore impossible to directly engage with." In this view, Ph.D. programs, with their false promises, lure²⁸ students to serve as cheap labor³⁸, first as teaching assistants, then as poorly paid adjuncts when tenure-track jobs elude³⁹ them.

虽然学术替代性职业的前景相对乐观，但一些心灰意冷的学术界难民欣然接受了他们所称的“后学术职业”身份。一家名为“如何离开学术界”(How to Leave Academia)的网站最近发布了一份《后学术职业生涯宣言》，其基本取向是，“坚信目前的体制是有缺陷的、残忍的、不可持续的，因此不可能直接参与其中。”这种观点认为，博士项目使用虚假的承诺，引诱学生充当廉价劳动力，最初是助教，然后是收入微薄的副教授，而所谓的终身教职只不过是镜中月，水中花。

"Post-ac discourages people from pursuing graduate work," write the authors, Lauren Whitehead and Kathleen Miller⁴⁰, under the pseudonyms⁴¹ Lauren Nervosa and Currer Bell. Dr. Miller also penned the blog post "I Hate My Post-Ac Job: What Happens When You Don't Land the Perfect Postacademic Career." In it she writes: "Graduating, leaving academia, moving to a new city, starting a new job, and then hating it? Sheesh. Let me tell you — it's hard to feel like a success story." Unable to secure academic employment after completing her doctorate in English literature in 2012, Dr. Miller is now preparing to start her own life-coaching business.

“后学术职业生涯前景劝阻人们不要攻读研究生课程，”这份宣言的作者劳伦·怀特海德(Lauren Whitehead)和凯瑟琳·米勒(Kathleen Miller)如是写道。此外，米勒博士还以笔名“神经衰弱的劳伦”(Lauren Nervosa)和柯勒·贝尔（Currer Bell，这是英国著名女作家夏洛蒂·勃朗特曾使用过的笔名——译注）撰写了一篇博文《我憎恨我的后学术职业：当你无法获得完美的后学术职业时会发生什么事情？》。她在文章中写道：“毕业，离开学术界，搬到一个新城市，开始一份新工作，然后憎恨它？嘘！让我告诉你——这很难让人觉得是一个成功故事。”2012年完成英国文学博士学位后，米勒博士无法获得一份学术性工作，她目前正准备创业，开展生涯培训事业。

A HANDFUL of professors at Stanford, sensitive to the exploitative potential of graduate school but convinced of its value, are trying to instigate⁴² meaningful change. Last year, six of them wrote "The Future of the Humanities Ph.D. at Stanford," a much-discussed white paper promoting the redesign of curriculums to prepare humanities Ph.D.'s for "a diverse array of meaningful, socially productive and personally rewarding careers within and outside the academy," as well as reducing time to degree, which often takes close to a decade.

在斯坦福大学，一些教授敏锐地意识到研究生院的开发潜力，但坚信它的价值。他们目前正尝试着鼓动有意义的变革。去年，该校六位教授撰写了一份引发热议的白皮书《斯坦福大学人文学科博士的未来》，建议重新设计课程，从而让人文学科博士为“学院内外各种有意义的，对于社会生产和个人都有益的职业生涯”做好准备，同时建议减少攻读学位的时间——目前获取博士学位往往需要近十年光阴。

Russell A. Berman, a German professor and an author of the paper, feels a responsibility to recognize these practical exigencies⁴³. "Graduate education is primarily an intellectual undertaking," he said. "But most of the participants are at an age where they also have to be making career choices." He added, "The academic job market is so weak that it just can't be business as usual for department faculty⁴⁴."

在这份白皮书的作者之一、德语教授拉塞尔·A·伯尔曼(Russell A. Berman)看来，承认这些切合实际的迫切需要是一种责任。“研究生教育主要是一种智力事业，”他说，“但大多数参与者都处在一个他们也不得不做出职业选择的年龄。”他补充说，“学术性就业市场非常羸弱，以至于各个院系的教职员工根本就不可能一切如常地开展教学工作。”

And yet he does not buy into the popular notion that there are just too many Ph.D.'s. "I think that doctoral education is good for individuals who are passionate⁴⁵ about the topic," Dr. Berman said. "I think it's good for society. They contribute in lots of different ways."

但他并不认同目前非常流行的观点，认为博士生太多了。“我认为，对于那些热衷于钻研某个主题的人来说，接受博士教育是有益的，”伯尔曼博士说，“我认为它也有益于社会。博士生能够以多种方式为社会做贡献。”

The professors called on Stanford to offer supplementary⁴⁶ funds to departments that devised plans for alternative career preparations and shortening time to degree. The School of Humanities and Sciences requested proposals, but few departments responded. At the same time, new programs have been set up to help link humanities Ph.D. students with jobs in Silicon⁴⁷ Valley and in high schools.

这些教授呼吁斯坦福大学资助各院系设计替代性职业准备计划，并缩短攻读学位的时间。人文与科学学院征集相关建议，但予以响应的院系寥寥无几。与此同时，一些新建立的项目开始帮助人文学科博士在硅谷和高中寻找工作。

Initiatives are afoot at other schools as well. Collectively, they could begin to alter expectations.

其他院校也在酝酿一些举措。整体来说，这些举措或许会逐渐改变博士生的预期。

While not grappling with the same existential questions as humanities programs, the Polytechnic⁴⁸ Institute of New York University is trying to expand career options for its Ph.D. candidates. It has opened two incubators over the last few years, with a third to open soon, offering space, legal services and marketing⁵⁰ advice to facilitate entrepreneurship. The draw, according to Kurt H. Becker, associate provost for research and technology, is "a career path that would allow them to be much more in control than if you're a postdoc or an assistant professor, where your career path is pretty much mapped out."

虽然纽约大学理工学院(Polytechnic Institute of New York University)无需应对与人文学科博士项目同样惨烈的存亡问题，但他们也开始尝试拓宽其博士候选人的职业选择。在过去几年里，这所学院已启动了两个孵化器项目，第三个项目也即将开启。这些项目为博士生提供场地、法律服务和营销咨询以促进创业。负责研究和技术事务的副教务长库尔特·贝克尔(Kurt H. Becker)表示，“相较于职业生涯基本上已经明确的博士后或助理教授工作，”这是“一条让博士生拥有更多掌控权的职业路径。”

The Praxis Network consists of "digital humanities" initiatives at eight universities, focusing primarily on graduate education. They aim to prepare students for roles outside the professoriate, stressing skills like collaboration⁵¹, technology and project management. Students in the Digital Fellows Program at the City University of New York Graduate Center, in its second year, commit 15 hours a week to a selected project and related activities. One historian completed a project called "Data Mining Diplomacy⁵²: A Computational Analysis of the State Department's Foreign Policy Files." Fellows also design Web sites and organize a workshop series for other students, all of which is far removed from the traditional humanities experience of sitting alone in a room with a stack of books.

实践网络项目(Praxis Network)由八所大学的“数字人文”倡议行动组成，主要侧重于研究生教育。该项目注重培养博士生的合作、技术和项目管理技能，以帮助他们做好担当教授职位以外角色的准备。纽约市立大学研究生中心数字研究员计划(Digital Fellows Program)的学生在第二学年，每星期需要花费15个小时参加一个选定的项目和相关活动。一位历史学家完成了一个名为“数据挖掘外交：对国务院外交政策文件的计算分析”的项目。研究员还设计网站，并面向其他学生组织系列研讨会，所有这一切都与传统的人文专业学习体验——独自一人在书籍成堆的房间里埋头苦学——大相径庭。

"We are really thinking about it as a kind of laboratory for reshaping doctoral education and rethinking the kind of skills that we give our students," said Matthew K. Gold, an English professor who runs the program.

“我们的确打算通过这些实验重塑博士生教育，反思我们传授给学生的技能，”该项目负责人，英语教授马修·戈尔德(Matthew K. Gold)这样说。

Ethan Watrall, a professor of anthropology⁵³ at Michigan State University, runs the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative as part of Praxis. "I try to destigmatize this idea of not going on to a tenure-track job," he said. "It doesn't matter — who cares? If you're happy and that's what you want to do, that's awesome⁵⁴."

密歇根州立大学(Michigan State University)人类学教授伊桑·瓦特拉尔(Ethan Watrall)负责运营隶属于实践网络项目的文化遗产信息计划(Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative)。“我尝试着消除博士生因无法获取终身教职而背负的污名，”他说，“这并不重要——谁在乎呢？开开心心地做自己想做的事情，才是真正了不起的。”

He believes the culture has begun to change, "mostly because of the sort of desperate need for it to change."

他认为，研究生院的文化已经开始改变：“主要是因为对于改变，大家有着迫切的需求。”

Still, he said, a transformation⁵⁵ is only beginning. "The academy is a big ship and it takes a long time to turn it."

不过，变革才刚刚开始。“学院是一艘大船，往往需要很长时间才能调转方向，”他说。

Rock music played as the students entered the school's chapel⁵⁶, and then Andy Chan, vice⁴⁹ president in charge of the Office of Personal and Career Development — the O.P.C.D., it is called — introduced his team with a video spoof⁵⁷ of the television show "The Office." The students played a game in which they could guess, by text, which majors had been chosen by various gainfully employed alumni of the school. (Human-capital analyst⁵⁹ at Deloitte? And the answer is . . . German!) And a panel of students shared their own glamorous⁶⁰ work experiences: a fellowship in Paris, an internship⁶¹ at a start-up.

摇滚音乐伴随着学生们步入学校礼堂，负责个人与事业发展办公室（Office of Personal and Career Development，简称O.P.C.D.）的副总裁陈安道(Andy Chan)用一个模仿电视剧《办公室风云》(The Office)的视频来介绍他的团队。学生们玩起了游戏，从给出的资料中猜测多位收入不错的本校毕业校友当初都选择了哪些专业（比如说德勤[Deloitte]的人力资源分析师？答案是——德语专业！）还有一群学生来分享他们自己独特的工作经验，像是取得巴黎的奖学金项目，或在一家初创公司实习。

Staff members from the O.P.C.D. had handed out forms asking the students what fields they'd like to work in and where they'd like to live. At the end of the session, Chan directed the students to fold them into paper airplanes. Then, as a group, they let them fly, a symbol of "them launching their careers," as he had put it. Some planes soared, others took nose-dives. A young man flinched⁶² when someone else's plane clocked him on the side of his head. Celebratory in midair, planes quickly littered the floor. The career-office staff, who would input⁶³ the information on the forms into databases, walked around with boxes, picking them up. A few students helped, but many watched, as if curious, but not that curious, to see what would happen next to their professional dreams.

个人与事业发展办公室的工作人员们分发表格，询问学生们想要工作的领域以及想要生活的地方。在培训的最后，陈安道让学生们将表格折成纸飞机。然后，作为一个集体，他们一起放飞纸飞机，用他的话来说，这象征着“他们职业生涯的起航”。有些飞机翱翔高飞，其他的则俯冲急降。一只别人折的纸飞机直直地撞到一个年轻人头部侧面，他只好往边上避了避。在空中快乐地飞翔过后，飞机很快就落满一地。办公室工作人员拿着箱子四处走，将它们捡起来，以便稍后把表格上的信息录入数据库。有一些学生帮忙捡拾，但许多人只是看着，好像是好奇地想要看看他们的职业梦想将会变成怎么样，可他们其实也并没有那么好奇。

For years, most liberal-arts schools seemed to put career-services offices "somewhere just below parking" as a matter of administrative⁶⁴ priority, in the words of Wake Forest's president, Nathan Hatch. But increasingly, even elite, decidedly non-career-oriented schools are starting to promote their career services during the freshman⁶⁶ year, in response to fears about the economy, an ongoing⁶⁷ discussion about college accountability and, in no small part, the concerns of parents, many of whom want to ensure a return on their exorbitant⁶⁸ investment.

用维克森林大学校长内森·哈奇(Nathan Hatch)的话来说，许多年来，在管理优先次序上，大多数文理学院似乎都把就业服务办公室的重要性放在“停车位之后的位置”。但越来越多地，甚至连那些根本就不以就业作为导向的精英学校也开始在大一学年就向学生推广他们的就业服务，用以回应对经济的恐慌与对高校责任的持续讨论，还有很大一部分是为了回应家长们的担心，他们之中的很多人都想要确保自己这笔昂贵的投资能得到回报。

The University of Chicago has extensive pre-professional programming and a career center that engaged with roughly 80 percent of its freshmen⁶⁹ last year. Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., has a new career center prominently located on campus; its Web site urges freshmen to stop by and start their four-year plan. Michael S. Roth, the school's president, says he wants the career program "to work with our students from the first year to think about how what they're learning can be translated into other spheres." Like Chan, Roth believes that the process can make for more thoughtful, meaningful careers choices; but he also told me that the demand from parents for better career services has pushed resources in that direction (for those schools that can afford it; many schools have been forced to cut back their career-center budgets). "My parents didn't expect me to have an easy time when I graduated," said Roth, who recalled finishing college in the challenging economy of the late '70s. "I think families atthese, dare I say, fantasy schools — they're used to kids getting what they want, and they expect that to happen at graduation."

芝加哥大学(The University of Chicago)拥有全面的职前教育项目以及一个在去年接触到了大约80%大一新生的就业中心。位于康涅狄格州米德尔敦的卫斯理安大学(Wesleyan University)拥有一个新的就业中心，坐落在校园中很显眼的位置；它的网站鼓励新生们去那里逛逛，开展他们的四年计划。学校校长迈克尔·罗斯(Michael S. Roth)说，他希望就业培训项目“和学生们一起从第一年就开始思考，怎么样才能将他们的所学推而广之到其他领域中去”。像陈安道一样，罗斯也相信这样的项目能够让学生们做出更多深思熟虑的、有意义的职业选择；但他也告诉我，是来自家长方面要求提供更好就业服务的呼声将资源推到这一方向的（那些负担得起的学校可以如此；可也有很多学校被迫将他们的就业中心预算砍掉）。“当我毕业时，我的父母并没展望我走得顺风顺水，”罗斯说，他回忆起自己在上世纪70年代末期不景气的经济环境下从大学毕业的情景，“那些孩子们在著名学府就学的家庭，我敢说——他们习惯于看到孩子们得到他们想要的，而且希望在毕业时也能如此。”

No other school has marketed its career center quite as successfully as Wake Forest (which, at No. 27, falls between the University of Virginia and Tufts on the U.S. News & World Report rankings but has struggled with name recognition nationally). In 2009, the university hired Chan, who was running Stanford Business School's career center and had led a Silicon Valley start-up. Chan has made a name for himself as an oft-quoted expert on getting young people employed. He has given a TEDx talk on the subject of reinventing career services and hosted, at Wake Forest, a symposium⁷⁰ that was attended by representatives from some 75 schools. His theme: If universities want to preserve the liberal arts, they have a responsibility to help those humanities majors know how to translate their studies into the work world.

没有学校能像维克森林大学这样成功推销他们的就业中心（在《美国新闻与世界报道》(U.S. News & World Report)的大学排名中，该学校排在第27位，位列弗吉尼亚大学(University of Virginia)与塔夫斯大学(Tufts University)之间，但它一直在努力争取在全国范围内得到更广泛的品牌认知度）。2009年，这所大学雇用了陈安道，他是原斯坦福大学商学院就业中心负责人，还在硅谷创立了一个公司。作为一名在促进年轻人就业方面经常被各界引用言论的专家，陈安道为自己赢得了声望。他做过一个以就业服务再创新为主题的TEDx演讲，他在维克森林大学主办的一个专题讨论会有来自75所学校的代表参加。他的主旨是：如果大学想要保留博雅教育，他们就有责任去帮助这些人文学科了解如何将他们的研究转化到职场中去。

Chan, who can earn up to $350,000 a year, raised more than $10 million, mostly from parents, for a sunny, glass career center with video displays and healthful snacks for students ("It looks like Google," Chan told me). He likes to say he has "supersized" the career-services office, creating an elaborate Web site and hiring enough staff members — close to 30 — to offer conciergelike services to students.

年收入最高可达35万美元的陈安道筹集到了超过1000万美元的款项，多数是从家长们手中募得的，用以建造一个明亮的玻璃建筑作为就业中心，其中可以进行视频演示，为学生们提供健康有营养的小点心（“它看上去就像是Google公司一样，”陈安道这样告诉我）。他很喜欢说，他将就业服务办公室“超大型化”，他不仅建立了一个精美的网站，还雇到了足够的员工——将近30人——来为学生们提供礼宾式的周到服务。

At orientation, Chan gave a rousing talk to parents, encouraging them to let their children follow their interests, knowing that his office was looking after their employability: 95 percent of Wake Forest's graduates, he told them, were either fully⁵⁸ employed or in graduate school within six months of graduating. (Eighty percent of the class of 2012 responded to the survey.) The room suddenly felt festive⁷¹ with affirmation. "Wow," one parent said, loudly enough to be heard across the room. The parent might have been even more surprised to learn that for schools in the high end of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, that statistic⁷² is not unusual. The University of Chicago's comparable number is 96 percent, and N.Y.U.'s class of 2012 was 93 percent. Dickinson College, a less competitive school in Carlisle, Pa., said that 92 percent of its graduates were either employed or had been in graduate school a year after graduation. Wake Forest didn't keep those statistics before Chan arrived, so it's hard to know whether employment has increased during his time there. The survey doesn't reflect students' satisfaction with their jobs, but tracking down the number was a high priority for Chan. And with good reason: citing it clearly reassures⁷³ parents.

在培训中，陈安道在家长们面前发表了一场激动人心的演说，鼓励他们让孩子遵从自己的兴趣，让他们知道他的办公室会照管他们的就业情况：他告诉他们，在毕业后的6个月内，95%的维克森林大学毕业生都会找到全职工作或者进入研究生院学习（有八成的2012年毕业生参与了此数据的调查）。整个房间立刻就陷入了欢欣鼓舞之中。“哇，”有一位家长感叹道，声音响亮得全房间都听得见。如果得知对于《美国新闻与世界报道》大学排名前列的学校来说，这个数据并不罕见，这位家长也许会更吃惊。芝加哥大学的此项数据为96%，对纽约大学的2012年毕业生来说则达到了93%。位于宾夕法尼亚州卡莱尔的狄金森学院(Dickinson College)相对来说竞争力没那么强，但他们也表示，在本科毕业一年之后，有92%的毕业生都成功就业或者继续读研。在陈安道到来之前，维克森林大学并没有保留这些数据，所以我们很难知道在他任职后就业比例有没有上升。这个调查并不能反映出学生们对他们工作的满意度，但陈安道将大力追踪相关的数据。原因很有力：引用这些数据很明显能够安抚担忧的家长们。

Chan explained to me that his chief strategy is "to create a kind of ecosystem⁷⁴ where everyone has a vested interest in helping⁷⁵ our students be prepared for life and for careers and for work" — a universitywide, collective assumption that the faculty was there not just to expand students' intellectual horizons but also to help however it could in creating job-ready students.

陈安道向我说明，他的主要战略是“建立一个生态系统，在这个系统内部，每个人都有极大兴趣去帮助我们的学生，让他们为生活、为职场、为工作做好准备”——这是一个全校范围内的、群体性的期望，所有教职人员的工作不仅是拓展学生们的才智极限，也是为了尽可能地让他们为迈入职场做好准备。

A lot of that vision entails⁷⁶ executing practical ideas, like improving the quality of mentoring⁷⁷ on campus or persuading the faculty to encourage students to use the O.P.C.D. But Chan seemed especially enthusiastic about more innovative⁷⁸ collaborations between the faculty and the O.P.C.D., some of which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. He more than once mentioned a history professor named Robert Hellyer, a 46-year-old with a Ph.D. from Stanford, who had voluntarily transformed his teaching style from a straight lecture to a teamwork approach.

这样的愿景需要执行很多实际的想法，比如提高校园指导的质量，或者说服教职人员去鼓励学生们使用个人与事业发展办公室提供的服务。但看起来，陈安道对促进教职人员与个人与事业发展办公室之间产生更多革命性的合作有着特殊的热情，其中有些合作放到20年前是根本不可想象的。他不止一次地提到一个叫罗伯特·赫勒(Robert Hellyer)的历史学教授，这位46岁的教授拥有斯坦福大学博士学位，他主动将教学方式从直接授课转变为小组合作学习。

When I spoke⁷⁹ to Hellyer, he said he was sensitive to widespread attacks on the liberal arts and was happy to work with someone from Chan's team to focus, in class, on fostering in his students two of the skills the career office has identified as "core competencies": communication and collaboration. He decided⁶⁵ to have students in his Japanese-history class work in groups of three and take turns leading class discussion. And he invited the O.P.C.D.'s assistant director, Amy Willard, into his classroom on three occasions. "In the very beginning of the semester," Willard told me, "I presented to the class, Here are the skills that employers are looking for, and I had them actually analyze⁸⁰ their syllabus⁸¹ and say what the skills were that they hoped to gain from this class." The hope was that when those students then went on job interviews, they could speak confidently about how their experiences in class prepared them for the skills the employers most needed. On a separate occasion, Hellyer and Willard brought inan alumna⁸² of Wake Forest, a history major, who was working locally at Wells Fargo, to discuss how her academic experience had helped her professionally.

当我与赫勒交谈时，他说他深切地意识到了现在社会上对于人文学科的广泛抨击，很乐意与陈安道的团队一起努力，关注在教学中如何让他的学生们掌握两项在职场办公室中被称为“核心竞争力”的技能：沟通与合作。他决定，在他的日本史课堂上，学生们三人组成一组，轮流带领全班进行讨论。他还邀请个人与事业发展办公室的助理主管艾米·威拉德(Amy Willard)参加了他的三次课。“在学期刚开始时，”威拉德告诉我，“我走进教室，然后告诉他们职场上雇主们都需要哪些技能，再让他们分析一下自己的教学大纲，分析一下他们想从这门课程中获得什么技能。”他们希望当学生们在进行求职面试时，可以自信地说，他们在课堂上体验到的东西是何以有助于他们储备雇主所需的技能的。还有一次，赫勒和威拉德邀请到了一位维克森林大学的女校友，她是历史专业毕业的，现在在本地的富国银行(Wells Fargo)分行工作，他们与她一起讨论学术经历如何对她的职业生涯起到帮助。

Many of the students later said that they loved Hellyer's innovative team-based approach to instruction and got more out of the material as a result; and some appreciated the professional component⁸³. But many complained frankly⁸⁴ about the explicit⁸⁵ career education. "I felt like I signed up to take a history course, and sessions on professional skills were not what I was looking for," one student said on a teacher evaluation⁸⁶. Another said, "I just think that the team-building exercises were a waste of time that could be better spent on class topics."

不久后，很多学生说他们非常喜爱赫勒极具创新精神的以小组为基础的教学方式，能从教材中获益更多；还有一些人很欣赏这一做法对职业发展的好处。但也有很多人直率地抱怨过于清晰的职业化教育。“我觉得，我本来选的是一门历史课，而那些关于职场技能的培训并不是我想要的，”一个学生在教师评估中这样说道。另一位则表示：“我只是觉得，这些团队合作的训练是在浪费时间，这些时间原本可以被更好地花在课堂主题上。”

Hellyer sounded almost relieved by the responses. "In some ways, I was gratified that students were saying, 'I really want to learn about Japanese history — why are you diluting⁸⁷ what we're doing?' " he said. Even so, now he is brainstorming⁸⁸ with Willard about how to make the history of the young, revolutionary samurai in Japan an explicit opportunity to talk about leadership skills.

对于这些回应，赫勒听上去简直松了一口气。“从某些方面来说，我很感激学生们这么说，'我真的是想要学习日本历史——为什么要稀释课程浓度呢？'”他说。尽管如此，现在他正在与威拉德进行头脑风暴，如何从年轻、有革新精神的日本武士历史出发，来阐述一下领导力。

Colleges and universities have noted⁸⁹ parents' seemingly boundless⁹⁰ concern for their children's well-being⁹¹ and have shifted strategies in response. They have boosted parental⁹² involvement, or engagement, as it is known in the fund-raising industry. Schools have doubled the number of on-campus parent associations in roughly 10 years, according to the Council for Advancement⁹³ and Support of Education, and parents, in turn, have given generously, even as college costs have hit new highs. Parent donations to higher education, from 2001 to 2010, increased by nearly 50 percent, according to a study published by the Council for Aid to Education.

大学院校注意到了家长们对于他们孩子前途无休止的焦虑，并转变战略来对其作出回应。他们提高了父母的参与度，或者说投入程度，就像之前提过的资金募集。根据教育促进及支持委员会(Council for the Advancement and Support of Education)提供的数据，在最近10年内，学校们将校园内家长协会的数目提高了一倍，而在家长方面，即使大学学费又创新高，他们还是一直乐于慷慨解囊。根据美国教育财政资助委员会(Council for Aid to Education)发布的一项研究，由从2001年到2010年，家长对高等教育的捐助增长了近50%。

Andy Chan is particularly gifted at cultivating the bond between parents and Wake Forest. He writes a blog for parents about career development to help them guide their children. And he interacts with parents and employers as much as he does students: even during the school year, he is actually on campus only every other week, because his family is still in Palo Alto and he spends a third of his time traveling to raise funds.

陈安道尤其擅长于培养家长与维克森林大学之间的情感联系。他为家长们写了一个关于职业发展的博客，帮助他们指导自己的孩子。他与家长之间的交流，与和雇主以及学生之间的交流一样充分：甚至在学年之中，他也是隔一周才会在校园里办公，因为他的家人仍然在帕罗奥图，而且他将自己时间的三分之一都用来四处出差筹集资金。

This summer, Chan had lunch in San Jose with Alan Naumann, whose son, Bradley, is a sophomore⁹⁴ at Wake Forest. Naumann, the president and C.E.O. of 41st Parameter⁹⁵, an online-security company, has pledged a significant amount for entrepreneurial programming. He had also spoken to a group of Wake Forest students and been part of a team of business leaders who gave rapid feedback to student entrepreneurs who presented their business ideas.

在今年夏天，陈安道与阿兰·诺曼(Alan Naumann)在圣荷塞共进午餐。诺曼的儿子布拉德利(Bradley)是维克森林大学的一名大二学生。作为网络安全公司41st Parameter的CEO，诺曼承诺为多项创业项目投入大量资金，与一群维克森林大学的学生交谈过，还参加了一个企业领袖团队，在学生创业者陈述创业想法之后，迅速给予他们反馈与指点。

Chan started by giving Naumann his professional assessment⁹⁶ of Bradley, whom he met that summer. Bradley, an undeclared major who acts in a comedy troupe⁹⁷ at Wake Forest, was working in a sports-marketing internship at Stanford (a position he learned of through his sister, who knew someone in the office). Chan told Naumann what a terrific kid he has. "The sense I have is that he's learning so much," Chan said. "I was telling him that at Wake Forest, there's tons of internships in the athletic⁹⁸ program. And I said, you know, 'Obviously if you need any introductions, just let me know.' "

陈安道与诺曼的谈话，从他为之前在这个夏天见过的布拉德利给出专业上的评价开始。布拉德利就读的专业并未公开，他参与了一个维克森林大学的喜剧演出社团。当时他正在斯坦福做一个体育市场方面的实习（他是从他姐姐那里得知有这个职位的，她认识办公室里的某位工作人员）。陈安道告诉诺曼，他是一个十分优秀的孩子。“我感觉到他学到了很多东西，”陈安道说，“我告诉他，在维克森林大学，我们有无数体育相关的项目。我对他说，你知道，'显然，如果你需要任何介绍指导，就告诉我。'”

Naumann was most enthusiastic about the school's entrepreneurial program. Chan has raised money for a popular minor⁹⁹ in entrepreneurship and social enterprise, which is open to liberal-arts majors. As Chan took notes on his iPad, Naumann talked about the qualities he thought were most essential for the school to cultivate in its students: fearlessness, communication, analytic¹⁰⁰ skills and teamwork. Working well with others, he pointed¹⁰¹ out, was precisely¹⁰² the kind of skill that could not be learned online and one that brick-and-mortar liberal-arts schools could pride themselves on providing as they sought to stay relevant.

诺曼对于该校的创业项目尤为热忱。陈安道为在创业与社会企业领域的一个热门辅修课筹集到了资金，该课程面向所有文理专业的学生。陈安道一边在自己的iPad上做着记录，一边聆听诺曼谈起他认为学校最应该培养学生们获得的素质：无畏、沟通、分析技能与团队合作。他指出，和他人一同出色地工作，这正是那种不能在网上所学到的技巧，而传统的文理学院想要与时俱进地提供这种技能的培训，他们有理由为自己感到骄傲。

Chan asked Naumann for feedback on a board meeting Naumann had recently attended. "What I like to see is the big thinking," Naumann told him. And Chan, he thought, could be thinking more boldly. What about proposing an entire new building, a lab for creative innovation? His enthusiasm for Chan's mission was deep: it seemed that whatever Chan was asking for from parents, he could probably ask for more.

陈安道请诺曼对他最近参与的一次委员会议给出反馈。“我喜欢看到更大的想法，”诺曼这样告诉陈安道。他认为，陈安道应该思考得再大胆一些。提议再建一座新大楼，一个创造革新实验室，怎么样？他对陈安道的工作极具热情：看上去，不管陈安道要求家长们什么，他还可以提更多要求。

Some professors have welcomed Chan's role in managing parents' anxiety about the liberal arts precisely because it relieves them of the burden of doing it themselves. "The parents of one student asked me to have a meeting," recalled Alessandra Von Burg, a professor in the department of communication at Wake Forest. "I was kind of flabbergasted. They wanted to know what a communication degree could do for their son." (She agreed to meet with them and their son to discuss it.) Michael Sloan, a classics professor, fielded a similar call during which he found himself explaining to a mother how a background in classics could help prepare her daughter for a career as a lawyer. And if professors know to direct students to résumé workshops, Von Burg added, students won't expect those services from the professors. "They can be like demanding customers," she said.

对于陈安道担任家长们对文理教育焦虑情绪疏导者的这一角色，有些教授很欢迎，因为他将他们从亲力亲为的负担中拯救了出来。“有一个学生家长要求我与他们见一次面，” 维克森林大学传播学系的教授亚历桑德拉·范博格(Alessandra Von Burg)回忆道，“我当时大吃一惊。他们想要知道，一个传播学的学位对他们的儿子来说能够有什么用处。”（她后来同意与他们一家见面，并讨论了相关事宜。）迈克尔·斯隆(Michael Sloan)是古典文学教授，他接到过一个类似的电话，只好对着话筒那头的学生母亲解释，拥有古典文学的学术背景，如何能有助于她的女儿成为一名律师。范博格进一步说，如果教授们知道如何指点学生们去参加简历研讨会的话，学生就不会再要求教授提供此类服务了。“他们会跟非常难伺候的顾客一样呢，”她说。

Still, Susan Rupp, a professor of Russian history at Wake Forest, said she had misgivings¹⁰³ about the push from the O.P.C.D. She said she would not be very likely to invite someone from that office into her classroom to explain the class's professional value. "It reduces an education to the marketplace," she said. Instead, she says, teaching history should be about helping young people to understand "the relationship of the individual to the larger society."

不过，维克森林大学的俄